Hardware Review: Madcatz Street Fighter IV Fightpad
If you are like me, then you love the Xbox 360, but hate the horrible D-pad on the controller. Sure, there are ways to crack open that bad boy and mod it to work better, but since this is me we’re talking about, I know the disaster that would likely follow.
Enter the Madcatz Street Fighter IV Fightpad.
When Street Fighter IV first came out, these little guys were nearly impossible to find either in stores or online. Unless of course, you were willing to pay three times the $39.99 retail price on eBay.
Now that they have been out for a little while, I was able to pick up two of them. Pictured above is the Akuma pad I found online and last night I grabbed the Chun-Li themed one.
Since I have been gaming for years, the Madcatz name still makes me nervous. They used to be synonymous with shoddy, cheep rip-off controllers. I am happy to report that lately, their stuff has been solid from the Rock Band 2 gear to these fightpads.
The D-pad is fantastic. It is very accurate and feels a lot like the old Genesis controller. In fact, the whole pad feels heavily inspired by Sega’s old Genesis 6-button controller and Saturn era controllers. The ergonomics feel pretty good. In extended sessions, my hands did start to get a little sore, unlike the standard 360 controller which is probably the most comfortable controller I’ve ever used.
If you play either fighting games or old school games, I would recommend tracking down one of these fightpads. It will give you the best experience for d-pad related gaming on the 360.
Update: I picked up Street Fighter IV last night and played with the controller, and they work like a charm. Good for fighting games confirmed.
Tags: Akuma, Chun Li, Controllers, d-pad, Fightpad, Genesis, hardware, Madcatz, Sega Saturn, Street Fighter IV, Xbox 360
This entry was posted on Friday, June 26th, 2009 at 9:27 am and is filed under Hardware, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
June 26th, 2009 at 10:28 am
J.J. says:I got one of them on the PS3, Blanka themed. It’s good for SFIV, except I have one of the Fightsticks. I actually use it for the Sega Genesis collection. It’s PERFECT for that thing.
June 26th, 2009 at 10:43 am
Jonah "spambot" Gregory says:I totally agree. It’s perfect for that collection.
June 26th, 2009 at 3:20 pm
Jesse "Main Finger" Gregory says:maybe you’ll be able to pass a level on Mega Man 9 now… or were you playing that on ps3? I don’t remember =P
June 26th, 2009 at 3:25 pm
Jonah "spambot" Gregory says:First, that was on PS3, and second, Galaxy Man totally went down.
January 14th, 2010 at 9:31 pm
TheGZeus says:Are the buttons analogue, like a normal 360 controller?
That’s key for my use case(as a pc gampad).