Fear the Mad Catz - The Worst Video Game Controllers Ever

Here's a name that's sure to send a chill down your Mad Cats column woo H. I have a very strong feeling that more than a few of you don't know what Mad Cats is. Well, I can't say I blame them for their relevance in the 2000s, they quickly fell into obscurity and were abandoned by a gaming industry that was very happy to forget about them, but I n

ever

forgot how they were able to ruin

video

game

s not only for me but also for many others in a deeply personal way now yes, some of you may not know them or why my hatred for them burns hotter than a pizza oven on the surface of the Sun, but you will soon know.

Today we embark on a kaleidoscopic adventure spanning a sea of ​​systems decades deep. a trip, no explorer in their right mind should start a quest to track down and buy

ever

y possible Mad Cats controller we can and at the end of this I promise you will find out why we all

fear

ed the Mad Cats. Mad Cats was a third-party

video

game

peripheral company that supplied gamers in the '90s and '00s with

controllers

and also peripherals like this seems pretty harmless, right? all over the country, let me paint you a picture, it's 1997, your friend calls you on your family's landline and tells you you have to come over right now, my mom just let me rent Mario Kart 64 from Blockbuster, you hang up the phone and you hurry As you walk out the door, excited to engage in some face-to-face cing action, your friend welcomes you into his home and guides you to the sacred sanctuary of the family room.

The television turned on with the warm radiant glow of a CRT illuminates the living room that your friend inserts. the game on the console and press the power switch, they grab their trusty controller, the one that came with the console, but then your friend turns to you and says these exact words, you can play with this controller, you enter the game, but something failure. You try your best to challenge your partner, but it's useless, they kick your ass from Block Fort to skyscrapers, they claim victory over and over again, any game, any genre, any setting, it didn't matter, you were powerless and soon you give up. realize that it was.

You that was failing was that damn controller they loaded you with, it was staring at you from your shaking hands, that logo, the crazy cat cut from Doom, oh, you thought that was fiction? That boy visiting his friend, that was me. I didn't have a Nintendo 64 when I was a kid, this low-speed controller transfer was a recurring reality I had to endure and they always seemed like crazy cats, always in person. I had no experience with the brand before these disturbing gaming sessions, but let me tell you. I sure learned to hate them Very quickly, this was common everywhere, not just for me, the first players never had problems playing, they used a controller ordered by Nintendo as the fair choice, the second players around the world, although they They sat with Contraptions' disgusting game controls.

That taught us to despise this scarlet scratch. Some of you looking at me may think I'm being overly dramatic and I tell you I don't think I'm being dramatic enough. How can I convey how hateful it was to wear these? specific gaming products. I guess the only way is to show firsthand how inferior the quality of Mad Cat was, controller after controller, and that's the journey I'll take you on today. You'll see for yourselves how Mad Cats got his tainted reputation and I hope it holds up. to my mental faculties while I play more Mad Cats

controllers

in a row than probably anyone else on the entire planet.

I can't believe we bought Mad Cats controllers. Seriously, I can't while I prepare to run this Gauntlet, let's talk some more. about third-party controllers Mad Cats wasn't the only company in Block Hawking's off-brand gaming team, but they were the name every kid knew Mad Cats was everywhere and people, I mean, everywhere Where I've had friends, they tell me you can find their stuff. in grocery stores, people probably next to the cat litter, crazy cats had infested the play market, retailers sold their products and people voluntarily picked them up, but why the hell were people buying crazy cats?

Well, it is the third-party video game accessory. Since the rise of the home gaming console, there have been companies whose entire business model was to make additional controllers and accessories for other companies' gaming platforms like this one, the Quickshot Chimera 2, a controller that features joysticks for the NES, a totally different input method than what came included with the console and it works, the joystick offered the player more precision than a standard NES dpad or how about the Hy Mini pad for Nintendo 64, one of my favorites, a completely renewed design for the original Nintendo 64 which for many players improved ergonomics, comfort and usability or this tilt of Champ's Power Pad, a player can activate pressing buttons with movement, sure trying to replace the simple d-pad inputs with tilt does not work very well, but it's definitely different okay yeah obviously not every third party controller was a winner some were fun to use and some were superficial gimmicks and some made you want to throw the controller through the wall but when they worked , they were able to enrich the gaming experience beyond what a system originally came with, at least that's how I remember it.

The people I knew who had these wacky devices didn't think so negatively about them. Your gaming prowess may vary when using them, but hey, they were trying something different, okay, so when they first appeared on store shelves there was no reason to look at them. The Mad Cat controller is different from other product that had not yet scared its reputation. How they continued to sell over the years. Well, we'll get to that in due time, but first we need to look at what the quality of Mad Cat was like near the beginning. and that brings us to our first controller, many believe that the Mad Cats first appeared on the scene during the Nintendo 64 PlayStation and Saturn era, but that is wrong because they had Unleashed products for SNES on Genesis like this, the control panel Mad Cat with what I assume is the original Mad Cat logo and possibly their most interesting logo design.

He is an attractive cat, it is an excellent crazy compliment at first glance. It doesn't look like anything special, just an imitation of the Genesis gam pad. I expected this to work terribly if it worked. everything, but here's the good thing, folks, this is solid. I know, I know I just criticized the company before for shoddy products, but I'd be lying to you if I wasn't at least fair about this, it's well built and despite being. the older controller we'll look at today feels like a real Genesis controller The Shield style d-pad is responsive as are the face buttons, which I didn't expect, oh I know an awesome concept, Mad Cats, a company synonymous with terrible.

The products made quality equipment at one time, but I tell the unbelievers that this here is good, very, very good. Additionally, it's not just a typical Genesis controller like many of the third-party controller manufacturers at the time tried to differentiate themselves from source hardware. and to do that they made use of the ultimate ability that 90's gamers craved, turbo features, these switches on the top, hit them and Bam, rapid fire mode, and that's not all they can do, set the switch to Auto and the controller can perform constant button inputs. without you touching anything at all cruise control for your inputs in the Genesis, what is this about the future?

If that wasn't enough, they also included slow motion mode, yes you heard me right, it is simulated by rapid auto triggering of the home button. You can see it in action here with sck the Hedgehog 3 in the intro Sonic 3 has a clean paw screen so maybe it looks a bit like slow motion, it feels more like the game stutters if you ask me but this could have been useful for moving. The super difficult parts of the game, if your game was stopped using the start button, here's something fun in Sonic 3 if you crouch while activating the Auto Rapid Fire switch, Sonic will spin faster than I've ever heard in my entire life.

