As to not let the waters get stale with game reviews, I, Aesop (yours
truly), will be switching it up today with a product review. Namely: the
Mayflash Universal Adaptor.
Now, if you're anything like me, when the ashes cleared and you grew out
of The Great Console War, you came out with both the PlayStation 3 and
the Xbox 360. And if you're creepily like me, after
prolonged play with both of them, you'll have noticed only 3 major differences: The exclusives, the payment (I'm looking at you Xbox Live), and
the controllers. A little back story on me again: I grew up on
Playstation. I didn't own anything other than Sony systems all the way
up to the Nintendo DS Lite and I've owned every Sony gaming system. Now, you might be thinking, "What does this have to do with the review?" It
actually has a lot to do with it. You see, the Mayflash Universal Adapter
is an adapter that lets you use your preferred controller; whether it be
Xbox, DaulShock 2, or DaulShock 3, on your console of choice, be PS2, PS3, Xbox, or PC. This means all the time I spent in my younger days
twiddling with Playstation's controller design, honing my mad skills,
won't go to waste trying to re-learn on Xbox. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm
not bashing Xbox's controller. I'm a firm believer that both
controllers have their strengths and weaknesses (that I intend to get to
in this review as well), but as I said, I grew up on the Playstion so
it's naturally my preference. Some key info you'll need before we start
this: you'll need a wired Xbox controller (or any wired Xbox
device including dance mats, steering wheels, etc.) for this to work
either way. This is because even though Mayflash could simply copy the
key Microsoft has in all it's controllers, it would create a possible lawsuit, so it HAS to be a wired controller of sorts. NOT including the Charge and Play Kit. All controllers must be wired , meaning you'll be
using a USB for your PS3 controller. With that out of the way, lets do
this review.
I can almost hear all my tech-ies out there saying "This is a nice
concept, Aesop, but these things usually come with a lot of lag," and
I'm right there with you. It was my first thought when I touched the
(honestly pretty cheaply packaged) adapter. So I decided that the only
way I could possibly make sure this thing REALLY worked was to put it
through some good ol' Trials by Fire. So please, come with me to see
whether the Mayflash Universal Adapter makes it through the devastating
trials stronger than ever, or if it doesn't make it out at all.
TRIAL 1 (Trial of Speed) [Dualshock 3 Controller to Xbox 360 Console]
For the first Trial, I put the adapter through Ninja Gaiden II. Now, if
you know anything about this game, you know it's a hard game that
requires keen senses and even keener reactions, any input lag here and
Ryu Hyabusa will end up real dead, real quick. Knowing this, I threw the
game on Mentor Mode (one of the harder difficulties) and started it up. So
far, it had worked fine (working the menus and such), but when I moved onto the
real test, and I have to say: it worked BEAUTIFULLY! From the first
severed limb, to the last decapitation, the controller played very fluently, so much so
that I did even better than usual. Making it from the tutorial, to the
first boss in under 20 minutes and beating the first boss in under 45
seconds (and that's being generous to the boss). The adapter didn't miss
a beat and together we created a symphony of murderous Ninja-ism.
TRIAL 2 (Trial of Outer Connections) [Dualshock 3 Controller to Xbox 360 Console]
In the midst of my unnecessary and generally unprovoked bursts of
violence, one sane thought came to mind, "What about online play?" So
after the symphony ended, I took out Ninja Gaiden II and popped in Halo
4. I started it up, went to a game in Big Team Slayer, and again the
controller played like a dream. Now allow me to directly contradict
that: the controller was TERRIBLE. Okay, remember how was talking about
the controllers' strengths and weaknesses? Well, First Person Shooters are the Dualshocks
greatest weakness. I'm not saying its impossible to play an FPS on the
Dualshock; I used to completely maim in Killzone; but honestly, after
playing Halo 4 with the Xbox controller, there's no going back. So to
condense everything I said, the controller works fine online, but play FPS's on
Xbox's controller when possible.
TRIAL 3 (Trial of Precision) [Xbox 360 Controller to Playstation 3 Console]
After getting out of the game in Halo (A soul crushing loss of 990 to
1000), I decided, "It worked wonderfully on Xbox, but what about PS3?" So I
plugged the adapter into the PS3 to find out. After some serious
debating with myself, I decided to play Persona 4 Arena for this trial. I
mean, what better than a fighting game to test precision and reactions?
I started up arcade mode on the hardest difficulty, chose my patented
Teddie, and dove in. The controller was excellent but again every
controller has its weaknesses. At this point, I'd like to give a shout out
to all Xbox fighting game players who use the directional pad. How? You people are
demons from another realm! I've never had hand cramps THAT bad! I
couldn't get half of my moves out in the first 4 stages (I chalk
that up to me sucking with the controller)! But the controller did work, and worked well. I only died about twice.
FINAL TRIAL (Trial of Inner Connections) [Xbox Controller to Playstation 3 Console]
Here at last, in the true final battle ground. I brought out all the
stops. I thought about doing online battles in Persona 4 Arena, but with
that God-tier netcode, it'd be far too easy to call it the final trial.
So I enlisted an old friend, Super Street Fighter IV. Now, if you've
played SSFIV online, you know it can be one of THE MOST lag ridden
things on Earth. It took a while, but I found the lowest and worse
blinking signal I could find (it was in Japan so I knew it was gonna be
bad), and commenced the Final Trial! What I wasn't expecting, though, was to
be playing a photo gallery. It felt like we were going frame by
frame! I ended up losing and after the agonizing experience I can honestly
say: it would have gone no better with a Dualshock. With that, we can move onto
my final thoughts.
BONUS STAGE
Don't worry, this'll be short. I just needed to mention a few things. The
adapter has on itself 3 buttons. The first of which being Turbo, that can
be mapped to all buttons EXCEPT the shoulder buttons (R2,RT,L2,LT). It
also has a home button, so if you're using a PS2 controller you can do
the home button functions. Lastly, it has a clear button, which will reset any buttons set to turbo. Also, I don't have a PC or PS2, so that's why
they aren't in this review. How am I writing this without a PC, you ask?
Mysteries, mysteries.
Needless to say, the Mayflash Universal Adapter left my Trials in
shambles, and now the women swoon at its every motion. For single player, to the laggiest of online play, there's no stopping this adapter.
Whether you have a PS3, an Xbox, a PS2, or a PC, I think everyone can agree
that certain controllers work better with certain games. That's the true
beauty of this adapter. It gives you, as a gamer, a choice in what you
want to use. There's no substituting that. Plus, for the price of 20
dollars, it's an amazing tool to have and I can recommend it to
everyone. Follow my personal blog to see when my next review'll be up. Of course, follow Level One to see what the whole group is reviewing! Thanks for reading, and I hope to see you here again next time!
Visit Aesop at his blog, Average Gamer! http://averageaesop.blogspot.com/
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