This dude is selling a bunch of pre-adapted controllers, like the old NES pad, SNES, Genesis (ick, awful directional), and the Atari Black Sticks.
He’s also selling conversion kits to modify your existing controllers to fit with USB.
Those are absolutely awesome. I really like the idea of having an NES Advantage to use while gaming.
I liked the Super Advantage well enough, but I really preferred having the shoulder buttons on the shoulders of the gamepad. That said, a PS2 controller provides all I would ever need, and more.
I chose SNES because there was no NES MAX choice.
Ew, NES max? I could never use that thing. The directional pad was so icky gross. I dunno, maybe I just didn’t have the thumbs for it.
Here’s another vote for the NES MAX. I loved it for years and years.
Bah, the Genesis 6-button had the best layout for fighting games. I hated the precedent started by the SNES pads for 4 on the face, 2 on the shoulders - it makes it annoying as hell to play proper 6-button fighting games on all consoles nowadays.
As much as I loved my NES Max, the Genesis 6-button controller kicked it’s ass. The only real retro competition for it was the Coleco Super Action Controller (16 buttons, 8 directional sensors, roller wheel, overlays, hohah!) Although, nowadays, I’m loathe to give up my Xbox S.
The NES Advantage. Really thoughtful features, and remarkably solid. The thing was a veritable tank of a joystick. Throw a gamepad while playing a hard game, you get a controller than can double as a maraca. Throw an Advantage, you need to spackle the wall.
Oh man, you mean that fist thing? I could never use that thing. So unintuitive and unlike anything else, though I suppose when it came out, there weren’t many paradigms to have broken…
I was thinking of doing a HOWTO of this on my site. Would anybody be interested in something like that, or is just the fact that it’s out there enough?
Too late:
You’d have to do it for some other controllers, as the NES has already been explained.
Crap, I just saw that on /. That site is loosely one of our competitors, too. Aw well!
Genesis 6-button all the way. The d-pad was my favorite of any pre-analog controllers because you weren’t so much pressing down on it as you were actually moving it in the direction. I could throw fireballs all day with that. Of course the six buttons were also the best layout ever for fighting games (and no reason they couldn’t be used for other games), but they always get mentioned so I wanted to show love for the d-pad specifically.
Unintuitive?!? This is unintuitive?
I saw people try to rotate (like a paddle controller) and push down (like the Intellivision’s disc) on the regular ColecoVision joysticks, but I don’t remember ever seeing anyone not understand the Super Action sticks right away. The red ball topped stick was practically an arcade standard at the time. The only confusion I ever saw was occasionally people would confuse which trigger button to pull at which time. Victory would have made a hell of lot more sense had they configured it to the Super Action Controllers instead of the Roller Controller.
For me, the NES pads were much more unintuitive because it was the first time I used the main movement control with my left hand instead of my right.
What i meant by unintuitive is that I personally don’t push game buttons with each finger. I use my thumbs. The way this thing worked was that each finger on your grip hand had its own button, and I just couldn’t get used to that.
I don’t know why I work this way, but my fingers prefer to do double duty andd allow the useless ones (pinky and ring) to sit the whole experience out.
I remember how the NES controllers would make my hands hurt after four-hour sessions of Punch-out and Mario. You’d think that somewhere along the NES’s lifespan they’d figure out that bad ergonomics is a problem when you make addicting software.
For those hatin’ on the shoulder buttons, they make it possible to press more buttons simultaneously, which is a generally a good thing since you can work in more triggers in the game play. Try playing Super Metroid or Harvest Moon without shoulder buttons, it’s doable but highly annoying since you lose control if you try to use your thumb to press more than one button for an extended period of time… Of course, I don’t play fighters in arcades ever, so that particular complaint is not something I’m familiar with.
You can get a Sega Saturn-style USB controller if you get the Puyo Puyo for Mac OS X. =/ http://www.lik-sang.com/info.php?category=59&products_id=4395&