I had to go fast. I'm surprised one of his first controllers wasn't bad, so I guess they didn't start out wasting our money, but this was just the beginning because they don't think about most gamers. this fun little Genesis Gamepad when they hear crazy cats no, our scars are from the next generation. The rise of 3D gaming, the market changed at this time in a very specific way, giving crazy cats the foothold they needed to take advantage of unsuspecting gamers everywhere. Since the NES and NES were originally ready for multiplayer action, it wasn't impossible to find two controllers included with a console when you bought it in the next generation of consoles, although it prevented an industry-wide trend from spreading to the Nintendo 64, Sony PlayStation and Sega Saturn if you wanted any of these super advanced consoles you would get a gam pad at launch, sure there would be occasional special bundles like the N64 Atomic purple bundle that came with an extra controller but those were exceptions and were introduced much later after from this.

A larger number of gamers were looking for additional control options than in the past, many of whom were used to having two gamepads, so the massive rise of third-party controllers began. They were a side effect of the systems not having multiple controllers included for players, which can be blamed. First party for these people, they caused this unfortunate chain reaction. I've been dreading this moment since we started this video, but here we go, this is an unmodified original in perfect condition according to its eBay listing. Nintendo 64 Mad Cats Controller, a plastic monstrosity that haunted my childhood, the biggest difference between this and an original Nintendo controller, Mad Cats changed the direction of the expansion slot which is supposed to point downward from the back of the controller , they decided to leave it sticking out from the top for some reason, it just gets in the way. of the controller cable when you connect things.

I really don't know what they were thinking. I'm sure everyone is looking at this and wondering intensely how broken that joystick is. Well, let's figure it out. to play a Japanese imported Nintendo 64 game that was never released for the North American Nintendo 64 irritating electric stick this game depends entirely on the quality of the analog stick your controller is armed with you guide a tour through an electrified maze under a limit of set time running along paths while slowly cutting corners you need precision for this to work any issues with the analog stick here will be highlighted 10 times I'm pitting the crazy cats against an original Nintendo 64 controller, both unmodified and both loosened from years of use, they are close in age to the parody, but have about the same flaws, to my surprise the analog stick wasn't a complete failure, it's worse than a real controller, don't get me wrong, you might not notice it unless you Compare them again.

To return as I did, it was important to equip both controllers with a rumble package, as the violent movement of your controller every time you hit the side of the field and miss is fundamental to the tension this game generates in the player, it is not a problem for any officer. Nintendo 64 controller, the Mad Cats, although I quickly discovered that this gamepad does not work with a Rumble pack, this was really stupid, it is probably also incompatible with other accessories, apparently this is a known problem, the only remedy you would have is to buy it . the advanced game if they had released it a year later to get Rumble support it doesn't help you if you bought this crap Mad Cats could have made their expansion port cheaper or something but I really don't know this is why it could be You might think that aside from the expansion slot issues it wasn't that terrible, but no, there are reasons why this bad boy stuck with me all these years.

The ZT trigger on the back, wobbly and spongy, may be from age, but it's the official controller. from the same era does not have this problem when pressing the side button on the far edges, however if you move closer to the center of the controller for each button they do not move, this is a construction problem, it is not aging. Hardware they were built for. hinge at the pressed corners instead of a full button press I guess they didn't care, even the d-pad, which is iconic for Nintendo controllers, was converted to a shield-style design that is both squishy and squeaky to the touch. same time, but the most offensive of all.

The A and B buttons are not responding, watch my race in Mario Kart 64 here, you can see me press the button toaccelerate, but Mario doesn't move an inch, you have to push down hard to make the car move. almost unusable as a face button could become oh, it also has the slow motion and turbo functions like the Genesis Gamepad, but the buttons are already so terrible that I don't really care what additional functions this useless controller might have now, the controllers Nintendo 64 are safe. They're older now, even Nintendo's own releases have their own special issues, especially a well-used analog stick, but I'm not comparing this controller to a new one or even a clean, refurbished model, this is a well-loved long model. -Used Nintendo 64 controller, it's from the same era and has probably seen more action over the years compared to this Mad Cats.

The difference here is due to the build quality. Mad Cats showed their hand with this controller, a look at their quality standards. The warning shot for gamers everywhere, a message that was loud and clear to anyone who dared to play with their devices, crazy cats are crazy trash. Imagine, when this was new, you brought it home and they broke it after a few plays, if it even worked to begin with. with then later the rumble package comes out you find out it doesn't work with it you couldn't bring it back to the store for a refund they had your money and you had a useless controller sounds like a scam right?

It's not a scam now you can buy another Mad Cat controller which is two controllers for the price of two. Not only was the company making its own cheaper variations of original console controllers, but it was also making special equipment for Razer simulation fans. This is a Mad Cat steering wheel for the Nintendo 64. It has a built-in analog Rumble steering wheel and a set of analog pedals for acceleration and braking. I saw this advertised in gaming magazines in the past, it featured two guys stealing the steering wheel directly from a racing car during an active competition. message here, were they dirty thieves or were they probably making quality steering wheels that were at least as good as the real thing, yeah well past experiences lead me to believe this will be highly unlikely, but anyway let's give this a spin , no matter what.

I played and found that the wheel crashes half the time, sometimes it would crash in the same game the second or third time I played it, if it worked mid-run I would lose connection. I don't think I actually saw it. There was a disconnection warning before with a wired controller properly plugged in so I thought the connection cable might be damaged, but even when I didn't touch anything you still saw the warning turn on and off randomly, it's like I have a poor wireless connection Despite being connected for brief moments, I managed to get some titles to work with analogue steering, but in other cases it seemed to work more like a d-pad, taking sharp left and right turns instantly and sometimes The controls were locked in a specific direction. and the problems are not just with the steering, many aspects of this controller are poorly built, this little shifter is not a shifter, it's just a pull with the seat buttons, the shifter itself is very wobbly, its age is bad, your guess is as good as mine, the controller plug doesn't sit flush with the console port like other controllers, it's also incredibly difficult to insert correctly, it seems to get stuck once you plug it in, which makes it so hard to get it out I'm afraid it might damage my Nintendo 64 this is an original build quality issue these ports didn't get bigger or smaller over time the buttons are soft and the d-pad pops up all at once without a dot of kingpin which is always a sign of a lack of care, this is not at all the quality that the magazine ad boasted about, the only thing these two thieves were stealing was my money when buying this thing, friends, I gave this sad Wheel of Doom too many chances and it failed on all fronts at the time.

