leimrod.com » street fighter

Notebook Review: Fujitsu Pi 3560

leimrod — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 14:52:32 +0000

I’m going to be selling off my desktops in the next month or so, so I went about looking for a cheap desktop replacement notebook. I didn’t want to break the bank getting one, but I also didn’t want to have to do without some of the games I play regularly. I ended up finding this notebook, the Fujitsu Amilo Pi 3560 going for really cheap on the website dabs.ie.

Here are the specs:

Intel® Core™2 Duo processor T6600 (2.2GHz, 800MHz FSB, 2MB SLC)
4096 MB (2 x 2048 MB DDR2 @ 800MHz)
500 GB SATA HDD (5400rpm)
Blu-ray Disc™ drive
5 in 1 card reader
Gbps LAN
Integrated Wireless 802.11b/g/pre-n
Bluetooth v2.1
16″ HD LED backlit, BrilliantView 16:9 aspect ratio Resolution: 1366 x 768
NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 240M with 1 GB DDR3 VRAM @ 800 MHz

It was a refurb with no OS, but I decided to take the risk and get it anyway. It paid off, there was some bad sectors on the HDD initially, which is the probable reason as to why no OS was installed, but I cleared them out by running a quick sweep of DBAN on it.

After that, the install of the OS went fine and it’s been running without issues for over a week now. I installed some games on it, to see how it handled them and I was blown away to be honest. I tried Crysis Warhead on it first, expecting it run fairly sluggishly, but I ended up getting it to run really smooth, with a custom config I got from Shadowdane.

Watch the videos below that I recorded and edited to showcase how well it runs the games: Crysis Warhead, Mirrors Edge, Need for Speed: Shift and Street Fighter IV

Mad Catz TE FightStick: Faceplate Mod

leimrod — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 17:53:17 +0000

Don’t think I’ve mentioned this on here before (even though I’ve reviewed the game earlier this year) but I’m a huge Street Fighter IV fan. I play for at least a half hour every day to stop the rust from settling in and to try out some new stuff in the training mode. Being honest, most days I end up spending a lot more time than that (although Fallout 3 has been eating into that time a lot lately). Anyway, after trying the game with a PS3 controller first, moving over to a Saturn Replica controller I finally accepted that if I was to try and get even remotely competent with the game I’d need an arcade stick. I looked around and, probably, got caught up in the hype and bought a Mad Catz Tournament Edition FightStick. It’s done me well, and is excellent for Street Fighter IV. I’d read it has all top quality parts but, meh, I don’t really pay attention to that, if it works it works.

Anyway, I was kinda getting bored with the artwork on the faceplate of the stick so started searching around the net for a way to change this. I came across this thread on the SRK Forums (if you are into Street Fighter at all you are probably already a member) and after a few emails back and forth with the guy, I designed some artworks and sent them on to him to be printed. A week after the payment cleared they arrived in the post.

That night, pretty much, I installed the new faceplate. It was such a relief for it to fit in place exactly. Usual with custom made parts that are coming from another country I always have the slight fear that they just won’t match up for some when they are being installed, which causes the headache of sending them back… etc. To have it just screw into place like the stick was always meant to have this faceplate was excellent, and I take my hat off to the guy who makes these plates.

As you can see in the gallery below. I got a second artwork printed should I ever get bored of the one I have currently. I’ve also designed a 3rd artwork which I’ll get printed in time for the release of Super Street Fighter IV (whenever that may be?)

If you have any questions or want to know the specifics of how the faceplate was installed (it’s fairly straight forward) then leave a comment and I’ll be sure to reply.

Look what just arrived in the post

leimrod — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 11:43:55 +0000

My new Sega Saturn Pads… Alright, they aren’t really actual “Sega” pads, more like very, very good knock-offs from China that I bought off ebay. Recently I bought myself a copy of Street Fighter IV, along with it I also got myself one of the SFIV edition Madcatz controllers. It was a good controller, but I felt I had reached my limits with it (i.e. I’d whiff 3 out of 5 of Akumas air fireballs) so I sold it on with the intention of getting myself a decent arcade stick instead. As the days rolled by indecision set in and I realized I didn’t just want a controller for fight games, I wanted one I could also use with a laptop to play ROMs of old SNES and Sega platformers while commuting somewhere. It was a recommendation for these Sega Saturn controllers from a friend in work, and also some people on the internet that piqued my interest. As I did my research I found that these controllers where being heralded as having the best D-Pads around, great for fight games. Unfortunately, Sega do not make these controllers anymore, so you can either risk buying them second hand or buy some of the knock-offs.

Initially I was wary about the knock-offs, understandably, but from further reading online I discovered that these knock-offs where found to usually be either equal or better than the original pads. I was sold. They where cheap so why not. I bought them and, surprisingly, a week later they arrived in the post from China (we really do live in a global village). I immediately plugged them into my PS3, powered it up and they just worked. I loaded into Street Fighter IV and instantly they just felt better. The D-Pad is just more fluid to use than the stock Xbox 360 or PS3 controller. The D-Pad on the Xbox 360 has to be the worst I’ve ever used, it’s like a hairy wart on an otherwise excellent controller. I had hoped to use my Xbox 360 pads for ROM’s, but even something like Super Mario Bros is a pain when being played with the 360 controller. The PS3 has a better D-Pad, in fact you can play SFIV pretty well with it, but I found I hit a ceiling pretty fast in how far I could go with it. The lack of 6 face buttons and the feel of the D-Pad made it awkward to pull off more complicated combos and focus breaks.

Overall, the design of this pad is geared towards simplicity. It’s wired and super light, it also has 6 face buttons, needed for fight games in my opinion, especially in Street Fighter with its low, medium and high strength kicks and punches. It also has 2 shoulder buttons, tapered out to make them feel comfortable to rest your index fingers on. But what really separates this pad from the rest is the fantastic D-Pad, as far as I was able to find out, even though it’s floating (i.e. 1 whole piece sitting above the controller) underneath each direction has a separate button. It makes pulling of movements and combos a lot easier. Immediately I was able to get back to the same level as I was with the PS3 controller and started to improve. I can now pull off Akumas air fireballs with ease, and hurricane kicks and hadokens are second nature now. As for ROM’s, well I’ve been playing through Super Mario Bros and its finally a joy again.

It’s amazing how something as simple as a good D-Pad has been consistantly designed wrong or overlooked in the last few generations of game controllers. If you are looking to get into fighting games but don’t fancy a stick or are looking for something to use to dust off that old ROM collection then I can’t recommend these controllers enough. Just do a search on ebay for them.

**UPDATE** The D-Pad on both of these controllers have since broken. From doing some research I’ve found that they are not counterfeits, however they are defective original Sega Saturn Pads. In Japan, the pads I have where the first version, but it was found that the plastic that was used for the D-Pad was prone to breaking, due to its design and also the plastic used. In the second revision, the D-Pad was redesigned and they used a much more durable Nylon plastic for it. Visually the only way to tell the difference between the revisions is that the newer ones are gray with some blue buttons. If you are considering getting these, make sure you purchase the gray colored ones.

More info here: Saturn Digital gamepad