Hori Arcade Fighting Stick (PS3)

So is this stick any good? The answer is yes. The quality is good and it is one of the better Hori sticks that are freely available in the UK. The lever is responsive (if a little loose for my tastes) as are the buttons. The components are all Hori made, and is capable of withstanding a fair amount of abuse.

My game play in titles such as Virtua Fighter 5 and Tekken 5 Dark Resurrection improved significantly using this stick. Unlike the Sixaxis it is wired yet you have lots of cable to sit back and relax with and the Stick is sold and heavy. There are rubber pads at the base to avoid slippage (in the heat of the fight) on sold surfaces.

There are better sticks out there that use real arcade parts such as the HRAP 3 (Hori Real Arcade Pro 3) Which uses a Sanwa (Japanese arcade parts manufacturer) Stick and interchangeable Hori buttons and the Virtua Fighter High Grade stick which uses a Sanwa stick and Sanwa buttons. unfortunately for us Brits these incredible sticks are not freely available in the UK (check import stores or import sites) and are quite expensive.

The Hori Fighting Stick 3 is a cheap and sold alternative and comes highly recommended.

Excellent value for money, much cheaper than the Madcatz Street Fighter stick alternatives.

I bought this in anticipation of getting Street Fighter IV for the PS3, but haven't tried it on the PS3 yet... although it should also be good for Soul Calibur 4.

I have plugged it into my Vista PC and it is recognised straight away (no extra drivers needed). You probably can't use it for most native PC games because the stick registers as the point of view hat, rather than actual X/Y axis...

But it works fine with MAME arcade emulator. I tried it on several games, and it gives a nice more authentic feel to most arcade games (compared to playing on keyboard).

As others have said though, the stick feels too loose to be as precise as I would like in the fighting games that I tried.

Hello to all,

PRO's :
Good feedback for both stick and buttons.
Long USB cable (~3.5m).
It's big enough to be comfortable, both hands have enough space to sit comfortably.
EDIT : The HFS3 works automaticly on Windows Vista and Windows 7 (32 and 64 bit versions). For Windows XP related drivers I can direct you to a link on Shoryuken forum or I can send you the driver along with installing instructions on demand - the XP driver works 100% (tested on more than 10 PCs).
EDIT : the modding possibilities of this stick make it even higher in price/value terms (ex : HFS3 + parts << Hori Real Arcade Pro 3 in terms of costs)

CON's :
The stick is a bit loose, and will require longer acomodation period.
The Arcade Stick is a bit too light in weight(only 1.5kg) maybe 2.5 or 3 Kg would have been perfect (you can make a minimum mod to add some weight easily).
There is no built-in storage space for the USB cable.
EDIT : the buttons will fail if you give them some rage (a few hard hits will make the buttons fail).

Overall :
I've tested a HRAP3 some time ago. The HRAP3 is definately the best money can get but facing the facts : a subsonic is 30GBP and from my point of view it is faaaar faaar away from this Hori. Basicly I'd say that for the average gamer and for extended fun-times around SSFIV this Hori is perfect (price range and quality). There are some sticks in the 30 GBP range but none of them compare to the quality of this Arcade Stick... I'd say that if you're not going for professional this is the best choice possible. EDIT : Even if you're going for professional, you can easily mod this stick with professional parts.

Please feel free to contact me if you require any additional details.

Thanks for rerading!