For many gamers, the festive period is a time of mixed emotions. On the one hand, it would take a cold soul not to be excited by the pre-Christmas release glut of double-and-triple-A titles (even if this year’s playing field has been decimated somewhat by MW2).

But the other side of the coin is that the wave of goodness just over the horizon threatens to wash over anything you’re currently playing. In the case of slow-burners or time-fillers the danger is that faced with this onslaught they’ll simply slide away to the back of your library, never to be played again.

Recently, I’ve started to dedicate the last three months of the year as my catch-up time. Every October, I take out all the games I’ve bought throughout the year that, for whatever reason, I’ve failed to complete. I then give myself the rest of the year to finish them, knowing that post-Christmas they don’t stand a chance.

This year’s class consists of Far Cry 2, Ghost Recon 2, Little King’s Story, Tomb Raider: Underworld, and Black. Good games all, but either through frustrating design choices or my ineptitude ones that remain unfinished.

Now, I’m on fine ground with LKS and TR:U. Both do a pretty good job of being pick-up-and-play, and even after hiatuses of three or four months I’ve managed to get back into both games almost instantly thanks to muscle memory and sensible control schemes. Where I’ve really struggled, though, is in playing three first-person shooters simultaneously.

It’s not the games themselves, mind. I’m no FPS evangelist but I do enjoy them, and the genre’s better examples are amongst my favourite titles. Up till now, I’ve even preferred playing them on consoles, reasoning that a bigger screen and guaranteed stability make up for a controller’s lack of response compared with mouse and keyboard. Now, I’m starting to question this assumption thanks to one over-riding concern...

Why can’t developers all use the same control scheme?

In particular, why can’t there be an agreed system that would work on all games of a certain genre, while still offering room for customisation or game-specific controls? Far Cry 2 is a very different game to Ghost Recon 2, which is very different to Black. But all three rely on a lot of the same commands for their interfaces, and it’s here that I want – nay, demand – more sympathy from developers.

For an example, take reloading. A staple command in FPSs, and a vital one. Far Cry 2 maps reloading to the 360 controller’s X button, while GRAW 2 and Black both use the A button. A tiny change, but one that has led to more than one untimely death on my part, as pressing A during a Far Cry firefight triggers a position-revealing jump. Not handy, especially with an empty weapon equipped.

Swapping between guns can be similarly fraught: depending on the game, your inventory can be accessed by the d-pad, holding down a face button, or using the bumpers. Crouching might be triggered with a press of the B button, clicking one of the analogue sticks, or simply running into cover.

Quite simply, none of this makes sense. The 360’s controller offers twelve buttons - if you count the analogue stick clicks - plus a d-pad that allows for at least another four inputs (don’t get me started on the diagonals...). I don’t care how revolutionary you think your game is, or what kind of extra commands you’re going to ask players to get to grips with, if you can’t get the basics of moving, aiming and shooting right while still leaving enough room for game-specific controls then you’re doing something wrong.

Surely if everyone can agree that LT is aim and RT is fire, some kind of consensus can be reached regarding a basic starting point for shooters on top of which developers can add their extras. So let’s see every shooter using X for reloading from here on in. A, as everyone knows, is for jumping and opening doors. RB will henceforth be referred to as “the grenade button”; and the d-pad will be the only method of weapon selection. Personally, B feels right as the crouch button and the back button is where I like to find maps and mission data.

That leaves the analogue clicks, Y button and LB as game-specific controls; developers, if you want to put a monocular in your game, or smoke grenades, or the ability to sprint, or some kind of weird magic attack, that’s where it goes, right?

I know that there are issues here. GRAW’s squad controls aren’t really going to fit easily into the four unassigned buttons, for example. And getting developers to sing the same tune would (a) be impossible and (b) lead to accusations of homogeneity. But control is one of the vital elements of our favourite medium, and some kind of accepted standards would go a long way to making gamers’ lives easier.