It Will Make Your Whole Week!

This week has been one of those weeks. It has been a week that has borne witness to the final issue of the greatest PC games mag in the world, the mighty PC Zone. It was a week that looked set to start with two days off and some of the best weather August has seen this year, until I got a cold!

Not just any cold mind you. Oh no. This cold was a mean son of a bitch, a good old fashioned head cold. The type that blocks up your ears making everything sound like it would if Ruth Jones were sat on your face. This cold also came with a cough that was designed to keep me awake all night making a sound that, to any passers by, would have given the impression I was trying to force a cucumber down my throat. It is safe to say that this cold was so bad it even made AIDS look appealing.

After I had resided to the fact that this illness was going to make it difficult to go out in the blissful weather without coughing up yellow slime on complete strangers. I decided I would spend my free time playing the new Mafia 2 game on my PC. I hauled my diseased self over to my PC and got ready for some 1940’s gangster fun.

As the game involves both third person action and driving I plugged in my game pad and opted the pad for driving, keyboard and mouse for killing. The ultimate set up! This setup was however short lived as for some reason or other my pad would not work. After fiddling about with the calibration settings and checking the USB connection I tried again. Nothing! and just like Mick Jagger said I could get no satisfaction! Now mildly confused and, due to a recent sneezing fit deaf in my left ear, I decided to consult the internet. After sifting through countless images of semi naked people I discovered that my trusted game pad was incompatible.

Incompatible! What the hell is up with that! I have never plugged a game into a NES or a Playstion and been told the controller was incompatible. It’s just some buttons! Some buttons I press to make things happen. How the hell is that not compatible? Is that not the basis for all controllers? I have had my controller for well over 5 years and the idea of replacing him was, to be honest, a bit upsetting. We have completed NFSU, NFSU2 and NFSMW together. Torn through all of the Lego Star Wars games, won the World Cup and the Stanly Cup many times over and now it was time to upgrade. It was like losing a loyal pet, and by loosing I mean having them put down for biting the neighbor. Sure it is wrong but that doesn’t mean there is anything wrong with the animal!

Having only a day left of my free time I decided to support the high street and risk covering a sales assistant in bioluminescent goo. I knew which pad I wanted, a Saitek P990, and I headed off to the nearest stockist to pick it up. After entering a number of computer retailers I still had no pad. It was becoming increasingly apparent that if I wanted to buy a “compatible” game pad it would have to be an Xbox 360 controller. I consulted Ross on this and after he offered to set me on fire and shoot me with a shotgun if I got any worse he agreed that the Xbox 360 controller was indeed the future. This saddens me. It seems every platform of gaming out there gets its own controller whilst the PC is left with hand me downs from Microsoft. Further more it is a little known fact that I can’t stand the original Xbox controller. No matter how hard it tries the new 360 pad still carries the same issues. Yes it has shed a few pounds in weight but what is the point of a button in the middle of the pad that does nothing at all? And why have a 9ft long cable? Who sits 9ft away from their monitor?

This new pad of mine may well allow me to enjoy Mafia 2 the way I like it and play Need for Speed Hot Pursuit when it finally gets here. But why I ask cant a game on a PC be played with a pad made for a PC? Call me old fashioned but I will miss my old pad and what’s even more annoying is now that I am back at work my cold has decided to fuck off and annoy someone else. Still it could have been worse. Ruth Jones could have actually sat on my face.