Just decided to drop into my Halo player profile page, and what a coincidence!

888 games.. I should buy 4D! or.. 3D!

This is an XBOX360 Wireless Controller.

On the box, this is ALSO called an XBOX 360 Wireless Controller

There are some slight differences along with a special transforming D-Pad feature. But let's get the subtle stuff out of the way, on a normal pad's analog stick, there are 4 dimples to indicate directionality.

On the transforming controller, the surface of the analog stick is smooth but with a little pit right in the middle of it.

Ok it's not exactly smooth, there's an ever so slightly gripy texture on the surface of the stick to ensure your thumbs don't just go flying off the thing. But not so gripy as to put all the grip pad manufacturers out of business.

The other obvious difference are the face buttons, where as this is the normal one.

Buttons are marked with letters and color coded. Now for the transforming controller (seriously… why no special name?)

Notice it's a mono tone design, and the X is BARELY visible! So… if you're the type of person that still has to look at the controller for the right colored button or letter when the game tells you to push it, you might have a slight problem.

And now for the main event. The D-Pad, this is the normal D-Pad.

Some gamers call it Worst D-Pad EVER! Basically because instead of a cross which presses in like a button, you get a disc which tilts. Which is probably causes the majority of the complaints that the D-Pad isn't accurate. Personally I never had too much of a problem with it. Here's the D-Pad of the transforming controller in disc mode.

By gripping and turning the cross key in any direction the grey colored rounded edges sink into the pit, leaving you with…

A distinct cross key, so your thumb doesn't need to guess where the major directions are.

And now for the little problem I have with this. When I first heard about this controller, I thought when the corner edges are sunken the cross key would then function like buttons instead of tilting the entire D-Pad. But when I got home and took the controller out of the box and pressed it around in cross key mode, it feels slightly different. But it's still a tilt. Trying out a few games like SSF4, Ikaruga and Pac Man CE DX and I can't say wheter or not in cross key mode it is better than a normal D-Pad.

This is probably because MECHANICALLY the transforming D-Pad is probably the SAME as the normal D-Pad, the only change was that instead of a single plastic disc that forms the D-Pad area, what we have is a 2 part cap that's able to convert when necessary.

The OBVIOUS difference would be that your thumb can actually feel the major directions, and maybe for big thumbs, now that the corners aren't there you won't accidentally hit a corner?

If you're looking for a controller bundled with a battery pack plus play and charge cable to add to your console I'd say you can consider this, since it is still a normal controller. UPDATE : In light of recent events I must downgrade my recommendation from buy it if you want to to NOT A RECOMMENDED BUY. What's the recent event?

Yes, you're seeing it right, the whole D-Pad SNAPPED off from it's controller stem.. It might have been weaker because it's a thinner rod than the normal one to allow it to spin. And I guess I must have snapped it after a particularly intense Super Meat Boy test session. I hope this falls under the normal warranty claim…

But… if you're hoping that the D-Pad actually works radically different from the normal D-Pad, you might want to test it out first before buying it. The converting D-Pad is a nifty feature but it doesn't really feel all that different to me.

For record keeping purporses, and also as a reference post if god forbid the sensor comes crashing down one day. This is how I mount my Kinect sensor.

The sensor is mounted on the top of your typical flat screen TV. I was going to make a stand using instructions provided here, when I encountered 2 problems.

The first was that the top grills behind my TV ran the full length of the TV, so there’s no center spine area to put the tape on. Therefore I resorted to the use of a smaller tube.

I’m guessing some Asian parents should be familiar with this nutmeg oil can, it’s diameter was just the right size to angle the platform. Speaking of which, the 2nd problem was the platform.

Surprisingly I couldn’t find a simple no entry sign, or anything like that in the ACE Hardware I went to. I saw lots of STICKERS, but no signs. I ended up with a cutting mat that has a melting point of 70 degrees Celsius.

I used industrial strength velcro for all removable points, then I used some duct tape as an anchor to help ease the force of the platform pushing against the can hopefully making for a more permanent bond.

Redundancy wise, in a case of failure. I hope that my used of multiple strips of velcro on the front of the TV combined with the duct tape, will ensure that there’s no SPONTANEOUS LOSS of adhesiveness, should the heat of the TV melt the velcro strip connected to the can I should be able to see it tilt gradually and perform any repairs instead of just watching it crash to the ground.

I hope!

For spatial reference

The space from the TV, to where the white couch is, happens to be JUST THE RIGHT SIZE for 2 players. 1 player is where WZ is sitting.

The thing below is known as a restrictor gate.

It's found inside an arcade joystick to limit the movement of the stick to certain angles (ie. Vertical only, Horizontal only, 4 way, 8 way) and also to stop the full motion of the stick so it doesn't damage the button circuitry inside. (Didn't get a pic cause WZ was hovering around me when I opened up the stick) The gate above is square shaped and pretty much allow movements to all eight main directions (up, down, left, right and the diagonals) It's a very common gate that you find in most sticks. The gate below is a bit uncommon.

