Control Freak

“Been playing HL2 as I fancy going through it again. I’m enjoying it, but still find it weird on the XBOX controller. Things which are piss easy on the mouse can be a real bugger on the controller” – Navan Daughn

Valve need to get their heads screwed on for console conversions

When does a controller become part of the game? Pretty much always! However the degree to which it affects the game experience really varies wildly from case to case. I think Navan now understands some of my complaints with regards to The Orange Box much better, having tried it on a twin stick pad. And having played through Half Life 1 myself on a mouse, I already wish I’d got The Orange Box on the PC rather than for the 360. I’m having the same problem with Left 4 Dead as well. Apart from the small concession of a quick-turn button the game is completely designed for mouse & keyboard control rather than for twin stick on a gamepad, and I felt the game really suffered. Now with the Left 4 Dead 2 demo out, I’ve been able to directly compare it on the 360 vs the PC; and there was no contest at all, the game handled far more easily on a mouse, and due to the design of the game this made it actually much more fun to play in many ways. It leaves me frustrated with both versions because many more of my friends are on 360, and I’d much rather play over XBox Live, in the comfort of my front room, with my preferred twin sticks; yet the game feels so much nicer to control on the PC with a mouse and keyboard. So basically I won’t be 100% satisfied with either version. I realised what I really want is a proper “Left 4 Dead 360″ version that changes the game control mechanics enough so that control on a twin stick pad becomes viable & fun and doesn’t feel like you’re stuggling to replicate a mouse. Halo, Gears and many other titles all do this fine, so it can be done.

Some people may say it’s a simple case of “always play a game on it’s default intended controller”, which held more weight with arcade conversions, but it’s still not exactly clear cut. Should Street Fighter 2 HD Remix be played on an 360 or PS3 pad since those are the systems it was released for? Ok, it’s clearly a update of an original joystick game though – so fine, use a joystick. But what about the differences between different joysticks? Isn’t it a bit of an unfair advantage in the game to be using a high quality controller vs someone that isn’t? For Street Fighter IV, shouldn’t I always be using button bindings and turbo auto fire? These things are built into the game options and the official controller! On the PC it gets even more murky, with WoW Macro keyboards, gaming mice with extra button bindings and on and on. Where do you draw the line between cheating and ‘playing to win’ when it comes to your choice of controller? Should you even be allowed to reconfigure your button layout on Halo on the 360? That sounds ridiculous I know, but it shows how difficult it is to draw the line without some kind of organisation of the metagame rules around the video game itself. For Street Fighter, I play to the standard I’ll be held to at whatever offline tournament I want to enter, but if I wasn’t competing in organised offline events, what then?

Auto-fire is probably the biggest controller issue on competitive 360 games, and it affects everything from Street Fighter to FPS titles. There are some quite simple solutions to either designing the game so it won’t be an issue, or detecting it as cheating online. But sadly games developers don’t appear to care, putting in pistols that ‘fire as fast as you can press the button’ which is foolishly naive in an online competitive game, and making the aforementioned official controllers with auto-fire built in. It’s there so you can test combos out in training mode? Yeh right. And the line just gets blurrier all the time – it is already possible to use a keyboard and mouse on a 360 if you are willing to go to enough trouble with things like this XPFS 4.0 Speed.

Another game I love, Virtual On was recently re-released in an upgraded version on the 360 on XBLA, and I was initally overjoyed. But it requires such a specialised controller to play properly I’ve completely avoided it until one comes available. My friend Ollie Barder covered the history of Virtua Ron (as I affectionately refer to it sometimes) and it’s controller issues on the 360 here. However, luckily, fan pressure has meant that a twin-stick controller for the 360 was eventually announced. It’s still not out at the time of writing, but is imminent, and can be previewed at Hori’s site. Of course the problem is whether I’ll ever be able to get hold of one in the UK, and at what price, and then will the game’s netcode make it worthwhile to even play, let alone shell out for another controller.

I don’t really have any answers here, with the current state of play, other than to raise this point as yet another murky area of gaming that developers of competitive games, and conversions of games, really ought to pay much more attention to. However especially on platforms like the PC, it might be a case that there’s very little they can do to control the issue however. All this, and I haven’t even touched on WiiMotes or Natal yet!

