Madcatz TE-S Customization

It has been a while since I last posted anything on here, so I figured I may as well put something up regardless of how insignificant it is. I bought a Macatz TE-S Fightstick a while ago to aid me in my fighting game misadventures and wrote a really lazy review of it. In the time between then and now I’ve made a couple of modifications to it, one being that I dual modded it with a Phreak Mods Cerberus to add PS3 compatibility (even though I don’t have a PS3 and have yet to actually use it with one…¬_¬), and more recently I installed a clear plexiglass cover, custom artwork, and a new set of buttons with noise reducing foam padding. Everything was purchased from Focus Attack except for the artwork, which was ordered from Art’s Hobbies. The foam padding for the buttons makes for a noticeable reduction in noise, although it does change the feel of hitting the buttons and that took a little getting used to at first. The buttons aren’t any less sensitive than they were before, the impact of hitting them is just softened due to them no longer making direct contact with the hard plastic inside the button casing.

Considering my rudimentary image editing ability, I think it came out alright.

The Cerberus piggybacks on the original Madcatz PCB.

A Lazy Review of the Madcatz TE-S Fightstick

The attractive box makes for a good first impression.

So, I recently made the decision to go full retard and buy an exorbitantly priced heap of plastic and metal. Do I regret that decision? In light of some recent personal developments I probably should have spent the money on something more practical, but I have no regrets in regards to whether or not it’s a product worth purchasing. I have no problem acknowledging that in the grand scheme of things I’m merely and intermediate fighting game player, and depending on personal opinion that may be considered generous, but I felt I play and enjoy fighting games enough to warrant a stick purchase. Granted, I was fairly content with playing on a controller even with its disadvantages and I didn’t absolutely need to buy a stick, but the advantages of the jump in directional input accuracy and having all of your buttons laid out on a flat surface are quite nice. Technical reasons aside, playing on a stick also just feels more fun due to the increased hand movement involved; I feel like I’m interacting with the game more with a stick than with a gamepad.