Introduction

Versus

Twisting the night away

Everyone who does it has to do it on the sly or risk ridicule. You know who you are - the utter shame of it all eats you up like nothing else. Yes, you're one of those people who turns and twists their hands when you play games with a gamepad. But as everyone knows, with traditional gamepads, no amount of wild gesticulating is going to affect what happens onscreen. So why do people do it? Really it's just a visceral reaction to all the sights and sounds that a game throws at you. Though it may sound incredulous, some people find it natural to play this way. So why hasn't anyone designed a controller that can respond to the user twisting and turning it in his or her hands?

The contestants

The products

Actually Microsoft did come out with their motion sensing gamepad, the "Sidewinder Freestyle Pro," over a year ago. This pad worked pretty decently for what it was designed for, but now that Logitech has come out with a motion sensing pad of their own, the "Wingman Gamepad Extreme," we decided to have the two pads duel it out. I put both pads through a good deal of testing in two games: Star Wars: Rogue Squadron and Motocross Madness. This seemed like a good way to test the pads because they'd come in handy most for action games and racing type games. Before we go into the specifics about how each pad fared in the games, let's talk about how the pads compare in general terms.