I gave up and threw in the towel that was when the built in vibration motor seemed to malfunction and got stuck in earthquake mode, I just sat there vibrating endlessly, this is an incredibly unreliable product, oh well, so far, the Madcat's Nintendo 64 devices have lived up to the challenge. due to their poor quality legacy designs with components that don't hold up over time, but they weren't just making inferior N64 products. I found another Relic from this generation this time for PlayStation. I couldn't find any normal Mad Cats controller for the console, but it looks like it's going to be even better, this is the arcade style phaser light gun from Mad Cats, that's the official name of the phaser you know from Star Trek, this one, to my understanding, it looks specifically like the type of two-handed phaser used in the first one. 1979 Star Trek movie, not that I knew any of that offhand or anything that was originally sold with two different controller port adapters, one for the original PlayStation and the other for the sake of Saturn, when I discovered this, I just It came with the PlayStation.

I imagine this would double the value of your purchase if you could use it for either system, if you had both back then, but it also doubled the profits of Mad Cats, a bias in two console markets, yes, I think that's why . They did, by the time I picked this up I was excited to blast my way through one of my favorite light gun games of all time, Point Blank, an absolute arcade classic. I played with my real Namco gun first, you know, science plays like a dream, then I changed it to the phaser from Mad Cats, it didn't work.

That's when I learned something really fun about the phaser from Mad Cats. It is a standard L gun controller compared to Namco's synchronized light gun controller. Each game must be programmed specifically to work with each one. light gun style, some titles support both, some don't The most important thing for me was the fact that my favorite L gun games, like all those made by Namco, do not work with a Mad Cats phaser at all, but Lucky for me I have a copy of Die Hard Trilogy 2 Viva Las Vegas that is compatible with both controllers, so how do they compare in a shootout?

Well, the gun's aim on each front was better and much more accurate, and for some reason, every time I fired the phaser, the screen wobbled. That didn't happen with the gun, it's probably just a standard effect like the gun I guess, so maybe I can't blame the crazy cats for that, what I can point out is the abhorrent design of the controller, okay for the world from Star Trek, but not for reality. In the gaming world, they put the buttons in a position that has no place to rest your hand, so there is no comfortable way to use them.

Now you can hold it like this and then maybe here and touch the first two buttons on each side, but whenever you want. getting to the start button you have to use your middle finger, this sucks, compare it to the clever placement of the buttons on the gun barrel and it's obvious to see how the phaser is much worse. I needed a standard light pistol. look for a different model, something that looks less like Captain Kirk. He has it tied to his pants. We're some controllers deep into our Mad Cats Extravaganza and some of you may be thinking, well, this may have been your experience, Shane, but I've never bought a Mad Cats controller.

I knew it was a serious gamer to some, that could very well be true, but I bet many of you bought Mad Cats and didn't even know how Mad Cats could possibly supply companies with controllers for them. to hide their own branding in plain sight remember that the Sega Genesis controller we took a look at at the beginning, Well Toys, Rust renamed it with the name high frequency, that's right, these two controllers are identical, they are both crazy cats, are they really did you need them? Buying two duplicate old controllers just to prove this point didn't, but I did.

He was a serious player. Toys R Us used the exact same name to sell Mad Cats Nintendo 64 controllers and check out these photos taken inside the store a year ago. 2000, all of these here are brand name high frequency drivers, but make no mistake, these plastic imposters are secretly made by angry kittens. I can't say for sure how many other brands at the time were actually crazy cats in disguise. There is no repository for this information. but I can say for sure, about a decade later, another piece of crazy cat camouflage appeared on hardware controllers rebranded with GameStop, this little wireless GameCube controller might say GameStop on the front, but it's pretty high to have a dirty secret on the front. back, this means that over the years, some gamers were playing on Mad Cats devices all the time and they didn't know it, buddy, you're playing with Mad Cats, all that fun N64 and Playstation stuff that was just an appetizer for the main course that is the sixth generation of consoles.

If you know Mad Cats from this generation, that's probably why you know them, their rise as a controller maker of infamy was during this time and why due to the PlayStation 2 of that generation, Mad Cats refines its strategy and sells products of Lower quality for less than competitors. Aimed at the broadest population of money-conscious consumers, whether you were a kid trying to stretch your allowance as far as you could or a parent who simply didn't know that the extra $10 made a difference, there was always someone willing to buy the cheapest. The off-brand thing and the incredible sales of the ps2 brought in a massive new base of consumers potentially looking for affordable accessories for their new favorite console, just like the previous generation this one also launched with a single controller in the box.

Mad Cats bombarded the market with different game models. pads at this time meant big numbers for the company. The first full year after the PS2 hit shelves, Madcat's net sales increased by 50%, so yes, people were buying them and now I'm going to look at some of their PS2 offerings to see if things They could have gotten worse, it's probably going to get worse. Fun fact during my Mad Cat hunting safari. PlayStation 2 game controllers were the most common Mad Cats controllers I came across. I found four to make sense, since we said it was the dominant platform of its time it was likely that more people would buy one of these knockoffs on that platform to try them all.

I decided to play Metal Gear Solid 2 Sons of Liberty, this was one of the first games I played on PlayStation 2 that made full use of all the advanced pressure sensitive buttons, the directional pad, face buttons and triggers are all pressure sensitive. pressure, meaning they can register lighter and stronger inputs and the game behaves accordingly. You can watch it here with the official Playstation Two controller. You can run or walk with just one directional control depending on how hard you press down. Looking around in first person is adjusted by pressing the L2 and R2 buttons, press a little, move a little and the face buttons are very similar, but of course, analog sticks are almost essential when playing a game like mgs2, as you can sneak around by gently tilting the joystick in total 360° freedom, something the d-pad alone can't do.

It is clear that this is a good game to test these four controllers, let's get started. We're going with the official Mad Cats gam pad 200 series, an all-black design with rigid plastic ribs on the side to create the illusion of a functional grip. The Mad Cats really seem to think people drop their controllers a lot and added ribbed grips to pretty much everything I made. I don't have to test this controller for long, as I noticed right away that it has a broken home button. Next up is the Mad Cats Force 2 Pro microcon dual controller. The Mad Cats controllers are sometimes called the little brother controller because the little brothers usually get stuck with the off-brand controller, I can't imagine what else would have inspired them to make such small versions of their controllers, so I personally think that That's why they made the inline micro for younger players with smaller hands.

