Forum Overview :: M.A.M.E. :: UPDATE: It's a wash.

[quote name="bink"]Don't get me wrong, it's an excellent joystick, but it's just not for me. For one thing, the problem Jonesy anticipated is exactly the case. On a desk or table, playing Robotron, the thing slides all over the place. If you try to use it in your lap, not only do you have a giant 15-pound wooden box on your crotch, but your whole body moves as you jerk the sticks back and forth. The X-Arcade (or its components) would be great for a MAME cabinet but it's not so great for use from a chair. In addition, one of the reasons I got this thing was for Pac-Man. The problem is the stick is 8-way... and it's TOO accurate. Pac-Man detects diagonal motion as a motion in one particular direction, so at times unless I'm perfectly precise with the switch from a horizontal to a vertical movement, that "yellow chomp" will go careening off in the wrong direction. XGaming anticipated this and included an option for 4-way controls, but the problem is the stick is basically analog and pushes up against digital "clickers", so you have to open the case and manually flip over a small tube so that the stick can no longer press on two directions at once. Thus, diagonal movement no longer registers. This makes it impossible to play Robotron. Seamlessly switching back and forth from Pac-Man to Robotron is an impossibility. It's not just Pac-Man either -- any game that requires precise 4-way motion would be affected. For example, I tried it out with Zelda 1 and had the same problem. Finally, it's been a LONG time since I actually played with an arcade stick. One might say I'm out of practice -- embarrassingly so. I find it much easier to play Robotron with small flicks of my thumbs on an analog stick then pulling on a digital joystick. I got this thing because I thought the increased accuracy would improve my abysmal old school gaming skills but the opposite is the case. It would probably be fantastic if I could bolt it to a table and play Street Fighter all day, but that's not what I want to do with it. Good thing there's a 30 day money back guarantee. Addendum: The original XBOX controller is an excellent choice for anything emulated. Both the analog sticks and the D-pad are more accurate than any pad I've used that was designed for the PC -- including the XBOX 360 controller. I think it's because the XBOX 1 D-pad doesn't register diagonal movement very well - making 4-way movement much less likely to glitch on you. Pac-Man is perfect with it. And for things that require diagonal motion or quarter circle movements, you can use the stick. The only problem is getting used to it. In case anyone didn't know, the original XBOX controller is USB -- just with a different plug. You can splice it with a normal USB cable no problem. Ugly solution, but it's the one I'll stick with.[/quote]