Thursday, April 23, 2009

MAS Systems Super Pro Joystick for Xbox 360

I might do an actual writeup on this but I just got this and felt like showing it to you, the anonymous masses. Also, my two friends who might care. It's pretty big.



The guys who makes these have a terrible web presence and as such, sell them via eBay. It's a heavy board construction with Happ buttons and a bat-top joystick, and no, it isn't an officially licensed Microsoft product. It does, however, use the guts from a standard controller and retains the USB cable to connect to the Xbox 360.

It really, honestly, and truly feels like a chunk of an arcade machine. When you tap on it, it sounds right. The response is great-- I've been playing on the basic wireless pad since February and my hands cramp up after a while. (I get grip-happy.) I just got this stick yesterday (technically today) and I've since got a new high score in R-Type II, won more Street Fighter IV matches in a row than I've ever been able to do before, crushed Seth on regular mode, and managed to do absolutely nothing of value with the Flock demo as it for some reason decided it didn't want to play Flock. Already, the stick is showing better judgment than I have. (It may soon become self-aware.)

Since it has the guts of a basic Microsoft wired Xbox 360 joypad, that means it's also compatible with the Macintosh (with the right driver) and Windows platforms. So if for any reason you happen to have the means to play games which might benefit from a stick FORGED BY THE FUCKING GODS then this might be a worthwhile purchase.

Despite being roughly $160-$200 and made of high-quality, actual arcade machine components, it's surprisingly no-frills. It's not wireless, there are no turbo (or other non-standard) functions, there's nowhere to wrap the cord, and there's no microphone port. (Honestly, most of these aren't dealbreakers. Most of the time I'm playing games online I don't want to talk to anybody.)

I guess if you take one thing from this post, if you are considering buying an Xbox 360 arcade stick, I'm telling you to bite the bullet and do it.