I really need to remember that if I’m in DESPEREATE need for Nintendo Prepaid Cards, Play Asia while being a reputable store seem to have some funky handling algorithm. In fact I do believe that it might be some MANUAL process, since you can get the code almost instantly if you buy it during normal office hours at GMT+8 but after that… it’s a looooong wait…

It’s all Nintendo’s fault!

ps. Don’t buy stuff too close to midnight, banks run batch processes then and most likely CC processing will get delayed!

After the whole fiasco with the Hori FPS Assault Pad and the spectacular failure of the Razer Onza part of me was a bit cautious about getting another ‘Better than the standard controller’ controller. But I did.. and here it is.. the Razer Sabertooth.

One of the reason I decided to even consider buying the Sabertooth is the fact that unlike the Assault Pad and the Onza, no where in any of the reviews online did I see the line “It’s kinda big.” in their reviews. It was also proven to be correct when I first picked it up and my hands didn’t feel like cramping up!

When I first held it in my gaming grip, it had the familiarity of the stock Xbox 360 controller, didn’t feel too big or small. Felt as if I was holding the stock controller.

And that’s a GOOD thing, because the stock 360 controller has a very good feel when you hold it.

The other immediate improvement was with the position of the extra mappable buttons, you get 2 on top nested deep inside between the bumpers and the triggers.

And FOUR under the controller

Basically the bottom switch is a loose see saw that can tilt towards either side so you can 2 buttons for each switch.

The impressive thing about these buttons is the fact that previous pads like the Onza put the extra buttons too close to the normal buttons, which meant that by sheer muscle memory it would be VERY LIKELY for you to hit the buttons when you didn’t want to.

But on the Sabertooth, it less of a problem depending on how you press the bumpers. For me I’d hit the bumpers using the middle of my index finger, I don’t actually press it with my finger tip. The extra top button is positioned in such a way that it’s at my index finger tip instead of my knuckle so I wouldn’t accidentally press the extra button.

The bottoms buttons have no standard buttons to get in the way of, and I don’t feel that they get in the way of my small hands. Might be a problem for those with bigger digits, so I guess that’s why Razer provided the ability of removing the bottom buttons if you don’t need them.

Once you remove the button, you get a hole like the indention on the left, Razer was nice enough to give some rubber stoppers to block the holes like the one on the right. The problem is that I just couldn’t seem to press them into the hole tight enough and kept feeling that they were going to fall off. The other interesting issue was that as I was squeezing the stoppers in, the joystick gave out loud creaking noises…

Like the Onza the face buttons of the Sabertooth are still the good old caps ontop of micro switches with minimal travel distance

The D-Pad is now four normal looking buttons instead the weird pie slice on the Onza.

Unfortunately because it is still four separate buttons, it still doesn’t work very well for sweeping motion ala Street Fighter. Basically it’s hard to get a Hadoken on, let’s not even talk about a Shoryuken!

The analog sticks on the Sabertooth feels just right to me, not too loose, not too tight. The caps have a slight bumpy dot texture on them.

But if you really want better grip on the tips, Razer was kind enough to provide two grippy silicon joystick caps for you so you can have a better grip on the sticks if you want.

Let’s talk about the special features of the Sabertooth, the first thing to talk about is of course the OLED screen that sits at the bottom of the stick.

This is probably one of the reasons why the Sabertooth is so expensive! But it allows for some interesting features to be implemented because the screen is used to show more information to the user.

The first obvious function is the ability to map the six extra buttons to any other BUTTON on the stick.

Yes, you heard right you can map ANY button to the extra buttons, including the Start and Back buttons as well as the triggers. Very useful indeed!

You are also able to adjust the sensitivity of the thumbsticks.

You can set sensitivity in the range of –10 to +10. As I mentioned in my Hori FPS Assault Pad review, joysticks report values as how far it’s pushed to the edge where the center is 0% and the edge is 100%.

To further explain how joystick sensitivity tuning works we’ll need some diagrams!

The picture above represents how far the joystick is from the edge, so the left edge is the joystick in the neutral position, and the right edge is when you push it fully to either direction. The picture above depicts how a normal joystick reports how much it’s pushed to the game, so normally when the stick is at rest it reports 0% and when it’s pushed to the edge it reports 100%.

When we set the sensitivity to +3 this is what happens to your joystick range

The point where the joystick tells the game that it’s been pushed to 100% get’s drop to around 70% of its full range. This in theory would let you hit full turning speed in FPS games much more faster. Would this give you a edge? Well I’m not that competitive a gamer to know.

Then if you set sensitivity to +7 you get the results below

So all you have to do is nudge the joystick a little and you get to move at full speed!

