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X-Arcade 2-Player Controller Review - Page 1 of 4 |
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From 1991 through 1995, I spent a conservatively-estimated $2,000 in quarters on Street Fighter II the arcade game and its perennial sequels. In 1992, I spent $79.95 and literally hundreds of hours with friends on the faithful SFII conversion on Super Nintendo. So you've gathered that I'm a fighting game fan - old school, 6-button style. More importantly in terms of this review, I'm a longtime arcade game fan.
I remember with fondness washing neighborhood cars to scrape up enough quarters to play most of the oldies in the early 80's: Donkey Kong, Joust, Kangaroo, Kung Fu Master, Tron, Karate Champ, etc. I remember the revival of the arcade in the late 80's with favorites Crack Down and Hot Rod by Sega, early Capcom classics such as Final Fight and the original pound-em Street Fighter, and dozens of others. And, thanks to the game I dedicated most of my time to, and as it happens, the no. 1 money-making arcade game of all time - SFII - I most remember the pinnacle of the arcade experience in the early 90's: huge sit-down games, holograms making their first fleeting appearance, and Dance Dance Revolution a long way away.
And today, I'm able to play them all on my computer, as faithful and exact as the real thing.
Two days ago, with clunky keyboard in hand, I was going through my MAME (Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator) game collection eagerly awaiting the delivery of Xgaming's 2-player joystick, the X-Arcade. For the few that don't yet know, MAME allows Mac & PC (& Linux?) users to enjoy thousands of actual arcade games at home on their computer using the exact arcade game roms, provided your computer is sufficiently powerful. Fortunately, most computers these days are. Unfortunately, in order to legally obtain one of these thousands of ROMs in your possession, you must go through obscure 3rd party retailers or have the actual arcade game board. To the accidental ROM tourist, however, a quick Google search I presume "may possibly" come up with something.
Let me assuage a possible misunderstanding before proceeding further; arcade game aficionados are not the only target demographic the X-Arcade is marketed for. If you've got any of the current-gen systems including the PS2/Xbox/GameCube and even Dreamcast, and have a digitally controlled "arcadish" game or more you love to play (especially fighters), the X-Arcade has adapters you can purchase separately for each of these systems.
Installation & Setup
The X-Arcade box I received came with a small bash in the side of it (see picture), which to my knowledge hasn't affected either its performance or high-gloss veneer, though the hard rubber arcade-quality banding around the perimeter did have a small scuff mark (that was almost entirely wiped away later), which may or may not have been from the bash.
Inside the box, there was the sizable and heavy 2-player joystick, one 6-ft. serial cable with female connectors on both ends, a short PS/2 port to serial adapter cord, a 16 page well-documented manual, and a customer support white page with telephone number. Optionally, Xgaming threw in a USB, GameCube and Xbox adapter, each packaged separately (and pictured).
The joystick itself has two sides with 8 buttons and joystick apiece, two white "pinball" buttons (one per side), two white 1-player and 2-player start buttons centered across the top, a "load" button in back used for custom button/keyboard programming, a well-built 4-way switch for using up to 3 personal button configurations along with the default non-programmable config., a serial and PS/2 port in back, and a red LED in the top right corner used mostly for programming purposes.
I first used the X-Arcade on the Xbox and GameCube, and both systems were incredibly easy to set up using the adapters. Just take out your current controllers, plug the adapter connectors into the player 1 and 2 ports on your console, and finally connect one end of the included serial cable to the adapter and the other end to the X-Arcade. Since, presently, the consoles can only use the default non-programmable button configuration on the X-Arcade, you won't have to worry about re-programming the button layout, but I'll discuss the obvious detriment to this simplicity in the performance section.
With the PC, connecting and setting up wasn't quite as simple as it was with the game consoles, but if you're able to hook up a pair of computer speakers, you can certainly tackle the X-Arcade. If you decide on purchasing the optional $30 USB adapter, you would simply swap the PS/2 to Serial cord for the USB adapter, connect the adapter to your USB port (instead of the PS/2 keyboard port), the serial cable to both the adapter and X-Arcade port, and plug your PS/2 keyboard into the pass-through slot on the X-Arcade (with Num-Lock turned on). I would not recommend purchasing the USB adapter if you're planning on using complex games such as fighters which often require circular motions, but I'll explain this caveat further in the performance section. The included PS/2 to serial cord rather than the USB adapter, however, is all you need to get going... and is also presently the recommend method, as I'll explain later.
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| Article Details |
| Reviewed X-Arcade 2-Player Controller
Reviewer Tyson McCann
Published 06.06.04
Pros Arcade quality parts, programmable (for PC), works with MAME, works with consoles, plenty of buttons, pinball buttons included, delivers arcade experience
Cons Cannot be re-mapped with consoles, USB adapter has control issues |
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