Xbox 360 Joystick with nice polygons

(tags game, hardware, Xbox 360, joystick, Windows)

I won an auction recently for the Xbox 360 Hori Dead or Alive 4 edition joystick. I was lucky to get it for less than 1_0000 yen. It's probably because the seller had only 2 seller ratings (of course, 0 bad seller ratings). I got it last Thursday during the Spring Day holiday. If I had lost the auction, I would have gone to Play Asia and just import the no-poly-chick version.

I don't think I've handled the Xbox 360 version of a Hori joystick before, but I do have the Hori Real Action Pro "Special Edition" for the PS2. They feel the same, or more like, I fumble through the motions. I'm just not good with joysticks. The dead zone for this joystick doesn't feel so great, but perhaps its just me.

The first game I thought about to try it out was Omega Five. But that was a mistake because it's an analog joystick affair. I guess I'm too lazy to switch discs. So I brought out the Dead Or Alive 4 and it controls like I expected. I then tried out Shikigami No Shiro 3, and remapped the buttons to the bottom row, and there was no problem. I was able to weave and stick with some dexerity.

Since its a USB, I tried it out on my Windows PC. The Charge and Play kit driver was already installed, so this joystick didn't need any additional software. But I ran into the same "HAT" problem. The buttons worked but the stick didn't move. For some dumb reason, I only realized I could use the Joy2Key remapper. So now the stick works and there's no discernable input lag.

Unfortunately my PC seems to stutter. I couldn't enjoy anything. That will teach me to VMWare and shmup at the same time.

I put the joystick back in the box. Perhaps this April, I will have my Ikaruga.