Arcade Fighting Stick review

[Dave3d]

I recently got an Arcade Fight Stick, and here is my review.

The box came inside a box, with some paper crumpled up on top and the bare (box) on the bottom of the outter box.
The base is metal, so this presented no problems.

The Product box:


And the Fight Stick inside:

[Dave3d]

The Driver CD:


There is also a little manual (4 pages: Installation, Macro setup, Button re-mapping), but it doesnt really do much of anything for me, except 1 thing:
It tells you were to go to set up the fight stick.

That location is:
Start > Settings > Control Panel > Game Controllers

Since this fight stick does not support XP x64, I get very little settings.
I get the stick setup, and buttons that flash when I press the physical buttons.
There is supposed to be a Stick POV, Auto Fire, Button remapping, and Macro setup.

The stick supports the following:
PS2
PS3
Win 98
Win ME
Win 2k
Win XP
Win Vista
Win 7

There is a totally seperate fight stick for the xbox only. This one does not support xbox.



So, I installed the drivers, and then plugged in the usb fight stick, and played for a little bit.
I was getting some lag from the stick itself, but not the buttons.
I wondered if there were any updated drivers, so I headed over to mayflash (the maker of the fight stick), and found there were Vista and Win7 drivers available.
Since I have Win7 dual boot, I got them.
I then decided to try installing the vista/win7 drivers, since they were 3 years newer than the XP drivers.
Well, I lost ALL of my settings that were configurable (big woop, nothing was configurable for me).
But, I also lost the stick lag.

[Dave3d]

While playing, I noticed a few things:

1. The stick makes a VERY audible clicking sound. But that doesnt bother me, as I have a SteelSeries mechanical keyboard, and the clicks sound similar. It kind of reminds me of the old arcade days, when we would go crazy and you could hear the stick crash into the arcade top (but, more often, and a bit louder), and the tapping of the buttons.

2. The cord. Grrrrrrrr. 3 1/2 to 4 feet long, it is just not long enough. I cant route the cord behind the desk to the tower, and still have enough room to pull it in front of me so it is directly in front of the monitor.

3. Cord again. The cord end (PS2/3 end) is SO heavy, it dragged my usb port down (using a 5 1/4 bay usb port, not a rear mobo port). With the weight of the usb, ps2/3, and the cable coupler, this thing is heavy. Its good when velcro-ed to my table leg however.


4. Very hefty. With the metal plate on the bottom, and the plastic (heavy duty) housing, this thing weighs a bit.
It has pretty big rubber feet (1/8 to 3/16" thick, 1/2 inch wide, with checker pattern) on it, so it doesnt slide, But, on an uneven surface, it does rock a little bit (but doesnt move).
I tried playing with it on my lap, and just couldnt do it. It was not wide enough to span on to both my thighs, and one side kept falling in-between my legs.

5. My button mapping was wrong (I knew it might be, since I didnt have a supported OS).
Here are the mappings:

Physical button ---- Software button
1 ---------------------------- 5
2 ---------------------------- 3
3 ---------------------------- 2
4 ---------------------------- 6
5 ---------------------------- 7
6 ---------------------------- 4
7 ---------------------------- 1
8 ---------------------------- 8
9 --------------------------- 10
10 -------------------------- 9

So, when playing, I have to use (physical) button 7 and 3 (software 1 and 2).
It isnt tooo bad though.
Makes it a little bit farther from the stick, which is actually better.


Here is a pic of the cord I was talking about:

[Dave3d]

So, how do games play?

Lets find out.

I dont have many new games that would require a stick to play on, but I do have the Atrari: 80 classics pack from Steam.
http://store.steampowered.com/app/2790/

3 games from Shinobi.
http://www.shinobis-place.de/Page_neu/index.html

Expendable.
http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/expendable

And Comander Keen pack from Steam.
http://store.steampowered.com/app/9180/


Well, here are the results:

Invaders possibly from Space (does not detect the arcade stick or buttons)
kungFuMaster (works perfect)
Moon Patrol (works perfect)

Expendable (completely unplayable, but, so is using a mouse and keyboard)

All Atari 80's classics work fine, with the old dos/Atari 2600 type games. There are way too many to list, so I am using this to cover original 2600 games.

The newer remakes of the classic Atari 80's games, were hit and miss (they were made for mouse play though):
Asteroids and Asteroids Deluxe: worked great
Battlezone: worked great
Black Widow: worked great
Centipede: worked better with the mouse
Crystal Castles: worked good (way better than the mouse)
Gravitar: worked good
Liberator: worked better with the mouse
Lunar Lander: worked better with the mouse
Major Havok: worked better with the mouse on SOME things, but not others
Millipede: worked better with the mouse
Missile Command: Dont even try with this game stick
Red Baron: worked good
Pong: Dont even try with this game stick
Space Duel: (couldnt get the game to start, even with keyboard)
Super Breakout: Dont even try with this game stick
Tempest: worked as well as the mouse, but it really needs the original spinner to play well
Warlords: Dont even try with this game stick

Comander Keen: works well (but have to configure for joystick)

New games:
Does NOT work with Braid.
That is really the only game I have that is new that might use a stick.

I want to try Street Fighter IV, but there is no demo, and I dont want to spend money on it unless it works well.
i dont think a mouse and keyboard would work well for Street Fighter. :P

Over-all, a decent stick for $32.
I would prefer a smooth stick to this one though (like the original arcade ones that dont click).

I got mine from Amazon (a gift certificate), but the seller was:
http://sewelldirect.com/USB-Arcade-S...ad_reviews.asp

[Dave3d]

I am going to try it with my Win7 at some point, just to see if I can actually get all of the button mappings to work correctly
And the turbo button.

[Dave3d]

Well, tried with Win7, and dont even get a game controller option.


So, even less configurability than on XP x64.
Sigh.

[Dave3d]

Poop.
It doesnt work with Earthworm Jim.

It works on everything except Up and Down and Jump (all of the side-side and diagonals work, as well as Whip and Shoot).