Kotaku: joysticks

And Now ... the 'NEStickle'

Owen Good — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 14:00:00 MST

Reader Osama D's French friend built him this fighting stick out of a Nintendo Entertainment System, before leaving for his home country for good. You know, when I say goodbye to folks, I usually just buy a card or something.

Osama calls it The NEStickle (not to be confused with the NES emulator) because, well, why not. It's not like FightDeck or TurboConsole's gonna make this look any less weird. The NES controller houses the stick's USB cable, and it's compatible with all consoles and PC.

Osama says Nicolas, his friend, had to carve a reinforced interior from wood "using nothing but his laser vision. This insures that I don't over-zealously cave the NES in while pressing hard on those buttons when I'm losing badly to a cheap-ass who won't stop throwing me."

You can see more pics of the NEStickle and its construction over at the link.

Introducing the NEStickle! [Towards Mecca]

Inglourious Mad Catz

Owen Good — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 17:30:00 MDT

As seen on Nineballninja's Twitpic.

Super PS3 Stick Makes Combos Muuuuuuch Easier

Owen Good — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 12:00:00 MST

Can't remember — or, worse — can't execute your go-to fighting combos in the heat of the moment? This $90 stick stores moves and unleashes them with the press of a button.

The XCM Dominator joystick ships next week. As you can see in this video, it'll memorize any sequence of button presses or stick movements and then store it to one of four buttons. Remember, if you ain't cheatin', you ain't tryin'.

PS3 XCM Dominator Joystick Gets Price and Ships Next Week [Slashgear, thanks MADGAME]

Joysticks Maximized to be More Joyful

Kim Phu — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 11:40:00 MDT

Here's a project for the upcoming Easter holiday for those of you who are going to dive into some much needed spring cleaning and are wondering what to do with all of those extra joysticks from your childhood. It's a tutorial on how to take any autofiring joystick and make it into a noisemaker of sorts. Although the instructions look intimidating, they are written very well with lots of diagrams.

It's Kraftaku-riffic! Kim Phu

From Joystick to noisestick [AEE Projectblog]

Joysticks Make The Best Coat Hangers

Brian Ashcraft — Thu, 15 Feb 2007 23:00:42 MST

See? And you thought we were joking...

These are from a design exhibition in Chile that dates from October 2005. We guess that the 'sticks are immobile to prevent coats from slipping right off. Brilliant stuff. Truly. Brian Ashcraft

Atari Coat Hanger [Wonderland]

Arcade Flyer Art Saturday: Gotcha!

fdemarco — Sat, 11 Nov 2006 14:30:49 MST

Welcome to Arcade Flyer Saturday! Each week we'll take a different arcade flyer from days gone by and look into the rich history of the games and the images used to advertise them.

GOTCHA!
Gotcha! was the third arcade game produced by the Atari company. It debuted in 1973 and was the first of the "labyrinth/maze" genre that would eventually achieve great popularity with games like Pac-Man. The gameplay was less than exciting: The "Pursuer" (a square) chased the "Pursued" (a plus sign) through a constantly changing maze. The chase was accompanied by an annoying beeping sound that got louder and faster as the chaser got closer to the chased. Once the chased player was caught, points would be scored and the whole thing would start over again. Very dull indeed, although the game's flyer described it as having "plenty of psychological twists and turns and free flowing adrenaline" ... uh, yeah.

Probably the most notable thing about this game was it's control system: two large pink rubber mounds that looked very much like breasts. Not surprisingly, it became widely known as "the boob game."

A ruckus was raised over the cheeky controls and a "less suggestive" control system using two joysticks was implemented. I'm not too sure that a joystick is any LESS suggestive than a pair of round pink globes, but then again, it was the seventies.

This has got to be one of my favorites of all the flyer images I have run across. It's so evocative of it's time period with the pink, orange and red color scheme, stylized font and ubiquitous star pattern. I'm a little disturbed about the weird superimposing of the happy couple with the game machine. I suppose it was meant to imply that the fun was coming right out of the game in the form of two carefree people who are just like you. I can't help thinking that the image would have been improved and more appropriate to the game if the guy had just moved his hands up about 8 inches. Flynn De Marco

[Big thanks goes out to Greg for all his help with this series]

Use Steel Battalion Controller for Something Other Than Remorse

egauger — Thu, 03 Aug 2006 15:20:19 MDT

I never bought Steel Battalion, despite my intense love for giant robots (I think you all know what I'm talking about...uh huh...you over there in the Evangelion t-shirt) and everything that accompanies them. Mechwarrior 2 was probably the first game soundtrack that I really flipped out over (composed by Bill Brown) and I've been lugging mp3s of it around for nigh on ten years.

That said, plunking down over 200 clams for a specialized, mech-only controller was just insane. The battlepods over at Wizards of the Coast were still in business, and there was just no point.

But I know some of you couldn't help yourself, and you may cease hiding your shame as of now. Siliconera explains:

That mammoth sized Steel Battalion controller was a costly Xbox accessory at the price of $200 plus dollars. It's a one of a kind device designed for mecha games. Wouldn't it be cool to use the same controller for MechWarrior games on the PC? If you have an Xbox USB controller converter and the freeware program PPJoy to map the buttons to the controller. There are already custom button layouts made for MechWarrior 3 and MechWarrior 4.

Buttons maps are also available for Freespace 2, and for a generic 16-button, 4Axis, 1 POV joystick. Have at it! Eliza Gauger

Explicit instructions and downloads for the VT controller [c_McBride, via Siliconera]