Dream Arcades Dream Stick™ 360 Controller

[HammR25]

Anyone have one of these? I'm just curious. It works with both the 360 and PC if you have the 360 wireless adapter for PC which I do. I ordered one over the weekend and will report on my findings once I get it.

 

http://www.dreamarcades.com/dreamstick.shtml

[cimerians]

Cool, let us know how it turns out.

[Video]

Ug...wireless? Don't see the point for something that's going to set on a table top an not move, but eh...

[HammR25]

Ug...wireless? Don't see the point for something that's going to set on a table top an not move, but eh...

A person could blow even more money on one that's not wireless if they wanted to:

 

http://www.aiabstore.com/

[HammR25]

I got this thing today at lunch. I played a couple of games. It actually makes Track and Field harder. A person can actually get better speed jerking the thumbstick on a normal 360 controller back and forth than they can using real arcade buttons. This is actually a game design issue because using the joystick on this controller yields the same results. Just another thing I don't like about the game besides the fact that they were too cheap to license the theme to Chariots of Fire for the high score page.

 

The joystick is very smooth and the buttons are nice. When I opened it to put in the batteries I noticed it's basically just a modded wireless Xbox 360 controller. That didn't really surprise me. When I ordered I just assumed that's what they'd done.

 

I used it in my lap in an office type chair at lunch. I was comfortable with it there. It's substantial enough that it would work fine on a coffee table though. It's probably about 10 lbs. Shipping weight was 11 lbs.

 

I don't know if it's because I'm not used to the joystick or just shitty game design what but I was having a hard time in Pac-Man CE always getting Pac-Man to go where I wanted. Also my arcade fingers are out of shape. I was getting my ass kicked by the enemies in Joust because I was getting tired flapping my wings. I'm used to using my thumbs for everything. It definitely reminds me of the old arcade days because everything seems hard. lol

 

I'll have pictures of the outside and the internals later.

[cimerians]

I got this thing today at lunch. I played a couple of games. It actually makes Track and Field harder. A person can actually get better speed jerking the thumbstick on a normal 360 controller back and forth than they can using real arcade buttons. This is actually a game design issue because using the joystick on this controller yields the same results. Just another thing I don't like about the game besides the fact that they were too cheap to license the theme to Chariots of Fire for the high score page.

 

The joystick is very smooth and the buttons are nice. When I opened it to put in the batteries I noticed it's basically just a modded wireless Xbox 360 controller. That didn't really surprise me. When I ordered I just assumed that's what they'd done.

 

I used it in my lap in an office type chair at lunch. I was comfortable with it there. It's substantial enough that it would work fine on a coffee table though. It's probably about 10 lbs. Shipping weight was 11 lbs.

 

I don't know if it's because I'm not used to the joystick or just shitty game design what but I was having a hard time in Pac-Man CE always getting Pac-Man to go where I wanted. Also my arcade fingers are out of shape. I was getting my ass kicked by the enemies in Joust because I was getting tired flapping my wings. I'm used to using my thumbs for everything. It definitely reminds me of the old arcade days because everything seems hard. lol

 

I'll have pictures of the outside and the internals later.

 

Cool thanks for the info. I'm still up in the air about buying an Arcade stick.

 

Does it click when you move the joystick? I HATE that.

 

Usually it's the response time thats the issue. If you go and play a REAL Joust arcade or Pac-Man arcade mahcine you will see how better you are and see the difference.

 

I use a parallel port Atari 2600 joystick cable on my PC cause the response time is prefect. PPJoy is the driver I use. Pac-Man and other games are fantastic and just about perfect. I plug in a USB Atari 2600 adapter like the stella-adapter and its not quite the same. Its all so slightly off which makes flapping harder and moving your guy on the screen harder.

 

I have yet to see anything that beats a parallel port hook up like I have. Sadly parallel ports are disappearing or have disappeared on PC's....

[HammR25]

I played some more Joust and I think it was mainly me just getting used to the joystick. There's a click but I don't notice it when I'm playing, only when I'm trying to listen for it. Playing Pac-Man CE still sucks. I tried it with MAME and liked the feel. The joystick is very smooth and accurate but I don't think a person is missing much unless they really want the "arcade feel". These things probably work a lot better for fighting games but I'm not all that interested in those.

 

Here's the pictures:

[Atariboy]

I don't know if it's because I'm not used to the joystick or just shitty game design what but I was having a hard time in Pac-Man CE always getting Pac-Man to go where I wanted.

 

8 way arcade sticks suck for games that require precise 4 way control. It's just too easy to hit a diagonal. The Hori 360 sticks and even the MadCatz SF4 tournament stick are the same way for me as you're describing with this one.

 

They're great for things like Xevious though.

[HammR25]

Yeah I figured real Pac-Man games probably had 4 way sticks and that was the problem. I'm actually having quite a bit of fun with the thing with MAME.