This controller has a working home button, which is an improvement. but it has a broken d-pad, the left steering doesn't work two down and so far we haven't even moved the snake inside the boat in the game, it's really starting to get soaked from all that rain on deck number three, it's the crazy cats . retrocon was clearly designed to look more like an original Nintendo Entertainment System controller. Why don't I know? This design is not that comfortable, especially the side buttons on the top, they are super tight and instead of being one on the top. from each other, they are next to each other, now they are less intuitiveto switch between them and much less comfortable to use despite its smaller appearance, it has all the functions of a real PS2 controller, pressure sensitivity and Rumble included, but the left stick is broken. this is unplayable, it jumps wildly when you move it in any direction and if you leave it alone it automatically moves down.

I think you know where this is going. This is the full size Dual Force 2 Pro, the larger model of the blue microcom with the broken D-pad and guess what each button here seems to work on, yes, no, no, no, false alarm, the joysticks are rubbish, They're too sensitive, cautiously pushing the joysticks just a little bit instantly sends an exaggerated heavy motion input, meaning all analog function. These analog sticks are gone to do any game that requires precision input, like aiming a gun or sneaking around something Metal Gear Solid is all about. Well, it's incredibly difficult to complete now, if not impossible, even if you looked past the broken controls and broken inputs.

The pressure-sensitive features of each of these controllers felt stiffer and harder to use than my official PlayStation 2 controller. They are basically the same age and my PS2 controllers have seen a lot of use. I also took one out with a very weak analogue. It sticks to give Mad Cats a slightly unfair advantage, but even then the official controller was much friendlier to the game than anything Mad Cats offered to top it all off. The Mad Cats PS2 memory card I found doesn't work at all. The PS2 does not. Don't even record its existence just as a matter of order, never buy 3rd party memory cards for systems made during this era folks, the risk to your saves isn't worth it, nothing that says crazy cats, avoid which I believe which is becoming the lesson of this video, so that was every PlayStation 2 controller and accessory that was in a broken state.

Oh, that reminds me that's where you belong, in the trash, a pile of controllers and none of them are playable except all my originals. The PlayStation 2 hardware still works great, the difference is that those third party game controllers became cheaper and didn't have the same build quality; However, I did get a four-port multitap adapter for the Mad Cats PlayStation 2 that was fully functional with the four controllers I was able to play. If it weren't for fate, cruel fate, cruel fate, the PlayStation 2 ended up becoming one of the most successful consoles of all time and when they attracted the attention of the majority of gamers, this is what they were serving, they thought that they were earning a lot. sales, but what they were really doing was creating a bunch of enemies they'd never forget and it wasn't just the gam pads they released for the PS2 when the dance rhythm game Crazy hit North America, you better believe they were in everything too. that market with dance pads like this one, this one stinks now that I played Konami's Dance Dance Revolution series in arcades and When they bring these things home, Konami created their own line of official dance pads, you have sensitive regions pressure representing button inputs combined with a long cable to play further away from your console.

Rubberized bottom to prevent it from slipping on the floor it is on. and a moisture-wicking plastic top that can be easily wiped clean, came out in the early 2000s even though this piece of heart is decades old, now this Dance Pad is immaculate, absolutely perfect, this helped the home launch of the DDR series become a success. Of course, the crazy cats tried to break dance on Konami's $49.99 Dance Pad with its own beat pad for PlayStation 2 at $19.99, that's a $30 savings, so what does that get you? to get a much worse Dance Pad when comparing them side by side? all the imperfections come out, the rubber bottom is missing like the original device which means it can slide under you when you use it, the core to connect to your console is much shorter, the top is not made of a Moisture resistant plastic, in fact, it seems to absorb moisture, which is terribly disgusting when I tried to clean it, it absorbed liquids like a sponge.

This thing probably retained the foot sweat of everyone who danced before me. I made all the dance pads that also serve as a pat for your amazing dance, dance. Revolution dance pads work as a pmat for all the amazing crazy cats out there. I touched it and, in true crazy cat fashion, it doesn't respond as well to your dance moves. It's noticeably terrible compared to the official Dance Pad, maybe all that dirty foot sweat. I damaged the internal components. In fact, I paid more for the Mad Cats deck than I did for the Konami deck in very good condition.

I feel like I've been scammed. No, no, I don't feel like it. I know they scammed me. They scammed me buying dance. pads I don't even play DDR that well and yet I have two of these things that talk about things I overpaid for. Check out this portable racing steering wheel controller from Mad Cat, a big, clunky, awkward-to-hold design that's totally straight out of an RC car. remote I had reviewed this hate a few years ago because it stumped me so much that they tried to sell it by putting a quote from professional racing superstar Mario Drey on the box.

The number one portable racing wheel for PlayStation sounds to me like Mr. andred never tried competing products like these nion and jogon from Namco. Both designs are much smaller, easier to hold, and much more sophisticated. Both are much more fun to use and play, as they simulate the function of a steering wheel much more accurately and comfortably than what MadCat created, but people weren't willing to give up steering wheels for the next device. I'm going to change it a little bit up to this point. I have been evaluating heavily used and possibly damaged old used drivers. by other users, but not this one, we are going to unbox a brand new Mad Cats premium product, still wrapped in its original plastic, the Mad Cats Universal mc2 steering wheel, the abbreviation MC means mad cats, so it means that the full title of this thing is mad cats Mad cats 2 universal steering wheel, that's a really stupid name, unlike the Nintendo 64 steering wheel we played with before, it is designed to work on multiple consoles PlayStation 1, Gamecube, Xbox and, most importantly for me at the moment, Playstation 2, if we are going to be trying this I can only think of one simulation racing game that is worth trying.

Grand Turismo 4, you can use it both on a table or in your lab, they even have these slots under the steering wheel with some pop up leg supports, unfortunately while I was playing this way I found that the wheel shook every time I tried to place my feet to operate the pedals, it's very restrictive and honestly I'm not a fan of the tabletop mode, it looks good here, it has a gauge that shows how much pressure it works. You're pushing the pedals, which is a nice touch I guess, but I really don't know if that would be useful for any game you'd play.