Sticks of Joy

A lot of people ask me “Remy77077, you play fighting games a lot, what joystick should I get?”.

Well okay, only a couple of people have asked me that.

You'll need a joystick to pull off moves like this

But since I’ve written about joysticks in the past too, I felt that this was a worthy topic for an update to the current situation. As that old article atests, I believe if you want to play fighting games properly, you do need to invest in a joystick.

The situation with multi-format sticks is still sadly pretty murky, and pretty much the same as documented before. I’ve not researched that further though, as I’ve given up on that ‘dream’ myself, and have gone with standard format sticks. Most pre-manufactured joysticks these days are USB connections, and so will work on your console of choice – the gamer’s XBox 360 or the one-handed blu-ray fondler’s PS3 system – as well as on your PC. And the PC functionality is really not to be scoffed at. As I’ve discovered recently purchased a new PC that can actually run GGPO, whilst the PC fighting game scene is not nearly as well subscribed as it is for consoles, there is actually a huge amount of choice and options out there to play. If you’re a fighting game player with a decent PC I seriously recommend giving GGPO a try if you haven’t already. Then of course there’s games like Street Fighter IV, and other Japanese titles. Although a lot of Japanese titles will need Japanese OS support to run unfortunately. Trawling shoryuken forums would be the first place to look if you want to know more about this. The PC compatibility and USB-ness also gives you huge potential for future-proofing your stick use as well, although of course it cannot be guaranteed, as who knows what new consoles or new PC solutions will come along.

So if you’re willing to spend the cash on a really good joystick with manufactured-for-the-arcade parts, the ones I’d go for are either the Madcatz Tournament Edition stick (the ‘TE stick”) or the Hori Real Arcade Pro (the “HRAP”). I’ve played on the 360 versions of both and I rate them both the same really. The TE stick is slightly bigger, but the HRAP is actually a lot heavier due to it’s metal base. I honestly couldn’t choose between them, and while I currently own a TE stick, I’ll quite likely invest in an HRAP as my next potential stick. It really just comes down to looks & a personal feel (ooo-er). The TE stick does have some snazzy extra features like turbo commands etc, but those are only for online cheaters anyway, and so should not interest you at all. One advantage of the TE stick being far more widespread is that it’s almost the de-facto tournament standard in the UK. So, like I did, you can potentially go to a tournament run on a console you don’t own a joystick for, borrow a sticks off a different kind person each round, and still get a stick you are familiar with to play on the whole time.

I had better state though, whilst I can vouch for the PS3 version of the TE stick as much as the 360 one, I can’t do the same for the PS3 version of the HRAP, as it is actually a slightly different model. The 360 version is called the Hori Real Arcade Pro EX, whereas the PS3 is known as the Hori Real Arcade Pro 3. Their design is actually visually quite different, although they may well be the same parts.

If you’re buying these sticks from the UK, here’s some current links for them on amazon:

Sexy HRAP EX for 360.

Pug-ugly HRAP3 for PS3.

TE stick for 360.

TE Stick for PS3.

Remember, all of these will work fine on a decent PC too.

If you want to go for a cheaper stick then it’s a whole different ball game though. These will always be smaller and much lighter than the pricier sticks discussed above. For many players, that’s a deal-breaker immediately. Also bear in mind cheaper sticks will use replica parts rather than true ‘arcade parts’. This doesn’t mean they are that much worse – such sticks can be perfectly functional (David Sirlin himself defended the Hori EX2 and indeed used it to get the #1 ranking on SF2HDR for a time), it’s just that they won’t feel as good, the stick and buttons will feel slightly less responsive if you are really used to playing with the best kind of parts, and also, they are far more likely to break due to wear & usage.

I would personally recommend the Hori EX2 for the XBox 360. I just sold my old Hori EX2 to agoners’ own Navan Daughn actually, as that was exactly what he wanted to get himself started. The PS3 version of this stick is again slightly different; the Hori Arcade Fighting Stick (HAFS??) which in limited use I’m afraid I didn’t like at all; it may have simply been an overworn old stick, but in my limited use it seemed a lot worse than the EX2 for the 360, hence my concern with HRAP for PS3 too (but it could potentially be better for all I know!). Similarly I have had bad experiences with the Madcatz Standard Edition (the “SE stick”), so I cannot personally recommend it even as a budget stick.

