In my previous post, I mentioned I started playing this DDR like clone called StepMania. So I’ve got fed up with the Kraft Dance Pad. I finally figured out why I sucked so badly, not to say that I’m good, but I’m not as bad as I originally thought I was. The dance pad has what StepMania refers to as the Joystick Axes Problem where Up+Down won’t work and Left+Right won’t work because they implemented the the up, down, left, right buttons as joystick axes instead of buttons so to a computer up+down and left+right is never possible simultaneously.
So I asked around and apparently the industry standard for home dance pads is RedOctane Ignition, where 3.0 is the current version which supports PS1, PS2, Xbox, and PC USB. I was told to just search eBay and look for clones. The clones themselves costed more than used/refurbished Ignition 3.0s, so I decided to get the Ignitions instead. The going price for used Ignition 3.0 on eBay was ~$50 shipped. I decided to get 2 since I could probably save on shipping and it’d be fun to play with 2 people or even enter solo dual pad mode. Ended up purchasing 2 for $94 shipped. Sent payment on Wednesday and got my package today.
Setting it up was actually pretty fun. I didn’t know how they were going to break the foam apart to ship in such a small box.
Turns out it’s puzzle-like and it’s working out pretty well. I gave it a try and all the buttons are associated with a button and not just the axes.
So I finally got my first B score in StepMania, which I’ve never gotten before with the Kraft Dance Pad (now I know why), though I still get E’s for over 50% of my attempts. I am getting better though, or at least I hope so.