I would be looking for the speed of my vehicle, which is not there. I know how. how much pressure am I applying, I'm the one applying it, plus I wouldn't really be looking down while I'm busy concentrating on driving my car correctly, speaking of steering, where the hell is it? I can barely keep any pressure. vehicle on the road driving straight next to Impossible tight turns wide turns no matter everything felt so incredibly unresponsive I checked the manual to see what was going on and it said there was some calibration function that needed to be set up in a fun way the Nintendo 64 steering wheel I didn't need this, it just worked when I plugged it in.

I mean, you know when the console registered the steering wheel as connected anyway. I fiddled with the settings, tweaking them every way possible. I couldn't say anything I did, I did this. Everything worked correctly to verify that it was the steering wheel and not the game or perhaps my terrible skills. I ran a race with an official PlayStation 2 controller and it worked fine, I did spins and everything, so here we have a new Mad Cats controller in our inbox. human hands wrapped in an intact seal and it's not working properly now, maybe this controller has degraded in all this time of not being used, the components failed or maybe there was some kind of manufacturing issue or heck, this could have been damaged along of the years. someone was legitimately playing kickball with the box, so I checked reviews written two decades ago when this piece of crap was first released.

Guess what, both a CET reviewer and a Gamespot reviewer addressed the same concerns as me as if we were kindred spirits. separated through time joined by an incredibly horrible steering wheel at different points in history and I think it's worth reiterating that this steering wheel wasn't just for PlayStation, this product also has connectors for GameCube and Xbox, not only do they reduce costs on the construction quality. but they stopped focusing on making their device work well with one specific console at a time in their blatant attempt to be the master of all, they became the master of no inbox out of the box on launch day or now, this It has always been a terrible product.

How is this company so terrible at making video game hardware? How do you throw one failure after another onto the pile? You think this dissuades me from continuing. You're wrong. It is fuel for the fire. We're going to keep tracking this. wild feline in all its forms on all its platforms as part of the Great Hunt, we ordered a bunch of Mad Cats controllers on eBay. Everything arrived in perfect condition or at least in the condition they were in the last time the seller had them, plus a controller. Unfortunately I wasn't able to try out this Mad Cat Translucent Blue Original Xbox Gamepad as it arrived damaged from the shipping process, the left joystick snapped in two, it was packaged quite securely so I was a little confused as to how this happened really upon closer inspection.

I noticed that the joysticks were cheap, 100% hard plastic throughout, unlike the actual Xbox controllers which feature a sort of soft rubber-like texture on the joysticks for a better grip for my money. I think those things could make it less brittle and harder. split, would the controller have survived shipping if it had higher quality joysticks? Who knows, all I can say is that I won't be trying to buy another one of these controllers again, so moving on to the Dreamcast, this is a crazy cats dream. pad, you may notice that it has six face buttons on the right, two more than you'd find on a typical Dreamcast controller.

These buttons can be programmed in several ways, but in my opinion the most useful for replicating the left and right triggers are the face buttons. Great for games like Street Fighter 3, the second impact, the placement of the triggers on a regular Dreamcast controller, plus its analog nature, makes executing the perfect combo in many fighting games tedious, if not nearly impossible, so that having six buttons right here on the front is a fighting game for gamers. obvious choice but of course Mad Cats had to save somehow. The first thing I tried to do was insert a vmu into the controller expansion slot.

The slot was too small for her, it was difficult to insert and when she managed to get it in. There, the buttons on the vmu act against the top of the controller. I actually use this vmu all the time so I didn't bother setting it up in the controller completely. The chance of damaging one of these things isn't worth it, so I used a Memory Card from another third-party company. Performance, this fits well on my original Dreamcast controller, but on the Mad Cat Dream Pad it had trouble fitting and got stuck inside. It took a lot of force to remove it afterwards and for anyone who says this wasn't the case.

It's fair that you can't judge a third-party device using a third-party accessory. Yeah, okay, that might be true, so someone better explain to me why I also had trouble getting Mad Cat's jump pack in and out of Mad Cat's own gam pad. The deal with this, you did both things, how did you screw it up? So once I got past all that I played Street Fighter straight away, the keyboard is squishy and has a shield style that you wouldn't find in an official Dreamcast game. pad I have to be honest guys I don't like this and I couldn't easily replicate moves in the game although the face buttons were very close to being good with the triggers on the back cloned with these two extra buttons on the front but It's a real shame that the a button doesn't register, you have to be focused and press it the right way for it to work every time and when you'rePlaying a heated match of any fighting game, the possibility of a botched entry is potentially game-breaking, so you'll wonder if I'm terrible at fighting or is it this controller, but if you want a sure win against a human opponent, throw this one at him. thing and you'll be circling it in no time, but we're not done with the Dreamcast yet, we have a super special device that I've been dying to delve into.

The Dreamcast had some very good PC ports of some well-respected first-person shooter games that can be played with an original Dreamcast controller or a Dreamcast mouse and keyboard getting as close to PC controls as possible, but Madc Cats, well , they had the idea of ​​combining both control schemes at the same time, the Panther DC, a trackball style controller with a flight stick strap for aiming. the trackball like a mouse move your character with the analog stick like a gam pad a perfect balance of the Two Worlds only it's not because it's useless for its intended purpose, very few games take full advantage of all its features so While you can play a bunch of Dreamcast games with Panther, you're not going to have much fun, the design will always feel off since most games on the platform were never designed around this ungainly, waking thing. 8 seconds.

Offense, for example, is not fun. plays and likewise Panther doesn't take advantage of the important features of the Dreamcast, it only has one expansion slot so you have to choose between using the jump pack or the vmu and if you are playing a game that uses the vmu display, No you're lucky, the slot is all the way on the back of this thing, so you won't be able to see it. You might think I'm irritating, but I'm nothing compared to our controllers. You can play many panther titles. DC, but to use all its features correctly you need games that support Panther mode.

The manual lists games like Quake 3 and Kiss Psycho Circus that work. I also found out that Unreal Tournament also used it, but it's not mentioned in the manual. It's curious. enough, the manual mentions that Halflife could use features from Panther, a game that never officially came out on the Dreamcast because the console was discontinued before the game could come out. It seems like Mad Cats was quick to write that. I appeared in a game. I tried and couldn't aim correctly at all, not all addresses recorded amazing entries. I thought this was a driver problem. I took out the trackball and inspected the P-ball, clean as a whistle, but decided to take a look at everything.

