Howto: Add new art to your Madcatz Fightstick.

So, you’ve got your fancy new Madcatz Street Fighter IV Standard Fightstick (either because the Tournament Edition was sold out, or you’re the tinkering or budget-minded sort), and now you want to customize it a bit, maybe add a bit of your own spirit and identity, to help your eighty dollar joystick show that you too are a unique and individual flower.

The first thing you’ll want to do, even if you don’t really give a damn about the whole unique and individual thing, is replace the buttons. The stock Madcatz buttons are lousy (there’s a reason it’s $70 cheaper than the TE stick), and new Sanwa or Semitsu buttons are only a couple buck apiece. If you’re especially inclined, you can also replace the entire stick, or simply swap out the balltop or restrictor gate. I’m not gonna go into the hardware modding here, SRK forum member Sileighty’s Fightstick modding FAQ does an excellent job of giving you the info you’ll need for that stuff.

On to the art.

What you’re gonna need:

• A straight edge
• Hobby knives – these are essential, and cheap. That three pack in the picture was fifteen bucks at the local hobby store.
• Small Phillips screwdriver
• A spudger. I’ve raved about spudgers before, but I’ll say it again. If you do any sort of screwing around with plastic hardware, get one of these.
• Hopefully not a jury summons like I have in the photo above. Stupid civic duty.
• Your replacement art. I’ll talk about that next.

Full story, after the jump »

link love 02-20-09

I had an idea the other night, that it’d be fun to chart out the Battlestar Galactica survivor count over the course of the series just to see what the graph looked like. Well, someone’s already done it.

Arcade craft! Build your own Mario Bros POW block.

Jeff Roth has posted a writeup on the CoinOpSpace Tim Skelly chat. Next Wednesday’s chat is with Owen Ruben, creator of Major Havoc and Space Duel.

And lastly, Daniel Cook, the smartest man in the universe, reviews The Art of Game Design.

He named the nameless hills and dells.

Here’s a development located a couple miles up the road from my place. I wonder if the resident demographics deviate at all from the norm for the area.

link love 02-13-09

Okay, so now you’ve got your Madcatz FightStick, and you want to mod it. Go here, and here.

David Rosen of Wolfire Games has been releasing a series of game design tours… Aquaria is his forth.

Joystiq visits the Pinball Hall of Fame. Also, Tim Arnold has purchased a new building, so the whole place will be moving up a couple blocks sometime in the near future, doubling the space for pins and arcade cabinets.

This is all over the internets, but just in case:
add Emoji to your US iPhone.

I’ve got a heart on.

Nothing says I love you like a large piece of hard candy in the shape of a NES cartridge.

These cartridge/controller combos, offered up on video gaming auction site ChasetheChuckWagon.com, are from the same guy that made the chocolate cart a couple years ago. Strawberry pictured, but also available in tropical punch, grape, mixed berry, orange, and lime flavors.

link love 02-06-08

Welcome to a Friday link love, I’m no longer working in shadows edition!

The guys from Giant Bomb take a twenty minute look at the under-appreciated and under-selling Valkyria Chronicles. Gosh, that game is purty.

Play reviews the Madcatz regular ol’ FightStick. I was wavering, but I think this is the one I’m settling on. Bang for the buck, and all that.

Greenland, a browser-based game where players manage neolithic tribes, has entered open beta. It’s part of the synthetic worlds initiative at Indiana University, and they are looking for feedback.

Lastly, and sadly, Classic Gaming Expo 2009, just like last year, has been cancelled. Is it time for a new retro gaming show in Las Vegas?

Chat with Tim Skelly

Jeff Rothe, founder of the arcade collector’s site CoinOpSpace, is kicking off the first of a series of developer open chat sessions this Wednesday (Feb 4th) from 6:30-7:30pm PST in the CoinOpSpace chat room. This first session will be with Tim Skelly, formerly of Cinematronics and Vectorbeam, and creator of such arcade releases as Warrior (arguably the first fighting game), Rip-Off, Armor Attack, Reactor, and the vector rarity War of the Worlds.

If you aren’t familiar with Tim’s work, Jeff has posted a slew of additional information covering his history in the industry, so check that out, make yourself a CoinOpSpace account, and drop by the chat on Wednesday night!