February 25, 2009
Arcade Stickler
WOAH, my arcade stick came in.
I’d heard about issues with the FightStick right when mine shipped out. People were complaining about all kinds of crazy things, but mostly the stick getting stuck in positions. This was… potentially bad! But luckily, it came in, and there was no such issues.
Man, it’s so cool. The art on it is ass-kickingly awesome, and it feels so heavy and… important. The buttons click easy, the stick moves alright. To me, it’s mind-blowingly awesome. I’ve always kind of wanted an arcade stick, but never really had good reason to buy one. I still didn’t, but I got one anyway, and I’m happy to have it.
The one thing I wasn’t expecting, though, was the learning curve. I don’t know why I wasn’t. It’s been literally years since I touched an arcade cabinet of any kind. But everyone was talking about how the standard 360 controller was so horrible, and though I was getting good with it, it was pretty horrible. So I assumed when I got the stick, my game would instantly improve, at least input-wise (I’d probably still suck strategically). When it got in my paws, though, I was back to square one. It was like I didn’t know how to do Hadoukens anymore. A bit training fixed that, mostly, but I still can’t pull off, say, Sakura’s Ultra Combo with ease, and that’s unfortunate. I hear that my problems come from the fact that this stick uses a “square gate.” Apparently octagonal gates are better? I would probably agree on principal, but there’s nothing wrong with this. It’ll just take some getting used to. And I know I’ll work on it hard tomorrow.
I also got a FightPad, but I haven’t had a chance to give that a solid test. So I’ll talk about that some other time, I’m sure. Until then, well, here’s a guide on how to play Ken online.
