ravan

This game is fun! I want to get it for the PS2, but wanted to check in here before I went ebay'ing..

There is a lot of deals with the DDRMAX and 2 pads on ebay - but I am sure not all pads are alike.. Any recomendations/stay-away-froms?

I'd like to get metal, but thats not in the budget now They will be places on carpet if that makes a difference.

Also - is there only one DDR game for PS2 yet? what about other DDR's (ps1, import (legal of course ).

Advice will be received dancingly!

jimbo504

I got the two ignition dance pads on ebay and I love 'em!!! they are really fun. As of now, there is only one PS2 ddr game, DDRMAX. There will be a sequel coming out later this year. I think there are a couple US ddr games for ps1 and there are imports as well, but I think you'd need a mod chip to play the imports. I have been playing DDRMAX for about 2 months now and have been having a blast! I highly recommend the ignition pads/DDRMAX combo on ebay. its a pretty good price. The ignition pads are the soft pads with the extra padding zippered in. I got the game for christmas and bought the pads seperately, but I got a good price on them on ebay. I think i got them for about $40 shipped. Hope that helps!

ravan

I have not seen a combo w/ the ignition pads.. are they much better than the others?

What about lights? does that make a difference at all? some pads have 'em some dont I guess.

Also - could you perhaps email me about your experiences w/ modchips? I am sure its subject-non-grata here.

jimbo504

From what friends tell me, the ignition pads are a lot better than the others. I'm sure there are some auctions with them, they might just not be called that. look at the picture and you can kinda tell. If they show like an unzipped corner which is showing off a one inch padding, thats probably them. Lights make no difference, cuz when you are playing, you won't be looking at the pads. As for modchips, I don't really have any experiece with them, i just know you need one to play imports.

mwestep

I have been playing ddr for the ps1/ps2 for awhile now. Stay away from most store bought pads (mad catz, cheap thin pads). If you do decide to get those pads, what you want to do is buy some cheap board and put those pads on top of them using some heavy duty double stick tape. This will make your pads last at least twice as long, and make it so that it will not slide around all over your floor, and will also give you better response and accuracy.

Price: $20 for one

A level up from those pads are the cypher games ignition pads, quite a few people say that they are the best bang for the buck for ddr pads. They have the quality of the Red Octane pads, but for half the price. You should be able to find them for about 25 shipped on ebay.

Price: ~25-30 for two

From there, you can get some metal pads. Two of the most common ones are mymybox, cyphergames, and the golden bell pads. They are all pretty much the same. The good things about these pads are that they are metal and you will have a much more arcade like experience. You will also get amazing accuracy and they will not move around as much either. There are quite a few mods that you can do to these pads, and most are found at www.ddrfreak.com. These mods will make the pads have even more accuracy with each step, and will make the pads last much longer. The downside of these pads are that they can break. The plastic covering the buttons can break, but you can replace them by just going to home depot or whatever and getting some good quality lexan or other plastic material. There really is too many things to list that can go wrong with these pads, so here is a good page to check them out at : Rufus3 Mod Page

Price : 250-220 for two

There is one more pad out there that will probably be the best pad ever made. They are the cobalt flux pads (cobalt flux. These things will never die, and if they do, they come with a 6 month warranty. They even test drove a ford explorer over the thing, and the only thing that went wrong with it was just one of the plastic arrow buttons cracked. These things are just awesome. The only downside is the price, it costs $300 just for one of them.

Price : 300

Ok, there was a quick rundown of all the pads that you can almost possibly buy. I have a mymybox metal pad, it has been through hell and back (i weigh like 300 pounds). There has been cracked arrows, but those can be fixed. The worst thing that went wrong with it was that the circuit inside the thing fried, and so i had to buy a cheap playstation controller and mod it so that it can be used with the pad.

My reccomendation is if to just go ahead and buy the cypher games ignition pads if you are just casually playing it. I would skip the store bought pads and the mymybox metal pads, just because there are too many things that can go wrong with them. The metal pads are great if you understand that there are things that can go wrong with them, and that you will probably need to dig in and fix them.

But if you are serious about ddr and are going to be playing for awhile, get the cobalt flux pads and don't look back. All your friends will feel jealous.

Sorry for making it so long, just wanted to give you a quick rundown of pretty much everything.

Oh yeah, the games.

Playstation 1:
DDRUSA
DDR Konamix
DDR Disney Mix

Playstation 2:
DDR Max
DDR Max 2 (coming soon)

I would get konamix and max, both have great songs that are more than worth the money. if you guys have any questions about anything, feel free to ask away.

Lenny

I would pay to see a 300 lb guy going ballistic on DDR.

If you're around 5', please post a video.

mwestep

hey raven, i just read the rest of your message, lol... i stopped at the pads, and proceeded to just write away. didn't see you had a budget, but at least now you know about most of the other pads.

if you cant find a cypher games ignition pad on ebay, you can buy it directly from them cypher games .

mwestep

hey lenny, im like 5"11, weight 300 pounds, i beat matsuri japan on maniac (9 footer)

ravan

hey mwestep - AWESOME post - thanks a lot!
well the budget is self imposed - I can afford the cobalts if need be, but I have this tendency to go crazy over new hobbies, spend a ton of $ and never really use it.

So I thought i'd start easy and then ramp up

ravan

Oh I spent all night on ddrfreak.com and also downloading DWI and songs to have fun with until i get the real stuff.

mwestep

raven, be sure to check out the videos, particularly sweet banana - secret rendezvous, you will be pleasantly surprised.. its just too cool...

ok, i went looking, the link i posted to cypher games site are the new v2.0 pads.. im not sure what the difference in those ones and the v1.0 are. i havent really looked at too many pads (especially soft pads) since i got the mymybox about 6 months ago. But if you are the only person who is going to play, I would go ahead and get the 2.0 version, if not, maybe the ones off ebay will be better, its really your decision. but i would definately get a soft pad to start off with before getting the cobalt flux, cause that is a LOT of money to spend on a video game controller.
but yeah, ive been around ddr a little too much, lol...

ravan

Did anyone try dance with intensity (DWI) and some of the songs for that? Seems pretty good for a free pc clone (although need to figure out how to hook up a pad).

Still getting the stuff for the PS2 tho

mwestep

yeah, dwi is pretty good. easiest way to hook up a pad is to buy a usb-ps2 converter. but be careful, a lot of the usb-ps2 adapters only support 2 axis (up and down, left and right), so if there is a jump (left and right), you are going to miss it because it can only register one left or one right at a time. The best usb-ps2 adapter is the EMS USB one, here is a link to it. Link

a good thing about that adapter si that it also supports two playstation controllers instead of just one, so that is pretty sweet.

ravan

One thing that i noticed is that on some of the songs, the step seems off-beat? It is especially bad in 'video killed the radio star'.

Of course i found these online, so thats probably why.. is this something you have seen?

Also where can i download videos like sweet banana - secret rendezvous? the video section on ddrfreak.com seems down?

And i'm the proud owner now of 2 ignition 2.0 pads and DDRmax for ps2.. well its in the mail

ravan

Speaking of weight.. there was a guy on Extended Play that had lost i-dont-know-how-much weight on DDR.

Its pretty good excercise i'd say!

mwestep

yeah, i didnt notice that the video section was down. i guess try to get it off of kazaa lite or something. some of the user made dwi songs are off beat, but there really isn't much you can do about that though, oh well...

and congrats your purchases, just keep playing man, it isn't too hard once you get used to it

ravan

I wonder if you can manually edit the files to offset it (or chop a bit off the audio in the start)