One of my appointments towards the end of E3 was a trip to the Nyko booth. Given how things had been stacking up during the day I found myself 40 minutes late arriving, but the good folks at this third party peripheral company took the time to sit with me and show me their high end fighting stick called the Free Fighter. At this point in time it is only available for the PS3 as they are currently in negotiation with Microsoft to license the technology to use this stick on the Xbox 360 console.
Once the Free Fighter was handed to me I was pretty amazed with the quality of the build and the feel of joystick and buttons. My Nyko rep, Bernard, was proud of what he was showing me and stated that they had used quality components straight from Japan. When digging a little deeper I discovered that the Free Fighter is made with Japanese Sanwa Denshi arcade-quality parts. This was evident as the buttons have a great feel and respond to pushes quite well. The joystick also moves quite fluidly and feels sturdy, so you don’t feel like you have to be dainty or gentle with it. All in all the build quality feels very good and I think that fighting enthusiasts will notice the how it feels.
As I sat and talked with Bernard, he showed me how the removable base that the fight stick sits in has some slide out pieces in the bottom to allow you to put the unit on your lap comfortably and usefully. It was a simple feature, but once I put it on my lap I appreciated how this feature is quite important, as you don’t have to worry about keeping the fighting stick on a table for maximum performance.
Of course we were not done with the features. Bernard took the stick apart, separating the joystick section from the button section, and he then reattached everything but the joystick was on the left side. It immediately became apparent that this flexibility allows for southpaws to use the stick with ease. He then took it apart again and then connected a cable between the two allowing each piece to sit further apart. This not only allows you to get a more customizable experience, but it also allows you to put it into a custom cabinet should you feel the desire too. All of these features I have just mentioned allow a lot of functionality and flexibility to this fighting stick for many types of fighting fans.
So I thought we were done, but Bernard smiled and starting talking about the programmable macros. OMG, this stick has everything I thought. He showed me that there are four customizable macro buttons that allow you to put in “hard to complete” combos making them quick and easy to access. The buttons have LED lights that will flash to show you the button combos that you have entered. On top of this there are also two various speed turbo buttons, which allows for fast, slow, or user created tap speed. The customizability of buttons and speeds is amazing. Of course any true fighter knows that fighting tournaments shy away from things like this, and there is a switch under the bottom of the unit that disables all these features and puts the stick into what Nyko coins “Tournament Mode”. So for diehards out there, don’t fret, as you don’t have to have these features on.
I didn’t have much time to actually try to play with the stick during a fighting game. Hey, what did you expect, I was running from meeting to meeting and I was already late to this one. What I did play with was impressive, and I did manage to get about 10 minutes to watch a demo area at the Nyko booth were those on the show floor were given an opportunity to take the Free Fighter for a spin. The majority of those who used it were impressed. This included other media, general public, as well as those who sold videogame peripherals. It was a nice mix of people trying it out, and I didn’t hear any major complaints. This bodes well at this juncture.
The Nyko Free Fighter Fight Stick is slated for release Holiday 2012 for a price of $180.00. Now this price is somewhat hefty, especially when you consider it is a PS3 only fight stick, but I have to admit that this a quality stick with some very true Japanese components, so it isn’t cheap to make. The fact that there are so many features, such as left or right handed use, lap base, macros, turbos, and the use of a cable to physically space it out, and you have a lot of tech in one little unit. We hope to have more on this fighting stick as it becomes available to retail stores. For now check out all the pics below.
