Arcade Board Score: 65% Developer: Sunflex

Function: As good as the PlayStation controller is, I've had the experience of playing games where all the comfort-grips and analog sticks in the world couldn't take the place of feeling like I'm back in the arcade throwing away hundreds of dollars of perfectly good currency in the form of shiny, new quarters. Games like Ms. Pac-Man or any of the Konami and Midway PS conversions come to mind... So, it's always exciting to recapture the magic with a jacked up peripheral like Sunflex's Arcade Board at home. Looking similar to the Blaze board, Sunflex has the left-side arcade stick and buttons in the middle. The Arcade Board supports analog and vibration, and lets you assign Turbo function to any of the standard PlayStation buttons, including shoulder buttons. A long cord and big size make this a tabletop item for sure, but it does come in matte black to match your PS2.

Performance: First let me say that any piece of hardware like this is just a specialized controller, and won't be right for every type of game. The lack of two analog sticks immediately rules out a few games that require control in two sticks, and games like RPGs just don't need this much square footage. But, for fighting games, an arcade setup works amazingly well. Pulling off combos is made much easier by the large buttons put close together, and side-scrollers or straight arcade games play just fine, also. The stick is solid and sized big, but not too big. One button assigns digital or analog control to the stick, and another button fixes 8-way control to the stick, versus free motion. This makes perfect sense to a fighter fan, since all the combos work with some combination of the 8-way scheme. At times when more delicate control is needed, the toggle comes in handy. Turbo is easily mapped to one of the keys, proving valuable for any shooter or side-scrolling arcade game. Granted, there aren't tons of those yet for PS2, but Gradius comes to mind... :) Otherwise, the Start button is at the bottom-center of the Arcade Board with Select nestled in near Turbo and the analog button. Vibration is supported, and is felt primarily in the analog stick.

Features: Arcade-style controller for PlayStation 2 Supports analog and vibration Turbo feature can be set to any action button Choose between free-motion stick control or 8-way Large buttons ideal for Fighting games Natural layout of buttons match arcade format Long cord allows for tabletop placement Matte black color matches PlayStation 2

Drawbacks & Problems:: My biggest issue with the Sunflex Arcade Board is that it just feels cheap. Invite a friend over and try to convince her the action buttons are analog. All the buttons are so loose that it's hard to get them to register in digital mode, much less show a gradual response. Likewise, the analog stick is way too stiff and doesn't show much gradual response either. The whole analog concept seems lost on this board, and although it might loosen up after some time, I doubt it. The buttons are big, which is nice, but they feel like something on a Fisher-Price toy. The stick has a solid 'gear-shift' feel to it, but design doesn't equate to execution on this puppy. It might be good enough for a retro game like Gradius or something relatively low-key like Sky Odyssey, but the Arcade Board just doesn't feel passable for high-wire acts like DOA2 or Tekken. It may sneak into quite a few homes by virtue of looking cool, but check out at least one other arcade conversion peripheral before you make this purchase.

-Fridtjof, GameVortex Communications AKA Matt Paddock