Best metal pad?

Actually, I would say that soft pads are sometimes better than arcade pads. It depends on how well the arcade pads are taken care of.

Not only how well the arcade ones are taken care of, but how well the soft pads are taken care of too. One of my soft pads have lasted me 3 years now, and I still think its better than the one at my arcade (because they cut my shoes).

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For me the difference is the spring sensation that arcade pads give me. When I play on a plastic mat or a solid state pad it feels like I'm jumping up and down on the hard floor but the arcade stage's construction gives a little bit and returns as a kind of spring action as I push off again with my foot. I have no problem playing on both but since I play arcades 100 times more than home game there's a small moment where I have to get used to the lack of that spring.

As for going to an arcade because it's an arcade, I take the social aspect into account (being with friends, being in public, etc.) and it's always fun to get a crowd going. I still meet people because of DDR too. As a white boy in an Asian country it seems like those watching me feel more comfortable talking to me afterwards than if they'd just seen me walking through the mall. The arcade, whatever its definition, will always have a place with the DDR community.

I know what you mean. Just this Tuesday, I went to the arcade, and I was the only white guy, but this one dude seemed to kind of know me, which feels weird... And it's kind of the same thing with me at my workshop dance classes that I take every week. I'm pretty much the only white guy. There's two others that pop in every once in a while, but yeah...

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I've got plenty of places to go socialise, thanks. Arcades haven't formed part of this for quite some time (6-7 years+), even when I was living in London. When I go to arcades (again, whatever you mean by this vague, fuzzy term that can encapture my playing an ItBox in a pub through to three-story Japanese game centres - I've done both), I go to play games.

Sure you can meet new people there (but I can meet new people in my local supermarket, too), but they are terrible venues to socialise in, in my opinion (it's like claiming to go to the cinema to socialise with friends - sorry bud, I go to a cinema to see a film; the socialising happens before and after the film, not during it. Well, not unless you are on a hot date and things get physical).


You aren't getting it. It's not about whether or not there are decent/well-maintained arcades where I live or not - it's about you harping on with a subjective phrase about this mythical "arcade experience." At the end of the day, what you've described is your "arcade experience", not everyones. I've been playing games in arcade-like settings for 25 years - there were plenty of arcades around back then (though they would pop up in the weirdest of places; my local video rental shop had a large back room in the shop with about 15-20 arcade machines in, and I went to an arcade in the late '80s that was in a garden centre, a few miles out of my town).

My "arcade experiece" is sitting down playing 2D shoot em ups (I don't just mean oldskool, Cave games are included here) in smoke-filled arcades, with rows of Jamma cabs side-by-side (and taking a break to watch someone rinse one of the games), or playing a couple of credits of Virtua Cop and then rejoinng my friends at the bowling rink/pub.

My "arcade experience" involves going to the old Namco arcade in Old Compton Street and playing test location games of crazy shit imported from Japan that would never get a general release anywhere else in the UK.

My "arcade experience" involves going to my local video games shop after school, and playing Street Fighter II (the only cab in the shop) when it was brand new, and whupping my friend's arses with Chun Li.

The "arcade experience" is whatever the hell you want it to be. The fact remains that - keeping with the original topic - I have linked you to TWO examples of metal pads that are physically indistinguishable from arcade pads (one of which facetiously being a cabinet, but the other one being an actual home controller that was sold to the home market in 2000), you are the one harping on about how you can never replicate the "arcade experience" - maybe I can't emulate your arcade experience (nor would I want to, it's not my cup of tea, but whatever floats your boat), but I can emulate my own arcade experience just fine.

Your "arcade experience" involves meeting new people? That's nice. Your "arcade experience" involves tons of shitty background noise? Good for you. Mine doesn't, and none of your anecdotes and misdirections will change that.


Oh yes. I quite fancy some Solo charts, we must find a way to wire it up to the cab so I can play 6-panel MY BABY MAMA on Solo 2000.

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I love how someone asks for some help on choosing a pad and within five pages turns into a double flame war.

to help you out hooky unless you are already "AA" and "AAA"ing everything I'd say you could start out with a basic metal pad of pretty much any GOOD quality. It only makes sense right? Just make sure it's something that can be serviced and you should be good.

And to you guys flaming each other take it somewhere else ok?

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chi, you're trying WAY too hard, and making a huge effort to blur the line between the definition of "arcade" as a place that specializes in owning and maintaining coin-op machines for public use and trying to describe a single coin-op as an arcade. your example of a video game shop that had ONLY an SF2 machine is not an arcade. thats a coin-op machine in a video game shop that does not specialize in owning and maintaining said machines for public use.

also, going to the arcade isnt the same as going to a movie. if you sit there and talk during a movie you're a douche bag, right? on the other hand, whats wrong with me talking and socializing when i'm waiting for my turn?

i also like how you blast me for going to an arcade for multiple games because i like fighters and DDR, yet you talk about going for 2D shooters and virtua cop. way to contradict yourself bro.

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Agreed. Please, guys. You're depressing.

And don't try to tell me this is about metal pads anymore, because it sure ain't.

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