Cheap Mad Catz SoulCalibur V Arcade FightStick SOUL Edition for Xbox 360

Customer Ratings:

Let's get down to the nitty gritty. I got this stick as a gift from my wife. After hearing me complain about the Xbox 360 D-pad for years now, she eventually ordered me a stick to shut me up. I grew up playing on American arcade machines -no restrictor gate, concave buttons, and bat-top joysticks that didn't spin around freely... so this thing was a huge adjustment for me. I was holding out for an X-Arcade Tankstick, but they stopped manufacturing the single sticks. I'm glad I got this one. One hell of a gift. Works well with MAME games. Very smooth in Street Fighter 4: AE, and a HUGE upgrade over the shoddy D-pad. PERFECT for Soul Calibur, needless to say.

Pros:

-Responsive

-Durable

-Noticable heft

-Nice artwork

-Long cable

-Good quality control overall -especially for Mad Catz

-Joystick has the ability to function as the right or left analog stick of a conventional controller

Cons:

-Somewhat awkward button layout

For those who have never played on a Japanese stick before, take into consideration:

-The ball top on the actual stick rotates freely like a knob

-There is a 4-way restricor gate, meaning the movement of the stick is limited to a square border insode the housing of the unit

-The stick makes a light, tactile click when you move it in any direction, and that 'click' is necessary for the stick to register movements. So slight, double-tap subtle movements you'd make on, say, a Mortal Kombat machine are not as natural.

Great product. Highly recommend it for those partial to Japanese sticks or those willing to adjust their playing for one.

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So I got lucky and picked this up a few weeks ago for only $79.99. Usually these go for $100-$150, but I guess Amazon wanted to have a sale on them.

Some things to note about this stick:

-The Layout is different than a Street Fighter Stick when it comes to button mapping. If you look closely at the picture, the LT button is where the B button usually is. This is so that the 4 buttons you use for Soul Calibur are underneath all of your fingers so there is no need to reach awkwardly for the B button. Keep this in mind when you're buying it because this can present a problem if you are trying to use the stick for different games like I was that don't really allow you to customize the configuration.

The Stick is a tank. It weighs a good amount and will stay in place for most things.

When I plugged it into my laptop, I had to manually click on the device and select the Xbox360 controller driver. This took a while to figure out and was kinda frustrating. I guess depending on whether your running AMD or Intel the computer should automatically recognize it as a Xbox360 Controller and install the drivers. This was not the case for me, but it works great once you figure it out. (I'm running an AMD A8 by the way)

I'm pleased with this stick and I'm glad I got it for cheap. I use it to play Castle Crashers on Steam and SFIV for PC and I don't think I can ever go back to a regular controller. If you're planning to use it for PC like I was, don't be alarmed if it doesn't install the drivers for it automatically, after some fiddling around and doing it manually it should work.

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This is my second fight stick and i must say, this stick is great. THe buttons are sensitive enough to recognize every stroke. The joy stick has no dead zones. I play UMVC3 pretty hard core and this stick is perfect for it. Just the glossy finish maybe annoying because it will leave sweat marks after you play for awhile. Also project the buttons. My friend spilled soda on the surface and some of the buttons got really sticky but its nothing a good wipe down cant fix

Honest reviews on Mad Catz SoulCalibur V Arcade FightStick SOUL Edition for Xbox 360

I bought this stick for SSFIV: AE (PC player) since it was on sale in my area. It's a top quality product. My only problem is that the button layout is not the same as the Xbox controller or Mad Catz SFIV AE stick. But it's such a quibble since it is easy to reassign the buttons in-game that it's not enough to downgrade the rating. A great investment for anyone who is serious about playing fighting games, gamepad doesn't cut it.

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This is the second fightstick that I've bought (the first being a HORI tekken 6 wireless stick). I've been using this stick for the past week and have been very impressed with it. First, It has a good weight too it, and is very solid. It feels and looks very well made. The case and artwork are very, very attractive.

Next, This stick is very responsive to inputs. On my other stick I was unable to hit many motions accurately (quarter-circles, z-motions, half circles, etc). On this stick, the input is correct everytime. The buttons are high quality and sensitive (which is a positive for me but may not be desirable if you like stiffer buttons).

I would recommend this stick to anyone that is either buying their first stick, or looking to upgrade from a lesser quality stick.