Thought a thread was warranted, since everyone loves gadgets. First up I'll talk about this cool little device I got called the Nostromo n52 (cool on two counts, its cool, and its named after the ship in Alien ). Some of you will have seen it before, or think they have since this is the second iteration of this excellent 'pad'. It really isn't as much a pad as it is a customisable keyboard. I was searching for a while to find a decent input device, looking particularly at programmable keyboards. Unfortunately there wasn't really one that I was looking for, then I saw rave reviews about the Nostromo n52
http://catalog.belkin.com/IWCatProductP ... _Id=157024



Now this is a gamers thing, if your not into games, skip ahead, if you are read on. As you can see from the official homepage if you clicked, its bloody popular:

Its infact one of Belkin's proudest products and rightly so. Its really well made. What you have is 3 rows of keys, 14 in total, a mouse scroller, a red action button (missles go! ) a nice dpad, and then a 15th key down below these. All of these keys are programmable and customisable, and on top of that, you have four layers of slections (normal, red, green, and blue shift - toggle or shift selection).

Now this thing is well made, the 'grip' or more accurately rest is adjustable for chinese midgets or fat americans, and you just rest your hand over it. Naturally your fingures go over the arrowed keys, 3.7.8.9 so these are normally your up, down and strafe. I got it just before HL2, and its great, particularly when I now press a key and it goes straight to my weapon, no more clumsily having to switch with the mouse scroller or hit 4 three times. Particuarly useful is the thumb key, 15, which in rome total war I have set as hault and cancel fire at will... so its useful for archers. No more nailing all the people in the back of the heads when you send your troops into charge.

The real use for this, and where it really shines in FPS. In the reviews I was reading, they upped their kill counts significantly, i'm not that into online gaming but if you are, and you find yourselves reaching round the keyboard then this might help.

Similarly if you play games that involve hestitations looking for keys, or are just pissed off with the keyboard then this might be worth looking at.

The price is decent. Try ebay if your getting skanked!

The major downside is if your a lefty, you don't have one But who cares about you right? lol, no i think they maybe doing a left handed one, but I'm not sure how people have adapted, most lefties I know use the normal mouse setup anyway.

Here are some reviews:
http://www.extremereviews.net/data.php? ... ype=review (I don't really agree with the cons, the only buttons that are 'hard to press' are the red and 15, but that's quite good, since fatal controls you want just out of the way of the reach (ie. nuke ) )
http://www.insidemacgames.com/reviews/view.php?ID=453 (mac compatible? I dunno, guess it is 9/10 here)
http://www.computingondemand.com/review ... age1.shtml
http://www.gruntville.com/reviews/misc/belkin_n52/ *very detailed, very cool review


Will post more gadgets later, feel free to rave/slate your own

oh boy, oh boy! Geeks all hail...



Damn that thing looks sweet

here's my programmable indestructible gamers thing

it's also kinda a keyboard since you plug your keyboard in he back & the stick in your ps2port

I bet its cool for emulation and retro games, but i can't imagine using it for Rome: Total War

I've got an X-arcade, although I never use it since getting the Arcade cab.

That keyboard looks cool as fuck, but I bet it's hideous to type on, the keys aren't concave at all

the manual says it can be set to analogue as well,but I haven't tried it yet since I'm more into MAME & old console emulators

but there's nothing better for MAME than this(It's made from original arcade hardware with lifelong guarantee )

Analogue EMULATION - it's digital, but will be full on analogue if set

mmm, I beg to differ on that score depending on which games you play in mame, the X-arcade is too sloppy for fighting and shmups and the t-sticks or happ sticks piss all over from a great hight for those games. It's VERY good as an all rounder, but if you play specific types more there are MUCH better sticks for MAME.

Besides when you've used MAME in a cab it's VERY hard to go back to a PC and X-arcade

get out of my thread you crusty mame-jihadists

I've never been a big mame fan, i tend to complete a game and move on, only to go back and dabble on the great ones. Its weird i love games, but i prefer more epic and engrossing ones than something you turn on for a quick play... never been a huge fan of arcade games for that reason.

S'cos you're too young.

If you grew up when Arcades ruled gaming you'd understand

when I was a kid,I put everything I had in arcademachines

I even remember that ugly wooden Asteroids case

If it's something difficult you wnat,I suggest you trie the arcade version of Ghosts 'n Goblins

I dare you to finish that one on 1 credit

you wont be moving on for a long time

You think? I don't think it has much at all to do with that, as i know lots of people my age and much younger that have arcade boxes. Even it was applicable, surely that doesn't make sense at all the way i look at it, by that logic i should still be playing spectrums, amigas, ibm compatibles,etc. or whatever was the trend at the time?

I'm not sure its anything to do with age at all, its the type of disposable play, not the actual concept of playing mame games. Never enjoyed it. All to do with engaging gameplay, story and interaction. MAME was largely about getting high score (as to feed in more money)... i just don't find that very fun or engaging. I loathe arcade gaming for this reason, they are all about really short score crapping, where as i prefer adventure, strategy, co-operative or domination style gaming models which are largely attainable beyond breif flutters in an arcade environment.

Mame seems more suited to mobile phones these days, and i don't play games on portables for exactly the same reason.

I remember when the first Asteroids and Space Invaders boxes started to appear. They were that rare initially that you couldn't get near the bastards.

So I never bothered and stuck to playing pool instead. That was instead of going to college mind.

hey,I understand the new generation of gamers don't like this anymore,have always enjoyed strategy & rpg as well,but arcade ....ahhh

it's prolly as pc arcade said before;I practically grew up in the arcade

and it's a completely different style of gaming,nothing to do with story or interaction,it's about reflexes,sweat running down your back as you get a cramp in your leg from standing up all the time,adrenaline,smoke,heat,...

it's a completely different concept from homegaming in our lazy chair with a slice of pizza on my lap

btw,I still have a speccy emulator running as well

then again...I must be old