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| RedOctane Ignition Pad 3.0 (Muti-Platform Edition) by MeltyKiss, 20 September 05 RedOctane has once again upped the scale when it comes to dance pad quality with their Ignition Pad 3.0. The box advertises six new features:
RedOctane advertises a slew of new features on their box and a few of them are features that users will have a problem verifying. The dance pad sensors and redesigned anti-slip are two tough things to test. As I can tell, the anti-slip bottom works better compared to the 2.0 version; with the 3.0 only slipping 1.5 inches when I played Firefly Heavy, and the 2.0 slipping 3.5 inches when I played the same song. I was unable to test the sensor, so I am unable to comment on this. In order to test the multi-platform, I used a Sony Playstation 2 with a copy of Konamiâs Dance Dance Revolution Extreme [US], a Microsoft Xbox with a copy of Dance Dance Revolution Ultramix 2 [US] with song pack 11, and a PC (specs: Pentium 4 3.2 [HT], 1 Gig of DDR Ram, Radeon x800 XT All-In-Wonder, & a Sound Blaster Audigy 2) with Stepmania using custom made songpacks. Putting together the Ignition pad 3.0 is as painless as the 2.0 if not easier. There are 6 foam pieces that are individually numbered and the pieces come together like legos. After that, you just flip the foam mat into the plastic cover of the dance pad, and you have your Ignition pad ready to be used to play In the Groove, Dance Dance Revolution, or any other game using the dance pad. On all three systems (PS2, Xbox, & PC), I got scores that were close to what I would get in the arcade. For the In the Groove players, the games did recognize when three or four arrows were being pressed at the same time. During a course of a song, the dance pad would move an inch or so (which is an improvement over the other dance pads) and I would imagine that the tougher the song, the more the dance pad would move. The anti-slip is good, but if you want to get the best performance out of a dance pad, I would recommend the Afterburner dance pad that they have. For the Xbox Live players with this dance pad, it is recognized as a dance pad online, so you donât have to worry about other players thinking that you are using a controller. The connection on each system and I didnât experience any type of lag or delay; when I pressed the Up arrow, the game recognized it immediately. This is true with jumps, freezes with hands (in In the Groove), and fast eighth/sixteen note runs. The dance pad only has an Xbox and Playstation controller output and to hook up the dance pad to a PC/Mac, you have to remove the Xbox breakaway cable and replace it with the USB breakaway cable. If a person loses their USB breakaway cable, most game stores donât carry it and they would have to go to an internet game store (as of this publication, RedOctane doesnât sell them). Unlike the Xbox breakaway cable, the USB breakaway cable isnât as in-demand, therefore stores like Gamestop, EB Games, Game Planet, etc. donât carry it. Three potential flaws that I found, were that the up and down arrow are where two foam pieces meet and that the foam pad (although slightly thicker) feels like itâs as easy to break up as the version 2.0 foam. The up arrow is above the foam pieces 1 and 2, while the down arrow is above the foam pieces 5 and 6. This didnât seem to be a problem at first, but the foam pieces might start to sink in and because of that, render the up and down arrow useless. The raised arrows would help against this. The foam is still strong enough to support players (Iâve had players 270+ pounds using this dance pad), but like the 2.0 it is easily broken up if snagged by the zipper or something else. Overall, this dance pad is worth it if you want something more reliable and durable than their low-price dance pad and something cheaper than their high-price dance pad. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||