I cleaned it anyway, plugged everything back in and Bam, it worked a little better, maybe look, I want to give this thing the benefit of the doubt, but even when I cleaned it it still seemed off and after just a few short minutes of game and Returning to it later for another session, the ball malfunctioned again. Nothing internally appears damaged or in poor condition. This just seems to be off no matter what I do. It's a driver that you need to constantly maintain and clean like an old ball. Mouse, something I'd assume console gamers of the time probably didn't expect with a clean, ready-to-go ball.

I expected to have a much better time, but that didn't happen. Quake 3 needed the controls in the options menu to be changed. The original layout when you start the game is impossible to use. Nothing makes sense. There appears to be a driver configuration option number four that worked best, but it is not listed as a Panther option even though the Panther manual suggests this would be it. It was a nightmare, just terrible, aiming the ball was so inaccurate I could barely hit it, it almost felt broken, just look at this, how am I supposed to take out someone with such bad aim every time I moved the ball ?

I stuttered and refused to move in the directions I needed to. I died on the first training level, the Quake 3 training level, a game that on PC I could complete in seconds without getting fragmented. Once there was a shard left I switched to Unreal Tournament which has a panther setting in the menu so I expected the gameplay with the panther to be much better but again the trackball wasn't very good it has a tendency to aim up or down by swiping left or right. Fortunately, Unreal Tournament has very strong auto-aim assist that does this. a much more playable experience, it was easily better than Quake 3, but not by much in all games, aiming never felt right, like it was always moving slightly in a direction you didn't want it to and friends, I've played a lot of trackball games. so no it's not me, the button layout is criminal, there are three buttons on the top of the track ball but you'll be too busy sliding the track to hit them, it also has a dual trigger system that you operate with a thumb same hand, even if you keep your hands still, which you won't, you can only use one trigger at a time, which is a step down from all main controllers with side buttons since Super Nintendo, the panther is worse than a keyboard and a mouse and worse than a Dreamcast controller don't believe me right.

I played these exact same games in the same scenarios with a standard controller. I didn't die once in any of the games and found it much easier to aim and move. Sega created the Dreamcast. The gamepad without two analog sticks is a bad move, some might say, but the game developers made use of what was there in a way that still felt decent. Using aim and movement in every game worked better than Panther if you're playing against someone who had an original Dreamcast controller, maybe a Dreamcast mouse or keyboard, well you'll always get knocked out if you're running with Panther, no real advantage, you play with one of these things, it's the easiest way to lose all these products, these terrible, terrible products.

Controllers found their way into the hands of hundreds of thousands of gamers and they quickly realized that this brand could not be trusted. Now you might wonder why Nintendo, Sony or Sega didn't intervene. Don't they need a license to make these things? I know how to pay these companies for the right to sell equipment to their consumers. Well no, if they reverse engineered the controller design themselves and didn't use any of the company logos on the packaging, they could completely avoid any licensing shenanigans, and for the most part, that's precisely what Mad did. Cats, not only did they make cheap controllers, they were produced in a way that didn't replicate their own designs that were typically made to last a long time.

I want to make it clear that Mad Cats was not like that. Besides the hate for third party controllers, there was also Niko and so many others that I can't even begin to name them all, but Mad Cats was Top Dog. Everyone thought Mad Cats was the brand that became the Kleenex or Q-tip of controllers, the brand that became a wild card for the whole concept if gamers were bitter about third party Mad Cats was the one that issued that unpleasant taste and you know what kind of fun side effect it was for you. I know what people don't hold on to and preserve for over 20 years Mad Cats trash controllers and guess what I needed to track down to make this Mad Cats trash controllers video, either because they legitimately broke or because the owner thought who the hell would want this.

Many of these devices have ended up in the trash can over the years and this self-destructing Legacy made it quite a challenge to find anything. Mad Cats people are much more likely to give away Mad Cats controllers for nothing. I literally walked into a game. store that had a bucket with a sticker that said free filled with tons of clunky-looking third-party products that other customers had just left there unloved and unwanted inside this crazy cat's GameCube controller. Yeah, I guess it's obvious since I'm holding it. I brought home the rejection of this door this is what I've been reduced to I mean look at this thing of course it wasn't functional it's like it's a little wobbly a little too obly.

I also find a social post from a person close to me who is giving away a free Mad Cats controller for GameCube not so nice, it's also broken and that GameStop GameCube controller I showed was actually Mad Cats which I paid real money for and guess what No. It doesn't work either, put new batteries in it, try to plug it in and it turns off immediately. There are three GameCube microcon controllers, all totally broken. I think we're going to need a bigger trash can again. I have a bunch of original, well-used GameCube controllers. and they all work, the problem is not age, it is this company and friends.

I tried to find something good. I tried to locate something that still works or is in good condition from this era, but do you know what happens when you open a video game? store and ask a simple question oh oh hello hello video game store yeah yeah uh do you have any Mad Cats products for sale? That's a lot of swearing. They refused to admit that they had any insulted Mad Cats merchandise. I would even ask many informed people. He told me with great pleasure that they denied their products every time someone came in to sell old equipment.

One of the store owners literally told me that since they opened the store no one had asked Point Blank about crazy cats, nothing. I was the first, so why do everything? These stores hate Mad Cats products, simply put if they sold them they just have to refund the customer the next day. It's a waste of time and money, so avoid them all together and me calling to order Mad Cats products, that's one time. In his entire life, no one else strives to find these things. You've seen how prevalent crazy cats were and how notorious their products were, but some of you may wonder how crazy cats kept escaping. with selling poor quality drivers and I will tell you that they basically didn't get their way.

Part of what made their business model work during the PS2 generation was the relative simplicity of the controllers they copied, but once all that was the PS2 generation ended, the party stopped for the crazy cats, The Seventh Generation introduced much more complicated controllers than the previous generation, the Wii Remote alone a marvel of innovation from the folks at Nintendo, packed with so many features and capabilities. The PlayStation 3 controller included motion controls and the Xbox 360 used a wireless Proto that was neither open source nor standard on other devices. What did this mean for Mad Cats? Three years after the release of the Wii, they released their first set of Wii controllers and in an era dominated by the wireless controller, all of Mad Cat's Xbox 360 gamepads were wired, even if they took out an engineering Marvel and put out all of their products.

