What are the best PC games that you can play with a game pad?

August 29, 2004 10:58 PM

What are the best PC games that you can play with a game pad?

They tell me my P4 is faster than an Xbox... ok then: I bought a game pad and a nice extension cord so I can play from the couch. What are the must-have games that won't require mouse or keyboard?

posted by muckster to computers & internet (9 comments total)

I always found the Need for Speed games played very well with console-style controllers.
posted by Space Coyote at 2:01 AM on August 30, 2004

The Tony Hawk skateboarding series games scream out for a gamepad. I don't have one though -- I just mash the keyboard.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 2:07 AM on August 30, 2004

Steal some SNES Roms and play them on MAME
posted by Keyser Soze at 2:42 AM on August 30, 2004

I second the Tony Hawk games, they are so much more playable with a gamepad than by keymashing. Driving games are also cool, especially if you have an analog stick controller.
posted by jaded at 5:31 AM on August 30, 2004

Xpand Rally!!! MP Demo is out now, just google it and download the demo. It's lots of fun and it is good with a keypad.
posted by crazy finger at 5:45 AM on August 30, 2004

OMF:2097 is great with a pad, as are various console emulators. If you're into all those sports games that get re-re-re-re-released every year, most of them are designed around gamepads.

Apart from that, you're probably better off using that extension cord with a decent stick instead of a pad.
posted by majick at 6:21 AM on August 30, 2004

I second Keyser Soze's recommendation, except MAME plays arcade ROMs, not SNES. At any rate, leech MAME and the ROM sets (ok, they're legally dubious, but whatever) and you'll be rockin' it oldschool in no time.

Or, you could download VICE and start kickin' it Commodore 64 style.
posted by neckro23 at 11:07 AM on August 30, 2004

MAME rules. I just built me a new snazzy machine and am workin' those oldschool titles in addition to some of the recent PC games that my old 'puter just couldn't handle.

MAME can emulate literally thousands of arcade games and is a joy with a gamepad.

If you Google on "SNES emulation" or something similar (like N64, PS2, Xbox, but I only have personal experience with SNES emu), you will find programs aplenty to mimic these platforms. To get the ROM files, I understand that any P2P network is very helpful, and creative Googling is reputed to turn up some good results.

One caveat about gamepads under Windows XP: there is a pernicious and seemingly randomly-triggered "Controller Not Connected" error which actually stopped me from playing any games at all for 18 months until I ended up getting a new machine for unrelated reasons. I'm not a computer pro, but I tried everything Google turned up and nothing worked on it.

With my new installation I'm only plugging in the gamepad when I actually want to play games. So far, so good. In the meantime I'm learning how to use Linux....
posted by Tholian at 2:21 PM on August 30, 2004

ePSXe, the playstation emulator works pretty well.
posted by mcsweetie at 4:53 PM on August 30, 2004