One of The Best Video Game Controllers on The Market - Sega Dreamcast
Written: Jun 06 '05
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Nice fit, tons of controls, lasts a long time, two memory card slots.
Cons: It makes other game controllers look like crap.
The Bottom Line: To me this is the best video game controller on the market.
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| Freak369's Full Review: Sega Controller for Dreamcast |
I had an ongoing obsession with Crazy Taxi for the better part of six months. I was always trying to beat scores, see how many passengers I could pick up and trying to remember all the different spots where people wanted to go. Even though the game got slightly repetitive, I still loved it to death. That was one of the few games that I purchased for the Dreamcast; the boys had some fighting games and some kid games but most of the time it was used when I needed to get my Crazy Taxi fix. I was about 200 points from beating my high score and I hit some weird glitch with the game when I picked up a passenger underwater - I couldn’t get the car out of the water and the time was ticking away. I got so irked that I threw the controller. It wasn’t until I went to pick it up the next morning that I saw that there was a huge crack in the side of it, even then, I tried to overlook it saying “it’s just a crack” when in reality it was something that made gripping the right side of the controller impossible. I needed to get a replacement so I figured that I’d try some of the other brands on the market. None of them even came close to what the original Sega controller offered in the way of comfort and features.
Dreamcast Game Controller
One of the things that I really love about this controller is the way that it fits in your hand. The Playstation ones are nice but they are a little too small and they make my hands cramp up after about two hours of using them. Since this is larger than the PS controller there is more to grip and hold on to. There are four buttons that control the action most of the time [A red, B blue, X yellow, Y green] and there’s enough space between them so you aren’t accidentally hitting them when you are moving fast. There’s also a four way [sometimes eight way depending on the game you are playing] pad on the left side. This moves nicely and there’s rarely any slippage or mismovements. If that’s not enough there’s two trigger buttons on the bottom side that are nice and deep, great for repetitive firing of guns or accelerating a vehicle [a must for Crazy Taxi]. But the best feature in the control department is the analog stick. This isn’t in the best spot but once you get used to the placement of it and how it is used for different games it is really nice to have on the controller.
The ‘start’ button is out of the way so it doesn’t accidentally get bumped when you are really into a game, on some games this pauses or takes you to a different menu - something that can really screw you up if you are trying to concentrate or beat a part of a game. The cord runs out of the bottom of it and it never gets in the way. I don’t have a measuring stick or tape measure but I’d have to say that the cord is a good six feet long so you don’t have to sit right in front of the unit when you are playing a game. This is nice if you have the television on a stand or in an entertainment unit - you don’t have to sit on the floor or have your butt go numb when you are playing. As far as memory card slots, the Dreamcast controller has ports on the controller instead of in the unit. This is a great feature if you want to use a VMU [visual memory unit] with your game because you can keep the card in the controller so it doesn’t get damaged. The only downside to this is that if you don’t have a rumble pack or memory card inside the controller it does get dusty and you need to keep it clean or it could cause problems when you do insert a card or pack.
When I started shopping around for a replacement controller for the Dreamcast I tried out some other brands and didn’t like them at all. They were smaller or the features of the controller didn’t function as smoothly as the one that came with the unit so I started looking for the Sega brand. Since these are pretty hard to come by new [at least when I was looking for them they were hard to find] I looked online and picked up a brand new one for five dollars. To me that is a great deal because none of the other aftermarket controllers really feel as nice as the one that came with the unit. It’s easy to clean when you get some surface dirt on it from your hands and when dust accumulated on the sides of the pads or buttons you can get to them easily with a cotton swab. Even though this is a light gray color it does stay pretty clean but there will be times when you’ll need to do some maintenance on it to keep it functioning properly.
The Bottom Line
If you have a Dreamcast then you know how awesome the controllers are and how nicely they fit in your hands. If you are thinking about buying something else to replace one or to try to see if the others work better - save your money. There are some that offer you more buttons or a different lay out but they have sloppy movement within a game. I have Nintendo NES, Sega Dreamcast, PS1, PS2, Sega CD / Genesis and all the handhelds [Gameboy, GBA, Nomad, N-Gage etc] and out of all the video game controls I have to say that the Sega Dreamcast beats them all hands down. Chances are if I hadn’t thrown the first one at the wall I wouldn’t have had to go out and buy a replacement - then again, I wouldn’t have had the chance to try the other models out and really appreciate the original!
As always, thanks for the read!
~^V^~ Freak ~^V^~
© 2005 Freak369
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Recommended:
Yes
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