After a week of hardcore single player retro gaming, Jamie & Mark hooked up to take on some old school classics with both co-op play & multi player in mind.
First up we picked a Sega Saturn game; Daytona CCE - not the best of games by any stretch of the imagination - I'd actually go as far as saying a terrible game.
So, console hooked up to TV & computer, sound equipment checked, signal feed to computer checked, controllers... erm.. hang on.. I swear I have a second Saturn controller somewhere.
After digging out the Sega Saturn console box I located my secondary unused pad - a 3rd party jobbie by 'Access Line'.
Okay.. controllers all in place and ready to rock.
We settled into our gaming chairs in front of the huge CRT screen (Something no retro gaming enthusiast would be without) and off we went, racing into some dreadful driving competitive action - or so we hoped, for upon the menu screen we noticed the lack of functionality from player 2, the third party abandoned child of a controller.
This 3rd party pad was taken up reluctantly by Mark as we were at my house, playing my game, on my Saturn (We all know the rules - guest gets player 2 at all times, no questions asked) and it was his duty to get it working.
A,B,C,X,Y,Z,L&R buttons furiously hit and still no on screen action - D-pad hammering also futile, Mark turned this controller on its face, whereby we noticed an incredible array of switches and buttons all marked with 'Turbo on/off' along with a 'slow mo' switch. After three long, angry minutes of switch flicking and button tapping by myself and Mark we decided to call the whole thing off and stick to multiplayer gaming on a console where I had more than one official controller - the N64 (I have about 8 controllers - why, I do not know!).
Whilst recording our N64 Goldeneye footage our rage started to vent and we realised that having owned numerous 3rd party controllers over the years, each had the mystical turbo button and neither of us had ever got the feature to work.
I couldn't actually work out a time that a turbo button would be needed, Mark suggested on Track & Field and the like where button tapping is key, but surely that spoils the fun?
To be fair I am someone who would never buy an Action Replay or Game Genie - I just don't see the point in cheating in a game. Maybe it is this fact which makes me hate turbo buttons?
You'd think that a company would do all they could to build a third party pad as best they could for as little money as possible, not pump cash into a rubbish product and where build quality fails make up for it by adding on pointless features?
I have a few unused & unwanted third party controllers knocking about and I'm pretty sure most, if not all, feature a turbo button.
I've a gold coloured Nintendo Gamecube third party, its light, feels cheap, the analogue no longer works AND it has the untouched turbo button.
If a turbo button was necessary it would have been included on the original pad, or an in game option to turn on turbo features would be present.
To wrap this up I will just say that third party peripherals need avoiding at all costs. You don't need a turbo button - its a poor gimmick - one which needs to turbo itself the hell away from my controllers.
Check out our rant filled Goldeneye gaming here
Posted by Jamie @Gamesshed
If you'd like to contact us drop an email to thegamesshed@gmail.com
3rd party controllers are mostly crap, but they're not all bad.
ReplyDeleteI use 3rd party controllers for the N64 & Mega Drive. The Competition Pro for the N64 because I find the official controller too small for my hands and the Gamester MD6 (different than the one pictured) as it is a big 6 button controller with a decent D-Pad.
I'm not a casual gamer either, so I've spent many, many hours using these to great effect.
What about official 3rd party joypads? Madcatz's fightpads and sticks are above and beyond the regular controllers. They are more accurate and can take more punishment.
ReplyDelete