Gamepads — no matter how well designed — aren’t good for all games. Pac-Man, Frogger and a slew of fighting games are better controlled with a joystick than a D-pad. You can imagine my delight when today I saw the Madcatz Xbox 360 Gamestick bundle which comes with the stick and redeem codes for three arcade games: Astropop (800 points), Time Pilot (400 points) and Frogger (400 points).

Although I still have a few thousand unredeemed Microsoft Points, I don’t have many Live Arcade games on my Xbox 360 Elite yet. As mentioned last Sunday I’m still working my way through the surprisingly entertaining Viva Pinata. We’ve also rented and watched a few of the movies through the Live Marketplace.

I decided to purchase Pac-Man today (400 Microsoft Points) and try the Madcastz Gamestick out on that first. Pac-man is one of my favorite games of all time and one where I prefer a stick over the Xbox 360 gamepad. Response?

The joystick is too loose around the base forcing you to push it hard one way or another to get the desired movement. This had pac-man stopping in the maze and being easy prey for Inky and his buddies. I also needed to seat the joystick between my legs at sort of an awkward angle to get the best grip and response as shown below:

I prefer a gaming stick with stiffer response as opposed to having more play at the base. Not as hard as say the old Atari 2600 joystick but not as loose as this one. As far as price goes at $39.99 at Best Buy, it’s not that expensive with the three full arcade games which add up to 1600 Microsoft Points. $39.98 at Amazon for the Madcatz Arcade GameStick for Xbox 360 (affiliate).

I have to play with this longer to see if it works well with many (any) games including the pack-in titles (I don’t recall trying the puzzle game Astro Pop yet) but early impression is somewhat disappointed. If you like a joystick with a lot of play at the base — perhaps too much play — than you will really like thie Madcatz Gamestick. If you’re more toward having a closer to arcade feel stick then look around for sometihng else. Grade: C-

Did this post make you go hmm?

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