Austin Web Designer - Adam Freetly

current tune: the postal service - against all odds
something i've been trying to do since i got my xbox - play unreal with an xbox controller. i got one of those cheapo cords from lik-sang since i didn't want to spend the time soldering the wire myself.
the site i bought it from recommended the xpad driver, which is good enough to play console emulation games (sonic the hedgehog, etc.), but flies you into a wall in any First Person Shooter.
the real prize comes from Redcl0ud it took me a while, because somebody mirrored his site and gets higher google results than the original. not only that, but the idiots don't update the mirror, so they're stuck at 0.57. the current version (as of posting) is 1.03. that's the one that actually works.
after a bit of googling, people seem to be having problems with half life 2 and walking. the simple solution is to make the directions of the joystick to buttons (v1.x only). in unreal, the left joystick works just fine, it's the right one that's a pain in the ass. not only does it not work, the "configure controls" page won't accept input from the stick. the workaround is beyond stupid. with the d-pad mapped to the same controls as the right joystick, set your controls in unreal 2004, then exit and map them to whatever you want. i personally don't use the d-pad, so it's not important.
so now my learning curve on unreal 2004 has turned into a brick wall. i was a god, now i'm an ant. it's like the first time i picked up halo. i feel that stupid. nonetheless, there's a straight parallel between keyboard/mouse and joystick. where learning halo involved adjusting to an entirely different group of players and set of physics, ut2k4 is the same, it's just the controls. i'm off to play for a bit.