Aside from your bog standard wireless controller and headset that comes with your Xbox 360 when you un-box it, there is a continuously growing catalogue of Xbox 360 gaming peripherals to date. Now I’m not talking so much about peripherals that are a choice as opposed to a necessity to actually play certain games i.e. wireless head set, memory units (pretty much extinct anyways) and the live vision camera (again pretty much extinct with Natal on the way)
Below is the list of Xbox 360 game related peripherals I believe to presently be available:
Arcade Stick: OK, so if you’re an avid beat ‘em up player, you’re likely to have one of the various available arcade sticks around. I personally own a Hori Dead or Alive 4 edition one. Bought a couple of years ago along with, yes you guessed right, Dead or Alive 4, never got rid of, and still served me pretty well when SFIV was released and am pretty sure will continue to serve me well when SSFIV comes out next year.
Guitar Peripheral: Right, where do I even begin with these… For some reason almost every new guitar game (since Guitar Hero 2 came out on the 360) has come with some sort of reincarnation of a guitar model. From Guitar Hero World Tour, you were no longer able to play with the controller as a guitar so you were pretty much forced to have one if you wanted to play either Rock Band or Guitar Hero World Tour. Mind you, the whole point in even playing a guitar based music game is to simulate the damn instrument.
Taking into account all models I believe there to be approximately 8 different types. *note this does not include 3rd party models… I care not for 3rd party peripherals!
Guitar Hero 2, Guitar Hero 3, Aerosmith (same as 3, but had a new face plate), World Tour, Metalicca (same as World Tour, but had a new face plate), Rock Band, Rock Band 2 (was an updated model of its predeccesor but never released in the UK), Rock Band Beatles (has 3 different models alone)
I also believe there to be new peripherals for Band Hero…
Something you might not know about the guitar controller, you can use it to play Geometry Wars!!!
Drum Kit Peripheral: So far there are two different types. The 4 pad kit for Rock Band and the 5 pad kit for Guitar Hero World Tour. Again if you wanted to play the drums you needed the hardware, this couldn’t be simulated on a controller. With the hardware the UK has, in order to play either game, you need the specific model for that game to play. The UK never released the instruments specifically for Rock Band 2, which allowed you to use both kits with either games’.
Microphone Peripherals: Still following the music genre trend, Rock Band and Guitar Hero World Tour allows you to sing along to the songs being played whether that being solo or as part of a band. Presently I believe there to be 2 licensed peripherals, those by Logitech (they make both the Rock Band and Guitar Hero World Tour models) and the Microsoft ones that come with games such as Lips. These are slightly upgraded mics in that they are wireless, have a motion sensing mechanism and have a fancy light show on the side.
Scene It? Buzzers: Evolved from the original board game, scene it buzzers allow you to feel like your playing in the middle of a game show. Pretty cool peripheral, although useless with pretty much any other games…
Dancing Stage Dance Matt: With the releases of Dancing Stage Universe 1 / 2 in the UK, both games shipped only with the dance matt, as that’s how it was designed to be played. Controllers can be used to play, but again kind of pointless. Unfortunately even if you have an old USB based dance matt, they aren’t compatible at all with the 360 or game.
Right. So that’s quite some list… but I’m not done there, that would just happen to be the list of peripherals I presently have… You’ve still got the Wireless Racing Wheel and the Ace Combat 6 flight controller, not to mention the soon to be released DJ Hero deck peripheral
No doubt as newer games and methods of playing them come out, so too will new peripherals. I mean Natal is said to do away with any peripherals/ controllers, but to be quite honest, somehow I don’t think you will ever be able to simulate the same feel as being able to physically press a button, scratch a deck or flick a strum bar. Mind you, this would only happen to be a list of Xbox 360 peripherals, the list of my existing PS2 peripherals is an arms length too, but that’s not the time nor place for that.
It’s quite insane when you sit down and think about the cost that all these peripherals have, particularly for your casual gamer. They by far begin to outway the cost of buying a 360 console presently. But then again it’s more a choice than requirement or necessity.
No comments:
Post a Comment