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When you're constantly on the room from hordes of flesh-hungry zombies and the desperate remnants of humanity you don't have time to lug around an entire game console just to recreate the experience. That's the only way I can make sense of "Deluxe Plug It In & Play TV Games" based on AMC's The Walking Dead. More »
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There's something to be said about attempting to replicate the old school arcade experience, as Ion attempted to do with the iCade, but sometimes you need something a little sexier. This is the Atari Arcade for the iPad. More »
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iPhone touch screen controls suck, and there's only one way to fight suck: More suck. Ten One Design's suction cup mounted tactile game controller for the iPhone were created to suck your touch screen control blues away. More »
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As sure as winter is followed by spring, the release of a new Capcom console fighting game is followed by a new Tournament Edition Arcade FightStick from Mad Catz. Let's put the Marvel Vs. Capcom 3 model through its paces. More »
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Daigo Umehara. AKA "The Beast". AKA The best Street Fighter player on Earth. If there's someone who might have advice on how to improve your game, it's him. More »
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Not only is Penny Arcade's Cardboard Tube Samurai making a surprise appearance as a pre-order bonus for Tekken 6, Namco Bandai is rolling out a limited-edition joystick bundle for the game's October launch as well. More »
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The standard Atari joystick was not designed for comfort. Or for gaming, really, if we are being honest. Retro cool aside, looking at it now it resembles something you would expect to find on a Soyuz mission control console. More »
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The MetalStrike from Genius is a Joystick With Built-In Air Conditioning. More »
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Man, what happened to the joystick? One minute, it's the only way to play (or at least fly), the next, they're gathering dust up the back of your local games store, under the shelf where they keep LCD screen cleaners and novelty disc trays. Where'd it all go wrong? A cute piece on MSN UK asks that very question, taking the view that, like Sam Neil argues in Jurassic Park, the joystick never really went away. It just evolved, in this case not into birds, but into the thumbsticks featuring across all of today's consoles. Which is a nice thought, but when I look at my dear old friend pictured above, and then at a control pad, it's just not the same. Excuse me....*sniff* More »
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Guest writing at N'Gai Croal's Level Up, Bill Harris offers a brief history of the game controller and its evolution. Harris argues that it's the fault of Street Fighter II that arcade games, and later console games, changed from pick up and play (accessible to everyone) to complex (accessible to a select few). More »
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Honesty: the only reason we chose to post this at all was the name. We'd like to say we were above obvious phallic puns, or that we cared about VC Fatal Fury players as we would our own children. We'd like to say something vague, faux deep and impossible to defend, like that current hand held controllers have ruined gaming forever, leading us to move into a cave with a massive stock of AAs where we'd only play Tiger racing while living off various fungi. We'd pretty much just like to be bigger people in general. Until that day never comes, if you want to get the shaft, it's $39.95. More »
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Does starring in adult films affect your brain? Let's ask superstar Tera Patrick, who's appeared in seventy plus pornos. And since, we're a game site, how about some game questions via Gamerhelp.com. Tera, what titles appeal to you? More »
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As we dig in for the evening, here's a collection of retro game controllers, joysticks, dpads and whatnots. Don't really care if you can name 'em, but rather, if you have 'em. Okay, so which of these do you own? Bragging rights in the comments section. Brian Ashcraft More »
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Worst part of cell phone gaming? The controls. Face it, punching out an email is hard enough, let alone shooting up a hoarde of baddies. That tiny d-pad just doesn't cut it. A Russian company Industrial Design hopes to make cell phone game better, way better. Called the "CompactAnalog Thumbstick," it's a retractable joystick that pops up when pushed. Otherwise, it phone retains its traditional d-pad. Sadly, this is not a real product as of yet, but just a concept. A good one at that. Brian Ashcraft More »
]]> http://kotaku.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=236391&view=rss&microfeed=true We love linking our pals over at Destructoid... a gaming culture blog rising so fast that one of these days, we're going to have to glass them in the face over a friendly bout of pints, lest they challenge us for gaming culture blog supremacy. More »
]]> http://kotaku.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=208107&view=rss&microfeed=true Tips about PSP hardware mods are few and far between here at Kotaku HQ, so it made a nice change from the endless Mario quilt-cake-kleenex-pantsu tips I have to wade through to get to the real meat of the tips inbox: mail-order Russian child bride spam. More »
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How many buttons do you really need to play that XBLA port of an early-80's coin-op game? The correct answer is "one." But this Mad Catz XBLA arcade stick somehow manages to shove almost all of the 360 controller buttons on there anyway. More »
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Blog GameSetWatch points to a 360 controller that's actually fit for Xbox Live Arcade. That's right, an actual joystick. Because, Street Fighter and Frogger just don't feel right with a controller. There are several GSW site links to, including a tutorial for the brave. Proceed at your own risk. Brian Ashcraft More »
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In a bizarre first for video games "journalism", over at Toybane they reviewed the Atari 2600 joystick key ring that we wrote about last month. This post's image? The crazy ass wire and battery pack that allows it to hook up to your television. More »
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The Guardian Gamesblog • which we link less than we read • has posted a round-up of the least joystick friendly games of all time, "It Came Off In My Hand." I've had that problem, alright. More »
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Bigger ain't better, just easier to see. Spotting this 9-foot joystick, which was modeled after the Atari 2600 'stick, was no prob. It was created by New York artist Mary Flanagan and is on display at networked exhibit Game/Play touring the UK. Something this big needs four hands to handle it—one presses the button and the other moves the shaft. Working together, communication is important between both players so that they are able to score. A must for size queens. Brian Ashcraft More »
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Straight from the Early Morning Bummer Department, we're sad to report that Alan Kotok — the MIT visionary who helped create both the first video game, the first joystick and the first implementation of multiplayer — is dead. More »
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Man, why do controllers have so many buttons? What kind of digital Briareus do you have to be to control two joysticks, four face buttons and four shoulder buttons at once? It's like these controllers have been designed specifically for the next stage in human evolution: the ten-fingered mutant...hey. *counts* Wait a second. More »
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Some big dude named Big Kurt shelled out for a custom-made SlikStik arcade joystick cabinet that supports four players and weighs in at a whopping 60 pounds! Not to be a size queen, but that monitor is teeny and embarrassingly so. Brian Ashcraft More »
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Sega's networked dungeon crawler Quest of D has one of the purdiest joysticks in recent memory. This picture does not do the crystal filled stick justice. In an age when gaming has moved from the arcade to the home, It's nice to see a company putting such care and craftsmanship into the little things. Good work, Sega. More »
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We may post how to speak Otaku in japan or watch TV on your PSP, but leave it to BoingBoing to track down how to turn your retro Atari joystick into a vibrator. I'll never play a game of Combat the same way again. More »
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Found over at Etsy, a cheeky little hand-built Pac-Man-flavoured joystick. Looks good and chunky, solid, metal, heavy.. all the things a joystick should be. More »
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