Mad Catz' FightStick Tournament Comments by Simon Parkin

I've got a fightpad preordered, looking forward to it. Never been into sticks as all my SF experience comes from playing on the SNES/PS1/Saturn. Reaching the heady heights of ultra l33t is beyond me anyway, I'm pretty good at SF relative to my real world friends, complete gash relative to the online hardcore. Plus, the fightpad will be come in very handy for a number of XBLA stuff and, probably, emulation on my pc&mac.

As for the 360 pad, I consider it fairly unique in that it's far and away the best joypad I've ever used in terms of analogue sticks, triggers, button placement etc, while being far and away the worst d-pad I've ever had the misfortune to use. It's all personal preference of course, but how anyone ANYONE! can consider it half way decent is beyond me. I'd go as far to say that, all other things being equal, a 360 pad toting player versus a fightpad user will lose exponentially more often.

I have a Hori Fighting Stick 3 for the PS3 and it's more than good enough for me. It also works on my PC which is great ;)
I got my Hori stick for £30 and I definitely can't see me spending so much for another stick... But I wouldn't mind one of those fightpads tho!

I really like using LB/RB for light attacks. I find i can tap them more frequently while readying up medium heavy attacks on the face buttons.

But god damn the 360's dpad needs a fix.

Typo time... Sanwa Denshi only has one 'i'


Picky, picky, picky. :)

Hmmm, not convinced about these Arcade Sticks, i had the official Dreamcast one for Third Strike back in the day and found it generally horrible to use.

The stick itself had too much movement, which meant doing circular moves took longer than the tight movement of the D Pad, not to mention the fact that the whole thing would keep slipping whilst perched on your lap.

Admittedly, you could play for longer due not getting a sore thumb, but the simple application of a plaster to ones thumb cured that with D pad use..:)

Unless you use them securely anchored down to a solid surface of some description, they are just more hassle than they are worth.

They do make nice collectables though, and i suppose add 'Arcade ambiance' to the experience whilst playing in the home....'

My god, don't say anything about the d-pad or the world will end! SILENCE!

nobody mentioned the X-Arcade yet? http://www.xgaming.com/ I always wanted one of those but never had the spare cash :)

robyrt: That 150 quid is ridiculous. It would probably be cheaper to buy one from America for $150 (which is a MUCH more reasonable price) and ship it overseas!

Straight translation would be £103, but with shipping and customs and excise, it would come out to near £150 anyway. Plus shopto had them up for £120.

Xbox 360 Arcade FightStick: Tournament Edition (GBP 149.99)

A joystick for the price of a next-gen console.

This is madness!

Initially limited but they won't stop making them for a while. As long as there is demand they will try to make money from it.

I'd say the bloody small dpad one would suffice nice.

You can pick the stick up for around £100 if you look around.

Play Asia and other asian sites with international shipping are likely to have the sticks at decent prices too.

I have an X-Arcade, but I don't really like it that much. Physically it's okay, though not as good as you'd expect for the price, but it tends to be a bit laggy in use (I presume this is a problem with their console adapters). Plus their Gamecube adapter mapped the buttons in an essentially unusable way and their support refused to accept it was a problem.

@Valid
"99.9% of the people in the world who play Streetfighter play it with a pad. This stupid, snobbish guilt they're trying to lay on us for not using a stick is pointless. Okay, theres a tiny percentage of (mostly Japanese) tournament guys who play with joysticks. Considering the tiny percentage who do though, I'm gonna guess the best player in the world is some lonely guy who's never entered a tournament, never played any other game, and plays with a SNES control pad.

Chill out dude, no one is forcing a gun to your head. It's not like SF4 only works with the licenecd controllers. You don't like them and see the point? Thats just fine. But some people do, some people want the proper arcade experience and beleive it or not actually prefer to use a stick, each to their own and all that. I don't see anyone here or the reviewer being snobbish about it. As for guilt, what is there to feel guilty about and who/what is trying to make you feel guilty?

@quuantum

@farticus

You've got to be fucking kidding me...

He's on of these people that for some strange reason is so devoted to a peice of plastic and electronics that he cannot accept any fault whats so ever. The 360 pad is great, but with one flaw that the vast majority of people who have used it agree with, the d-pad is shite. Like the not-quite as good sticks on the PS3 and their crap placement, no controller is perfect.

@SomaticSense: The RRP for a standard wireless controller is £33 (admittedly wired is cheaper) - but you don't have to pay £35 for these pads - my Ryu pad Amazon pre-order is £25.99!