On the first day with the full featured consoles, I don't think they would have found much. The successful people remembered his antics from the previous years and this time they didn't want to deal with his garbage, they were left with very little choice but to start a campaign to pivot their image in 2008, which kind of started this. new effort Alex Ver, who was the global PR and communications manager for Mad Cats, wrote an open letter to Kotaku's Mike Fahe stating that we're not naïve to what many gamers seem to think about Mad Cats products. A lot has changed in recent years.

There is no public relations. Don't talk anymore, just play and see for yourself, all I ask is that you give us a chance to show how much we have grown as a company, it means that the company knew for a fact that they were making terrible products and now they are saying no more they're doing that, they committed the crime, that's a big deal if we believe that quote, at least it seemed like Mad Cats was apparently making an effort to change things, so let's take a look. I got a couple of the controllers they were offering during this period of self-improvement, the Mad Cats Xbox 360 microcon, of course, the moment I plugged it in to test its features it revealed its hidden demons, the left stick was possessed .

You don't even have to touch it, leave the controller alone on a desk and it registers tons of nervous movements everywhere. Mad Cats was also offering an Xbox 360 controller called the Arcade Game Stick at the time, it was specifically aimed at people playing retro games on their 360s. You won't play Halo 3 with this layout and its entire button placement makes it virtually unusable for any layout. modern game for the platform. I noticed it has a spinner which I thought was cool, so I loaded up the Atari breakout. Immediately Mad Cats crashed again, the game was completely unplayable, input was choppy and unresponsive upon closer inspection, I discovered that the roulette wheel was not actually a real analog roulette wheel, it was simply a d-pad in disguise, when you turn, it's just touching the turn signal. pad left or right inconsistently,I'm going as far as to call this a scam product because of how poorly they did it, by the way both controllers were officially licensed by Xbox, this is the quality they offered in licensed products, clearly Mad Cats was not. able to make quality controllers themselves, so they bought a company that could be Scitec, known for their flight stick controllers, they made good equipment.

I have used several of their controllers over the years and they are built to last. Mad Cats didn't want you to think you were buying a Mad Cats controller now you were buying a Scite Tech controller but Mad Cats would benefit anyway Mad Cats also became a game publisher for the Xbox 360 and published a very specific game on a package with your new Scitec hardware. This is Damage Incorporated Pacific. Squadron World War II, the game box proudly adorned with the disturbing Mad Cats logo, but the special controller that could be included with this game. The scitec Aviator for Xbox 360 and PC, this controller is about 15 years old at the time of recording and clearly.

It was used but aside from an audible creak from the plastic, this controller felt like it was new. The perfect button does not feel drifting. It all worked extremely well as for the game itself, it's a nice WWII style flight. Extra bits here or there, but it's nothing out of the ordinary. Although seeing an animated Mad Cats logo appear before the game starts - yes, that's pretty extraordinary - the flight stick really enhances the game. It was picking out incredibly far away targets with very fine precision, it's a very different experience than just playing a flying game with a normal controller, but the important thing about this is proof that older controllers from this era can still perform well every time. and when their original design was made with a certain level of care in quality, just because many of the crazy cat products we've seen are older and used, it doesn't excuse them.

Take it from a guy who has an entire video series on bad games. Hardware having so many non-functional drivers in a row is no coincidence, they are Mad Cats. The 2010s were the Bad Decisions for Crazy Cats who made High Investments in Risky Ventures that probably hurt them financially, like this Android based micro console that Crazy Cats Mojo the Mojo released in December 2013 and I can tell you from experience that No one cared that many companies are taking variations of these and nothing Mad Cats did really stood out against the competition, so what did they do to try to shore up sales other than lowering the price by $50, believe it. or not?

They actually partnered with another failed small game box in 2014 when Ouya was struggling to sell its small game console to people, they launched their Ouya initiative everywhere. The idea was to leave their Ouya play store on other companies' Android devices now that Ouya funk could stink up another product that the crazy cats didn't blow up. opportunity I have no idea what they were thinking, I mean Ouya was $99 compared to Mojo's $199, why did they think someone would spend double the price on their box to access the Ouya game store? It doesn't make sense, but when it comes to stupidly pricing things.

Oh Mad Cats was rolling and silly, check this out, it's called the Lynx 9 and it's a portable transforming controller for Android devices and PCs and it sold for $300 in the United States, $300, which is the same price as the PlayStation 4 Slim of the next year for an Android controller. the website boasted that you no longer need a games console to get an authentic gaming experience, well I hope so, because you couldn't afford one anymore after buying this, there were obviously cheaper controller options out there and even if there were gamers who wanted to get into mobile gaming and were interested in the linkx 9, they were interested $300 no, I think they weren't as poorly conceived as these products, they weren't the

worst

move the Mad Cats made in the decade 2010, that honor belongs to the two-word rock band, rhythm guitar, Game Craze was started in 2005 by Guitar Hero, it was profitable for many, but one company missed the boat by sharing its success from the beginning, according to which Matt Cat president and CEO Darren Richardson told Kotaku's Brian centi in 2010.

Mad Cats was supposed to be involved with the original Guitar Hero in 2005. Guitar Hero was a game we were involved with from the beginning and we pulled it due to a lawsuit with Konami. We were doing the Xbox bias and that's why there was only one release for PlayStation 2. This also means the original Guitar Hero. It was supposed to be on Xbox instead of or in addition to PS2, which is further validated by this quote from Xbox's Phil Spencer in 2015 on IGN Spencer revealed that Xbox had been offered Guitar Hero or at least the game that became Guitar Hero I.

I've told the story several times about the streaming of the great original Guitar Hero, so it's obviously a decision I regret given what it became, but that quote from the Mad Cat CEO where he says who were removed from Guitar Hero due to a lawsuit with Konami in July. 2005 Mad Cats was sued for publishing a dance rhythm game called MC grooves dance craze for GameCube Konami being the company Dance Dance Revolution, they felt that MC Groves was infringing on his hell patents. This is probably the lawsuit he's talking about, a lawsuit over the way Guitar Hero's Red Octane editor was also charged.

Small world, huh, there's a very real possibility that Mad Cats was worried about having another lawsuit on their hands if they made these guitar controllers because Konami already had a game called Guitar Freaks that looked almost identical in concept, but for whatever reason . Mad Cats paid the Tidy sum of $300,000 to get out of their deal with Guitar Hero, you heard me. Mad Cats not only walked away from a deal that would have brought them tons of sales, but they also paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for the privilege. It's crazy, it could very well be one of the biggest flops of all time in the video game industry, so when a rock band comes along, they immediately join in and won't be left behind a second time.