So that’s what the POSITIVE sensitivity values do to the stick, so what about NEGATIVE values? Let’s take a look at the setting of –3

What happens when you set the sensitivity to a NEGATIVE value is that the maximum reported distance of the joystick gets dropped, so even though you might be pushing the joystick all the way it’ll only report 70%. This is helpful when you need to move something slowly and you can’t trust yourself to not just slam the stick into the corner ie. When you’re staring down a sniper scope.

A value of –7 would yield the following range

And for some reason, the setting of –10 yields a range of 0% to 0%. It's either that, or because the reported range falls within the deadzone region of the games I was testing on.

Since you might not want the sensitivity as –5 all the time, the Sabertooth have 2 profile slots for settings. Swapping profiles can be done easily by pressing the profile button. But if you’re going to do it on the fly while playing, note that you’ll need to press it TWICE to swap. The first push brings up the profile menu, the 2nd actually changes the profile

One more not so obvious feature which the Sabertooth has is the ability to access a diagnostic menu and display the current values reported by the analog sticks (Reported values are not influenced by the sensitivity settigns)

This is important to competitive players, because after time the analog sensors on the sticks might deteroriate and give false reading or values, or they might be worried that they’re victims of a slow-turn joystick. So with this onboard test menu it’s extremely easy to confirm that your stick are all working properly.

Having used the Razer Sabertooth through Bioshock Infinite, I must say it’s not too bad at all. Not having a cramp inducing shape helps alot of course, but the fact that the mappable buttons are pretty much out of the way and being able to quickly and accurately adjust joystick sensitivity. I would definitely recommend the Razer Sabertooth without reservation…. if only it didn’t cost so much! The price will definitely cause concern to potential buyers and the features while great still doesn’t make it an absolute must buy yet.

That said if the only other controller you’re thinking of getting is the Razer Onza? No man… just say no to Onza!

So... after the device quality disaster that was the Razer Onza (The thumbsticks would go out of whack after awhile) I can't believe I decided to go ahead and buy yet another specialty joypad, this time it's the Hori FPS Assault Pad EX.

First of all.. like the Razer Onza, this thing feels a bit big for my small Asian hands, was cramping about 10 mins after using it. (need to add more insight)

Like the Razer Onza, the Hori Assault Pad gives you 2 additional remappable shoulder buttons.

The original bumper is the higher one, like with the Razer Onza, you'll need a while before you can get use to the extra button.

Unlike the Onza, not only can you remap the 2 additional shoulder buttons to the face buttons or bumpers you can also remap the TRIGGERS as well. But it surprises me that you can remap the original bumpers as well.

Also unlike the Onza is the fact that there's no way to see WHAT button something is mapped to, and also there's no way to remap it quickly on the fly. Because remapping a button involves holding the PROGRAM button until a green light pops up.

Press the button you want to remap, and then press the button you want to map to.

The controller also includes a freaking bright blue brag light, which changes to red whenever the rumble motors engage.

The blinding light is easy enough to disable, all you have to do is hold down the back button for a few seconds and it'll turn off.

And now we move on to the other specialty of the Assault Pad, the sensitivity wheel located below the D-Pad

This wheel controls the sensitivity of the right thumbstick, although it's a bit wrong to say it's a sensitivity control due to how a joystick works compared to a mouse. While a different DPI rating for a mouse would influence how many pixels would be cross when you move the mouse by a centimeter, a joystick doesn't do that.

Joysticks basically just report how far away they are from the center of the stick, where the center is 0% and the edge is 100%, So how would you implement a sensitivity dial for a joystick then? The dial basically changes how soon the stick reports that it's at the edge, the setting of 1 is normal, and the max setting of 7 means you just have to push the stick ever so slightly and it'll report as if it's been fully pushed.

I don't find this sensitivity dial of any particular usefulness though.

The next important feature of the Assault Pad is the Target button. Located underneath the controller near where the D-Pad is

When you hold down the target button, The right thumbstick's motion will be limited to about 25%, so you can push the stick very quick and fast but it'll result in slow movements.

While this sounds GREAT on paper (and it was what made me decided to buy it) when used in Halo 4, this works like an emergency brake button for the right stick, when held down the reticle moves painfully slowly. I wished there was a dial to customize exactly what is the limit when you hold down the button, but there isn't one, so it feels like a wasted opportunity.

One more thing about the Assault Pad is that you can screw in taller sticks for the thumbsticks.

That's the tallest stick, how useful is this? Well, when I use the medium sized one my hand feels like dying after only 1 minute instead of the usual 5 when I'm using the default height. Extremely NOT useful for small hands.

And that's the gist of it, like the Razer Onza, the Hori FPS Assault Pad is just TOO big for my hands, the distance between the edge of the controller and the right thumbstick really hurts my hands, that and the fact that the 2 main selling points of controlling joystick sensitivity doesn't really work well practically serves will serve as a reminder for me that I should not buy any more 3rd party controllers which everyone has mentioned that it's a bit big.

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?