The other night, I was playing Marvel vs. Capcom 3 online. I was running with my main team of Wolverine/Storm/Sentinel when something went awry: nothing happened when I hit the Sentinel button. Sure enough, my right trigger button on my Mad Catz TE had died.
One of the coolest aspects about the office culture at my work is that we’re really big into fighting games. We have an XBOX 360 in the lunch room, where many of us play Street Fighter IV and Marvel vs. Capcom 3 during lunch breaks. On special days, we even do double-elimination tournaments, where I’ll bring in my PS3 (office platform of choice) and everyone will bring in their own controllers and fightsticks so that we can battle it out.
At our most recent tournament, one of my coworkers brought in his Hori Real Arcade Pro V3-SA, which I’ve been anxious to get my hands on. Though my Hori experiences have been mixed at best, I have yet to try any of their high-end models. Having spent about 45 minutes putting it through its paces in Super Street Fighter IV matches and training mode, I thought it’d be worth sharing my experiences with anyone who is considering picking this particular fightstick up.
The Mad Catz fightstick situation in Canada is horrible nowadays. Unlike in the United States, where many different local and online retailers carry the whole line, Mad Catz products are technically only available at EBGames/Gamestop here. When they were available, each store would have maybe one TE and one SE. However, Gamestop has not replenished their supply in months, and I don’t think intend on doing so anytime soon.
As if it did not suck enough that my Hori PS3 Tekken 6 stick broke, my brother and I’s Hori XBOX 360 Tekken 6 stick began failing almost 24 hours later.
When I bought this stick almost two months ago, I figured that it would work out just fine as a casual stick to play Street Fighter with. I initially planned to use it only for when I play my coworkers on PSN, which I figured wouldn’t be much at the time.
Well, it ended up being a lot. As in, over 100 hours a lot. Has it withstood the crazy amount of stress I’ve put it through during these last two months?
Wii owners with a fighting game itch have very little to scratch it. While Tatsunoko vs. Capcom is awesome and there are no shortage of Street Fighter games on Virtual Console, it still pales in comparison to the plethora of fighting games on the XBOX 360 and Playstation 3. On top of that, joystick options are limited too. All Wii owners have are the Mad Catz SE fightstick packed in with Tatsunoko vs. Capcom, the Hori Wii fightstick and the Intec Combat Arcade Stick, which I don’t trust one bit.
I still want the Mad Catz stick, but in my country I can only get it with Tatsunoko vs. Capcom; a game I already have. Instead, I grabbed the Nintendo Wii Fightstick by Hori. My experience with Hori has been hit and miss, but after putting it through its paces, this one thankfully is in the former category.
In Third Person 