Can I like the d-pad on the 360 without being "one of those people" FooAtari?

"Can I like the d-pad on the 360 without being "one of those people" FooAtari?

Nope, it pish :)

Seriously do you not find it's like of accuracy totally annoying?

I've seen faticus' posts in other threads he comes across as a definite fanboy.

to all UK users: the sticks (both editions) are considerably cheaper in continental europe, if you want one, you might think about importing.

UK: GBP 149
Continent: EUR 139

"@XdarXideX the sticks are Limited. Mad Catz' Head Designer is on record saying so."

Here's my prophecy: the next run of TE sticks will not have the SFIV decals, box or inlays, so the SFIV TE stick can remain limited, whereas the "plain" TE stick will be available in larger numbers. They might even lower the price (cue forum mayhem).

As for the pad discussion - I played DOA on a daily basis on the pad for almost a year, and my first pad stopped responding properly after about two months. Then the second followed after a single month of use. They never broke or anything, but they just feel very imprecise and sluggish. And let's face it - they were never good to begin with. I prefer the floating d-pad design over the DualShock design, but the hardware is simply not precise, nor built to last, which is very odd, considering that rest of the pad is fantastic and built like a tank. I love the buttons, the sticks and the triggers - and it is actually perfectly possible to play most fighting games using the left stick instead of the d-pad. But like it or not, fighting games are almost always designed with sticks in mind. I learned the true meaning of this in HD Remix - I used to struggle with the charge characters, but now I'm playing with "poor" old low/mid-tier Dee Jay and discovering all sorts of nuances I never knew were there.

There have been some comments about pads being "faster" than sticks, and I think that's actually true - especially if you compare a loose Jap square-gate stick to a pad, but there is something about the hand-placement on the stick that makes some motions feel far more natural (taken out of context, this sounds SO WRONG!), and allows you to connect moves into combos more fluidly. Admittedly, I find myself randomly struggling with Ruy's Shoryuken motion now, which I never did on a pad, but it's just a matter of training. In general, it feels like I can do things more consistently on my stick, and in the end, that's what matters. So, is this worth wasting £150 on? For me, yes, because I'm a huge, towering, colossal nerd. For the casual fighting game fan? I really don't think so - get the regular stick or the EX2. Or use the pad if it works for you. Or perhaps a Guitar Hero controller - I would certainly like to see that!

FooAtari> Like i've said before, I'm used to it. I never did like the PS dpads because of the seperation into 4 chunks. I firmly believe that most people simply can't get to grips with the 360 dpad due to the placement of it. I'll admit it does feel unnatural but over time you get used to it and really.. it's not innacurate from then on. Precision thumbage!

I was so desparate to get my Amazon pre-order in for a FightPad that I.....

I.....

Settled for the Chun Li one.......

/single tear of shame trickles down cheek

"I never did like the PS dpads because of the seperation into 4 chunks. "

That's it exactly. I'm often told that people like the PS pad because it has four D-pad "buttons" - thing is, it doesn't - it's a solid plate with four knobs on it. So if you press forward+down, you're not guaranteed to get down/forward, although the result is generally more accurate than the Xbox pad. And quarter circles, half circles and full circles are nightmares on that thing. I expect that won't be the case on the Saturn-style MadCatz D-pad. I wish that MS would use the MadCatz pad in the future :)

AliRay - you get to fondle Chun and press her buttons. This is very manly. Just tell your friends that. Obviously, any female friends might kill you if you say that, but it might be worth it :)

"AliRay - you get to fondle Chun and press her buttons. This is very manly. Just tell your friends that. Obviously, any female friends might kill you if you say that, but it might be worth it "

/Hundred-hand-wanks and falls soundly asleep :D

I begrudge spending £30 on a wireless 360 one and absolutely refuse to upgrade my PS3 ones so they vibrate a bit! TBF I've never gotten into fighting games so my opinion is based on what I've seen; but the price of them sticks just seems ridiculous! The demand is clearly there though so good on Mad Catz. It just seems strange that every PS3 thread is filled with people crying 'DROP THE PRICE AND I'LL BUY 6!!!!11' , yet £150 is perfectly reasonable for a controller useful in only a handful of games. Could say the same with rockband etc I guess. Oh well, each to their own!

PS. Xbox D-pad is fucking diabolical!

Let's take a look at a nice looking stick for a change.

I'm no mathmatician but with 3000 being made worldwideand selling out how many do people think the UK will get??