If you’re actually into modding a stick, then I’m afraid I cannot offer much advice other than to explain a few of the basics. The main difference between different arcade parts is Japanese style arcade parts, or American style arcade parts. Both are just as good it really just depends on your preference, which is why if you have limited real-life arcade experience I wouldn’t start modding your stick immediately without trying some out.

For buttons, Japanese style means convex (bumping out, the centre of button is the highest point), and USA style is concave (dimpled inwards, so their edges are highest). USA buttons are also traditionally laid out in a straight line, whereas the Japanese button layout is slightly curved with the lengths of your fingers.

For the stick itself Japanese means a ball-top, whereas American means a bat-top. You can also get specific 8-way gates and 4-way gates. True 4-way gates are sticks that will only go into the up/down/left/right positions and so are actually generally specialised ones for retro games like Pac Man or certain shumps, not really for fighting games, assuming you actually want to be able to jump forward or crouch block. But you can also get specifically shaped gates underneath the stick too. Japanese style gates are generally square, meaning the ‘four corners’ can easily be felt if you slide the stick around. eg. you can feel down/back and down/forward, whereas the straight back and straight forward are slightly harder to find. An octagonal gate means that there is slightly stronger impression for all 8 directions, but it may feel relatively harder to find the corners. Some USA parts also offer ‘optical 360′ sticks which have a true round gate and use optical readings of the stick position to determine which angle it is closest too rather than microswitches.

There are different manufacturers of both Japanese and American parts for both the sticks and the buttons. I am not knowledgeable enough to discuss their various merits or difference, but I can tell you the most popular ones I have seen referenced are Sanwa and Seimitsu for Japanese style parts, and HAPP for USA style parts.

You’ll notice that all of the pre-manufactured joysticks mentioned above are all Japanese style in terms of stick, buttons and layout (and also gate shape on all I’ve tried). For this reason, the main reason to mod these days, is if you have a preference for a specific manufacturers parts, or want even a partially USA style stick at all.

Padding the Joystick

In the beginning, there was the SNES pad & Street Fighter 2: The World Warrior. And things were… good. But not ideal. Only 4 face buttons was always a small issue. I developed a very odd “reach over” style to get do light-punch Sonic Booms as I had LP & LK mapped to the shoulder buttons. I still see some bad remnants of this non-ideal button layout in my gameplay even today. However, back then, the SNES pad had such a lovely d-pad, these small button issues were never a real problem.

I moved onto Street Fighter 2 Turbo (or ‘ Dash if you prefer): Hyper Fighting, and onto Super Street Fighter: The New Challengers, and still, no problems. I didn’t get to play in an arcade enough anyway, so the fact my joystick skills were incredibly poor at this point was no real problem.

But things moved on. I’ll gloss over the 3DO for now… and then came the Sega Saturn and the Sony Playstation. One came equipped with the worst joypad to ever disgrace the world of console gaming, and one was available in gleaming white with probably the ultimate joypad ever made. You can imagine which console I preferred. Sega Saturn-Shiro!

But despite this situation, I was now older and starting to get the chance to attempt to play in arcades, and also Capcom games were moving on to require a lot more multiple button presses and strings. Whilst you could usually map a Px3 and Kx3 onto the shoulder buttons, you started to find the need to hit any combination of Lights, Mediums or Heavy’s together too, or even 2 Kicks and a Punch at times… This was starting to prove difficult no matter the joypad, even one as good as the Sega Saturn’s. I was starting to waiver from a “pad player” into the world of joysticks already… A trip to arcades in Japan, Vampire Savior, and then the Dreamcast’s horrible gamepads sealed the deal. Pads could no longer compete in this fighting game world, I needed to get joysticks.

I’m now a full convert. Whilst I’ve still never to this day got as good at motion rolls and direction taps on a stick as I was once on a pad, my overall level of play is definitely much better today on a joystick than I ever was on a pad. However I’ve gotten more and more into the type and quality of sticks. I still can’t quite discuss the merits of Sanwa vs HAPP vs Seimitsu parts, but I’m only a few steps away from that. Experimenting & learning what I like has been an expensive business. I don’t have the tech savvy to do my own modifications unfortunately, but I’ve got all sorts of old joysticks lying around my house that didn’t do well enough for me.

