Xbox360 Fighting Stick EX 2
Officially licensed by Microsoft. Arcade style controller for the Xbox360. Recommended for Fighting, action, shooting, and classic games that are available on xbox live.
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let us make something clear, if you aren’t going to play fighting games, you should not buy this stick. i tried it on pacman championship edition and pacman was acting like a drunk. It works just fine for DoA4, Virtua Fighter 5, and Street Fighter, but don’t even think about trying anything else with it. The one thing that it does have going for it is the fact that it is the only fighting stick on the 360, unless you want to cough up a couple of hundred dollars for one with a picture of kokoro on it. And there is one other matter that needs to be considered. it clicks. the stick itself clicks like a card trapped in some bicycle spokes. Some people love it, some people end up in padded cells because of it. A good indicator of how you would react is how you feel about the strum bar on the guitar hero controllers. Finally, if you have been playing fighting games with a controller for some time, prepare to be practicing for some time in order to be competent. it is worth it in the end, your skills will improve, eventually. all in all a good product.
Overall, I am happy with this stick. Just so you know, the VF5 edition is this same exact stick with a sticker sheet in the box and VF5 sticker on the front. Once you open it up, it is clear that it’s the standard FS EX2 repackaged.
I would have preferred a face button layout that mirrors the actual 360 controller, but reassigning buttons is hardly a task. The joystick has a square box to work in (if you’re not sure what I mean, I am referring to the track beneath the surface that the stick traces), which might feel strange to some, but I don’t really mind at all. I have used it to play SF2:Turbo and SF3:3S on Live. I was more successful with 360 degree motions and super combos in 3, but I think this is the result of a more forgiving input system for later SF titles. The joystick sat comfortably on my lap while playing with the headset plugged in. It may be an issue if you use voice while playing, but the clicking sound can get rather loud in the heat of battle. It didn’t bother me of course, but my friend could hear it through the mic when I tried to recover from a dizzy. The cord length is generous enough; it seems to be about 7 feet or so.
I also tested the stick on the PC. Upon plugging it into the USB port, XP recognized it as the FSEX2, and loaded up the appropriate drivers. I tested it out with a few different SF titles (and a little DoDonPachi for good measure), and found that there were some issues. Trying to do Zangief’s fast lariat proved to be impossible. When I checked the controller input screen for calibration I found that the two triggers being mapped to the face may not have been the best choice. It seems that the XP driver recognizes the triggers as opposite analog inputs on the Z-axis. This quirk makes it so that a press of RT followed by a press of LT will result in a net gain of 0. It will be as if you never pressed anything. This means that any techniques that require 3 kicks to be pressed simultaneously will be unavailable to you unless you remap the buttons. This may be solved with a keyboard to joystick button assignment program. I haven’t tried that yet. While this is a problem, Hori does not market the stick as PC-capable, so I guess I can’t really complain.
I do feel that the 60 dollar price tag is a little steep as it doesn’t quite feel like a 60 dollar product, but that does not worth picking up. I am quite happy with it, and considering the strange absence of arcade sticks on the market, you may want to scoop it up before they disappear and you’re forced to wait until the next big fighter releases for them to begin distribution again.
This fighting stick is an absolute must buy for vf5 owners.
the game is virtually unplayable with the 360 pad. I have owned mine for
3 months, and ive been destroying the competition online. the stick is very
well made, almost arcade quality. i dont know how it performs on other games, but it works like a dream for virtua fighter.