After speaking to Amazon they say they have over a 1000 units preordered.. That says to me that alot of us will be very hacked off, as why would they get a third of the total amount made??

I have ordered a TE stick from Play and they say they only sold what they were tld they were getting, and i have ordered one from Gameshark too and they have said that any pre orders placed are for release. A new pre order will go live once the game is released.. Hope they are right, as that means i have 2 :-)

oh and Microsoft dont allow companies to make Wireless controllers.. Name 1 controller that is wireless for the 360 outside of the official.. its not difficult

Ed

How come Game have them down as the 13th? Thats a week before the official store.. Sounds odd to me?

Good point about the TE Stick though

@XdarXideX

I dont think the PS one is that great either. It too flush and doesnt have enough "movement" I think the placement on the 360 pad is good, the left stick should have the prominant position overthe pad. If the 360 just had a better pad it would be pretty ideal imo.

"I firmly believe that most people simply can't get to grips with the 360 dpad due to the placement of it. I'll admit it does feel unnatural but over time you get used to it and really.. it's not innacurate from then on. Precision thumbage!"

It's not the placement, it's the dpad itself. The Xbox 1 pad (controller S, I mean, not the comedy original version) had a pretty good dpad, and that was in the same place. Maybe some 360 pads are better than others or something but the ones I've tried are just terrible. Diagonals when you don't want them and at least one direction (down, generally) that fails to register unless you press really hard.

It's not original PSP bad, but it's close.

i'll second(3rd, 4th etc) the 360 dpad comments, i sold my modded ex2 and so was having to put up with the 'worst dpad in existance' while playing hd remix with my mate, after a few fights i didnt care whether i won or lost as the outcome was almost always determined at some point in the fight by something out of my control involving the dpad screwing up inputs. absolutely awful, cant wait for my sticks to arrive, i wish gameshark store had info regarding individual orders, i wonder when they will be shipped out.

and at least one direction (down, generally) that fails to register unless you press really hard.

Had that problem too, damn annoying

£150.00?

My TE Fightstick has been shipped from Gamestop US for a total of $149.99 (£101).

*Six and a half paragraphs of bumpf* before the review actually starts, but it was good after that.

edit: Dynamism: no it hasn't, it was $150 + P&P + customs charges. In total, my stick from Gamestop is costing me £146.

Yeah, hopefully you can avoid getting stung, Dynamism.

P.S. - Come back to the old Soccer Boooooaaaarrrrdddd!!

Where the hell do I get a Tournament Stick outside the UK (I live in scandinavia)

@ilmaestro

Yeah, including P&P it comes to $174.98, which is just over £115.00. You got a definitive answer regarding those excessive custom charges?

@giant_frying_pan

Haven't been to IGN for a minute - good to hear the old Soccerboard is still lively. Might make a cameo appearance if Arsenal win the treble... ;)

I'm not sure what a joystick will be classed as for duty, but I think video games are 2.2% so it might be that. You'll pay VAT at 15% of the total including postage and duty. So for something costing £115 that's about £20 in total. However, on top of that, the courier will also add their random, unfair handling fee which can be anything from £10 to £20 and up depending on the weather, phase of the moon and the lottery numbers for the week.

Darkbeat - your only real choice is to wait or hit eBay, I guess. TE sticks are sold out. Everywhere.

I pre-ordered mine from Power Play Direct, that's the PS3 TE stick for £97.99 with a voucher code, I hope I get it for a third off the RRP!

"

Dynamism: I got a phone call from UPS on Friday confirming that it would be £27 and change. I was able to pay over the phone there and then, too.

Abvance,

We're in the same boat, but I think it's more likely we'll be in the second shipment. I think they'll honour the price though, which I'm willing to wait for.

When did you order yours GFP (I ordered 22/01/09)? I know PPD will honour the price, they are known for it, people have got mispriced LBP for 6 quid from them! They have also charged me already so they have to by law supply me the item.

I wish I'd ordered a TE stick now! :(

Is that your personal experience FADCFTMFW? Also is it weird that I know exactly what your name stands for? lol

Is the TE available for pre-order anywhere still then? If not where is the best chance of getting it on release?

I have ordered 2 sticks, originally for myself, but unforseen circumstances (i.e sodding car tax) has kinda put a block on that. Im even considering selling my other stick on ebay since people seem to be making a profit out of them.

Arrived today! paid £27 in customs tax but it looks sweet. Now, lets hope it works....

I read somewhere that the 360 version of the Fightpad is wired, is this true? If so then NO SALE!!!