Right now I pretty much know exactly what I’d like to go for joystick-wise, although I have a bit of a doubt about 4-way / 8-way gates as I’ve not truely had a chance to try out both. But all I’ve got for my fighting game fix at the moment on the XBox 360 is the Hori EX2. As most reviews state, it’s decent, but far from perfect. I also still have and use a very nice MAS Systems custom stick, which runs on all my consoles, but with the unfortunate exception of XBox 360, which is the one that really matters. I also slightly regret going for the optical ‘perfect 360′ stick. Whilst I can roll hadokens and Final-Atomic-Bastard’s far far better on this stick than any other, I find I really struggle with tap motions and the ‘bat style’ stick as it feels way too heavy for me. After lots of play, I realised that I have a huge preference for Japanese ‘ball’ style sticks.

Where most reviews of the Hori EX2 go ary is when they say “this is all we have on the 360″. This is completely wrong. There is a LOT more available, as I’ll link to in this post.

I want to get a new stick really badly for a few months now, but I’ve still not decided what to go for.

I’ve attempted to contact MAS Systems to see if they plan to do anything for the XBox 360, but I’ve heard nothing back, so I’ve pretty much given up on them as there doesn’t appear to have been any updates on their website for years now – I am not even sure if they are still in business. Although some threads and pictures suggest they must be.

Probably the easiest one to discover though that is XBox 360 compatible is Arcade-In-A-Box. Now this looks pretty great and has a full set of options. They also actually responded to my email enquiries. And not only responded but were extremely helpful. However, the main problem with them is although I do not mind spending an insane large amount of money on a joystick, ideally, mainly due to space concerns, I would like to buy a single stick that I can use on all my fighting games, not just on the XBox 360.

In my searches I also came across arcadesticks.co.uk however they still don’t actually seem to offer anything yet.

Hori themselves will be offering a new stick, the EX Pro, but I really do not like the look of this due to the 8-button layout (rather than 6) and the close proximity of the stick to the buttons.

Thanks to help from the great people at Arcade-In-A-Box though, I discovered GoPodular who seem to be offering everything I am after really. However, like MAS they have failed to respond to any of my enquiries about international postage etc. Which makes me extremely nervous about ordering something so expensive from a place that can’t even respond to an email.

But as all this was research was going on, Capcom went and threw a huge Street Fighter IV shaped spanner in the works for me:

“We’re working on stuff I can’t talk about yet on this front. Very cool stuff.”

“As I have said, at some point in the future, we will have news on a couple items we hope will make play “better” for all platforms.”

And then they went on to say more:

“We have something freakishly awesome in store along these lines, but they’re tied more to SF4 than to HD Remix. I have to keep things mum for a bit longer though. Stay tuned (and if you’re in the market for a fighting stick, don’t even think about buying anything until you hear what we’re doing).”

“Muhahaha.” – s-kill (who I have a lot of faith in!)

And it wasn’t just on Capcom Unity. You needed to dig a bit, but this news hit other sites too:

“Arcade purists will be happy to learn that Capcom plans to ship an “arcade perfect” controller in time with the console and PC versions. Ono revealed that they’re already in talks with a peripheral maker in the U.S. to release an arcade accurate stick with a steel base plate, steel shaft and arcade style buttons, possibly bundled with a copy of the game.”

So this leaves me here in my current state of Capcom and GoPodular induced paralysis. It’s really not fun as I really want a better stick for my 360 and while I can wait a while, once HD Remix hits this situation could very well drive me insane. And even now I’m much rather be practising on my preferential joystick. Of course Capcom’s official SF4 stick is highly unlikely (but not impossible) to be multi-format… so in theory I could just go for GoPodular right now. Yet my nervousness about their unresponsiveness puts me off, and also a large part of me just wants to know for sure what Capcom are doing. And I’m not the only one clamouring for this information. I’d also like to at least get to try out the difference between the different gate types before buying something really expensive.

The way forward from here is not clear. For now I’ve been trying to be patient with the Hori EX2 and have been experimenting with lap vs tabletop play.

If anyone reading this has any comments, or further info or links for joysticks though, please do chime in with your thoughts

EDIT 20/08/08:
And as if by magic some news comes out only a few hours after posting this. It’s going to be Mad Catz… which sounds awful. However they are still saying a lot of the right things so.. hmm. But still no solid info that really changes my awkward position.