No South, they came in when it was hot and there were crazy cat sales. They went through the roof selling plastic musical instruments, not as much as they could have done at the beginning, but hey, anything was better than nothing. Hey kid, you want a plastic guitar controller, unfortunately, after 2 years, no one was buying those expensive games and guitar packs, so in 2010, harmonica publisher MTV Games officially removed plastic peripheral support for the Serie. Who did they manage to replace them? They were probably so excited. I guarantee you that they thought that now that they were the best kittens in the rock band, the money was going to pour in. plastic guitar controllers for everyone this was a pretty big mistake if they had been paying attention they would have known that existing players already had controllers and there weren't enough new players buying the hardware in October 2010 we got the new Rock Band 3 with crazy cats at the helm of controller production, which was actually scaled back for this title as they no longer included the game with guitars, but you could get a game pack with the newly added rock band keyboard, yes they included a bunch of completely new gaming features to Try to revitalize the keyboard or kear Brand This Here.

I guess it was one of them, hey kid, you want a plastic keyboard that you can hold like a guitar. I don't know how successful Rock Band 3 was for Mad Cat's results, but overall the game. Bombing sales were on a constant downward trend, the general gaming public was feeling exhausted with the entire Rhythm genre after re-releasing the game. A year later, with new guitar packs selling worse than the first release, it seemed like harmonics put the rock band to bed. the rapid journey of the plastic guitar The trend has officially stopped and where did this leave the crazy cats?

Well, not in a good position. Failed products and investments with diminishing returns were beginning to catch up with the company. Time passed and so did the gaming industry. evolved hey, hey boy, yeah, don't do it. Don't run away, buy my plastic guitar controllers, crazy cats need to eat to say they were fighting would have been an understatement, it was at this time that a newly independent game developer was looking to resurrect a dead franchise in a move that only could be described as pure extreme desperation in early 2015, it was announced that Harmonics would be bringing back the rock band and they invited their old friend's crazy cats along for the ride, however, the crazy cats wouldn't just be making the peripherals this Once they were deeply co-publishing the game along with the harmonics, they invested in Ed big, they were putting everything into this, betting everything on the new rock band, a comeback tour for good.

I don't want to criticize Madcat's decision. by participating in this, but I have to, they were snorting catnip if they thought it was a good idea. Yes, they tried to make the game more attractive by allowing old instruments from the past to work with a special adapter. However, they had lasted five. years since the last entry, the consoles the last game was released on had been replaced, no one thought the series would return, so when gamers simply wanted more space in their living room or were literally trading in their older consoles for one new Xbox One or PlayStation 4 didn't stick with these clunky musical instruments, these things take up a lot of space.

Controllers for both the rock band and Guitar Hero flooded the second-hand game market and stores stopped accepting them, wouldn't sell them, and took up valuable shelf space. of things I actually know some video game store owners and you know what they told the people who tried to sell them their old instruments right now, get lost, throw them in the trash, that's right, they were worthless and obsolete, so Rock Band 4 comes along and they expect these same burnt-out people to dish out hundreds to reinvest in the hard-selling series, and for the sake of argument, let's say someone put their old instruments in a closet and forgot about them for half a decade to For this to be useful, they need They have stayed on the same console family, so if they had rock band controllers on the PlayStation 3, they would only work on the PS4 and not the Xbox One, but Xbox One sales, especially In 2015, when this game came out, they were woefully low compared to the Xbox pack.

One of the gamers who also had old 360 instruments probably incredibly small, the vast majority of them moved to the PS4 after the Xbox 360, so even if they had older controllers they couldn't get them to work on their current system and, furthermore, an entire platform was removed from Rock Band 4 Nintendo's Wii U couldn't test this one. We rock band controllers had no option to use it, since for this piano Kear was useless on every platform, they removed it. of the next installment in the franchise, some people who like this may not have been so happy with it.

I really don't think they thought this, because the player base had disappeared, the novelty wore off, but despite all these huge red flags, the game came out in October 2015 and, as anyone could have predicted at the time , besides Mad Cats, I guess it flopped hard and then less than 2 years later, Mad Cats went bankrupt, the big rock band for the gamble failed, a handful of executives quit, they had huge staffs. layoffs, its stock price plummeted and the situation got so bad that the only option was liquidation and there is the whole legacy of the crazy cats that ended in an epically bad investment that seemed to have been made in an effort to write the mistake that they committed for so many years.

While the idea of ​​third-party controllers is still relevant today, more companies than ever are producing not only controllers for modern PCs and consoles, but also replacement components and controllers for retro systems. The rise of more users in the gaming space has created a stability for third parties that simply did not exist during the rise of Madcat during the 2000s. Companies like retr Fighters regularly improve designs from the past or create new designs that offer features such as modern methods wireless connectivity or enhanced features that go far beyond the original hardware. It is so good that I would use it over the original controllers, they are extremely well made and from what I have experienced at least they are likely to last a long time and they are not alone, it has also had an impact on the scene. remains strong making many excellent pieces of equipment, many others are participating in arevitalization of what it means to be a third-party manufacturer.

One thing all of these companies have in common is a core quality of Focus, an aspect that the crazy cats didn't have. And although the crazy cats of these drivers are long gone, the story of the crazy cats did not end in bankruptcy. In January 2018, CNET reported that a holding company made up of people who had worked for the company's Chinese factories had purchased the cats. crazy active and were resurrecting the brand and are still focusing on PC gaming peripherals. I don't have any experience with them, but I'm fine. I think I have my crazy cats full with this video, maybe these new crazy cats will rebrand and do something with it you have to go naked, yes or maybe no, but for me they will never be the real horror show from the original company , the crazy cats of yesteryear are a relic, finding something of them in this one day is as rare as finding a lost treasure, but it's not a treasure, it's the things that no one wanted at the time and no one needs now.

An entire legacy reduced to ashes for a company that focused on quantity and low cost. Sometimes it's better to forget legacies like that. yourself at a retro video game store, perhaps a garage sale, flea market, pawn shop or thrift store, and you may find this ancient evil lurking from an unknown gamer, but don't let yourself be fool into thinking you found a deal, learn from What I've shown you is don't let this diabolical brand interact with your systems or your loved ones, do what all gamers should do: feed the crazy cats here.