That U-Force that I purchased recently on eBay is....
AWESOIME!!!!I've read alot of crap online where people say that it's one of those accessories that just didn't work too well. I really don't know what in the hell those people were talking about. This is one peripheral that has renewed the NES and the games for me. It's like a next generation console now. Not touching anything, yet playing games such as Karnov, CastleVania, SMB, Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!, etc. It reminds me of using the touch-screen on the DS, or the new controller that is supposed to be on the Revolution. Innovative, and I give kudos to Broderbund for designing this thing.
First off, there are switches on the U-Force itself that allow you to set-up different configurations. Now, you can't map out each individual button to each sensor, but there are several preset configurations that you can use. There is a basic set-up that I use for a general platformer. It seems to work best that way for those types of games. You can also set-up a configuration for games such as Rad Racer and use the T-Handle to make you feel as though you are actually driving. For that game if you just push up on the T-Handle you activate your turbo. It makes it feel really cool :) It's really hard to explain how some of these work, so I'll go on now...
If there's any doubt as to how well this actually works, here's some examples of how well I ended up doing:
Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!! - I only made it to Von Kaiser with the U-Force, but it was the first game I tried. I'm also missing one piece that originally came with this peripheral called the Power Bar; it's almost a necessity for this game. Hopefully someday I'll find it so I can play this game properly.
SMB - The first platformer that I tried. I made it to 4-2. It's SMB, not too much to say :P
Rad Racer - I only tried this for a few minutes, but it worked great! You really do feel in control of the vehicle. I would imagine that a top down shooter would be good with the T-Bar as well, though I haven't yet tried.
CastleVania - Okay, with a regular controller I've only beaten Frankenstein with JUST the whip only a couple of times in my life (once without being hit, but that's another story :D ) Well, I got to Frankenstein while using the U-Force, which I think is good in the first place, but I ALSO was able to get him down to having four bars of energy left... with only the whip.
Karnov - I made it all the way to the water part. The biggest problem I've noticed with the basic set-up is trying to move diagonally. It's going to be fun learning to move my hands around to do that!
I did die on these games in places that I never would have with a regular controller, but getting used to a whole new control scheme isn't like making PB&J sammiches ;) Now that I have this controller I think I'll be trying to play all NES games with it. It makes everything new and fresh. After experiencing the U-Force, I learned once again not to believe everything that I read on the Internet.
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