On Ejection Ports and Gun Inaccuracies
As some of you may know, I am a huge gun enthusiast. I enjoy watching the mechanics of firearms and seeing how they work. I try to learn every little nuance I can about them, in an effort to understand how the majority of them work better.
It might come as no surprise that I am also a First Person Shooter enthusiast as well. However, I am also notorious for picking apart how accurately the weapons are portrayed in such games, since they are generally the stars of the show.
Now, for some it may be common knowledge that the ejection ports on most guns are on the right hand side of the weapon, this is due to most weapons being manufactured for someone who is right handed. So can someone please explain to me WHY they still incorrectly mirror weaponry? Even in TODAY’S day and age?
Frankly, I blame Counter-Strike. The weapon models were made left handed because Gooseman is left handed, but people bitched that there wasn’t any right handed models. So what did Gooseman do? He simply mirrored the entire weapon. For instance, the M4A1’s ejection port, forward assist, and dust cover are all on the left hand side of the weapon, while the magazine release is on BOTH sides of the weapon, not just one, but both. I’m not even going to touch on the fact that during the reload animation for the M4A1 has the character pull back on the forward assist, in a cocking motion.
Many current shooters STILL do this today, for reasons unknown to me. Alex tells me that it makes the weapons seem more ‘action-y’ because spent brass is being ejected into your face. I don’t know about you, but if I was handed a weapon that ejected HOT SPENT BRASS INTO MY FACE, I would promptly sucker punch them in the diaphragm.
Shooters such as BLACK and more recently Battlefield: Bad Company suffer from this, to name a few. Most of the time, it’s with the AK-47. The bolt and safety are on the left hand side of the weapon, which looks ridiculously tacky in my opinion. Why is it so hard to model the weapons correctly? Why is it so hard to animate them correctly? Do they do this out of ignorance? Out of spite for me personally? Who knows.
Some of you may say this is nit-picking, and that I should ‘enjoy the game for what it is’. That’s all well and good, and I’ll still gladly play the game, if it’s good. But when you’re as enthusiastic about firearms as I am, these types of things can really get on your nerves.