It's an octagon shaped gate. While you can also move in all 8 directions with this gate, the main difference is that the stick will pretty much drop into each direction so the player can be more aware that he has pushed into a direction properly.

I wonder if a simple piece of plastic like this can help me do hadokens better when I'm on the left?

• EPIC battles where EPIC means screen full of enemies which die when the prince sneezes on them.
• Lock the camera angle so that the player can’t actually survey the surroundings and figure out how to best make a run, making the player rely on the ‘oopss… rewind’ instead.
• Lock the camera angle at weird positions causing jumps to missed, traps to be hit, etc. etc.
• In the final battle with the big boss with cheesy health sapping attacks, make the player UNABLE to rewind time so that when they die they have to find the big guy from the beginning again.

Ahhh.. the new Prince Of Persia : The Forgotten Sands. It's still the same POP game with lots of cool jumping and platforming sequences. But the fighting.. *gah*... the fighting... the first time I saw 20 sand creatures pop up all over me and I just kill them but flailing my sword around madly I remembered the quote of the developer in one of the trailers. "We wanted to make fighting more exciting again!" Gheeezz.. trying to make it Prince Of Persia Musuo DOESN'T make fighting better!

And of course, the main question I ask myself whenever I play any PoP game except for the previous Prince Of Persia 2008 is how the HECK did they get around BEFORE the city was destoyed and in ruins? The whole architecture and design of the place DOESN'T FUNCTION in the normal sense. You have pressure plates on the walls, monkey bar switches 2 stories high that needs an off the wall jump to work. It makes it feel as if EVERYONE in the PoP universe can do what you do.

In the 2008 PoP you can see that the city is in ruins, and the switches and stuff were generally in proper logical places. And when asked "How DID you get around this place?" Elika tells you the obvious that before the city was decayed and ruined there were actual walkways and paths.

So.. Super Street Fighter IV was released a few days ago and I've been enjoying a LOT of online matches. The match finding system is much improved about paring people with proper ping levels. Of course when you prefer connection speed instead of similar skill... The fights can get quite interesting.

My weapon of choice is of course the trusty porn stick.

But then after enjoying some very great and smooth matches. I decided I should get serious about the fight.

I need something with a wider heavier base that doesn't slide around.

Something with a nice clickaty click joystick.

And nice clickaty click buttons.

Yes... I decided to go crazy and get a Mad Catz Tournament Edition Arcade Stick

Guess I can't complain about the controls when I lose now eh?

While playing co-op in Splinter Cell:Conviction with my friend I realized something.

When you're knocked out, a bleed out timer starts where your friend needs to come and basically shock you back to working condition. While you're bleeding out you're not out of the game yet, you can still get up and accurately pop headshots into nearby goons. So can someone answer me this?

If I have enough strength to get up, and I can still focus enough to pop MULTIPLE headshots into the nearby enemies... Why the bloody hell can't I just shock myself back to health?

Here's some things which I realized after playing the role of bootleg recorder during yesterday's Video Games Live concert.

First of all, if you want to make a good recording, you need to prepare a proper setup for your gear. Great thing about VGL was that I didn't need to hide my gear so I just had to make sure I mounted my camera properly. Because I had a Gorillapod I could do this

The camera and I basically shared the same eye level, so from a camera angle aspect I got a pretty good one. Here's a sample of the resulting video.

From the video I learned the remaining tricks of being a good bootlegger

• If you can ensure the camera position doesn't change like what I'm doing, then leave the camera on MANUAL FOCUS so it doesn't focus hunt in the middle of the show. It's not like the screen will move or anything.
• If your intent is to bootleg, don't go to the show with someone you're likely to talk to. :P

So I’ve been playing Bioshock 2 for a while and while I’m enjoying the game I feel that there’s something I just HAVE to get off my chest.

For a big daddy, I die WAY TOO EASILY! All it takes to kill me is about 3 solid clubs to the head and I’m back in the Vitachamber. While you might say that it’s because you play as the very first big daddy therefore as a prototype you’re weaker and such but let me remind you that you’re still wearing the Big Daddy Deep Sea Diving Helmet. Which I’d think would be able to withstand a few blows from lead pipes.

And for that matter, how the heck does the characther eat, drink and smoke all the health items? Is there a feeding tube somewhere which we can’t see?

The final rant is that even though we can swing a drill the size of our helmet like a simple bat, this particular act would dictate that Big Daddy is stronger than the average man. And yet when would smash the drill into a splicer’s head we have to club them a couple of times compared to just once and seeing their head’s explode due to being bludgeoned by a heavy object?

I find there can only be one reason for this to happen, why the splicers can withstand so much pounding to their heads by a big giant drill.

They’ve got BETTER HELMETS! I hope I can find out who their supplier is.