ERG! Blueshark is sold out until forever :(

[BigBadOrc]

Which pad should I get:

http://www.mymybox.com/nexen.html

http://www.mymybox.com/piumpad1.html

and if I get a pump pad what game would I play on it?

[danc1005]

and if I get a pump pad what game would I play on it?

If you don't even know what game you would be buying it for, why would you even consider buying it?

[hermione]

and if I get a pump pad what game would I play on it?

This is a joke right? haha...?

[BigBadOrc]

rofl. WELL IDEALLY I would play pump pro on it, but I don't think there's a home release available yet. There's several home versions of PIU out there but I'm not really sure I care that much about them (although Katy does!)

So I'd probably use some form of stepmania with a pump theme and whatever pump stepfiles I could find. Not sure what's out there for this though.

[MonMotha]

There are precisely two Playstation (2) releases of Pump It Up, both bearing the name "Exceed". There's the Korean release, and the US "Exceed SE" release, which is, believe it or not, superior in every way (I know, shocking). I heard rumors of a Korean "Exceed 2" release for PS2, but I never saw it available. There are also several old PC releases which are impossible to find, and some PSP (no, I'm not kidding) releases for Korea only; I believe the latest one is Zero. Obviously, you'd need a USB or keyboard interface to play the PC versions. Fortunately, it's easy enough to play most of them as they just use zcsqe and 13579 (num pad) keys from the keyboard. If your pad shows up as a gamepad, you can try "joy2key".

If you just want to emulate Pro, put Stepmania on the PUMP setting. It's close enough. It doesn't play like Pump at all, but neither does Pro. Everything is the same except the behavior of the holds, which is pretty well broken in Pro anyway.

As for Pad quality, I can't really tell you much. I've heard that Nexens are decent.

[letshavetea]

There was an Xbox pump game....

http://www.gamespot.com/xbox/puzzle/pum ... av;summary

see?

PIU Exceed I guess *shrug* I dunno anything about this pump you speak of.

[MonMotha]

The Xbox release of Exceed SE was identical to the PS2 release and seems even harder to come by.

I do have one of the Exceed SE bundles I don't really have any use for. I'd be willing to sell it if somebody wants it. They are pretty much impossible to find at retail these days.

[letshavetea]

Yea, I realized that a few minutes after I posted it...

heh

[lgolem]

I used pump pads for Stepmania, it worked great for a long time.

If you just want to emulate Pro, put Stepmania on the PUMP setting. It's close enough. It doesn't play like Pump at all, but neither does Pro. Everything is the same except the behavior of the holds, which is pretty well broken in Pro anyway.

I do have a hacked version of stepmania that will give hold values and can be set up to give a precentage like Pro does. and of course a good collection of simfiles, which you and katy can try out on our of scale flux the next time you are down in b-town.

As for Pad quality, I can't really tell you much.

The pads are excellent in my opinion, they use actual pump sensors in them, not like most that use metal on metal contact, they work really well.

The Xbox release of Exceed SE was identical to the PS2 release and seems even harder to come by.

The reason being for that is cause the Xbox had a great feature where one could make custom songs off songs on there X-box harddrive, and upon release people were told that songs could be downloaded via X-box Live, which never happened. The metal pad never did have a x-box connector sadly so the pad was not easily functional with x-box.

There are also several old PC releases which are impossible to find

Also these became easy for download and all, I actually have several hacked version of these to that have newer songs on them and such.

[Amp Divorax]

Speaking as somebody who has played on Nexen, CF, Blueshark, and a homemade platform by far the best non arcade platform I ever played on was... well homemade cause they made it match the arcade as close as possible and even was able to score a good safety bar. As for the commercial solutions, I personally swear by Cobalt Flux as for almost 4 years mine has worked like a charm, albeit blueshark does feel closer to the arcade.

I should mention that due to the lack of a nearby arcade with Pump for me I am very interested in finding a decent solution for playing PIU at home. One thing I will mention is that I can confirm that many songs from the newer releases have been hacked to work on the PC version of Prex3, but sometimes the sync isn't dead on. I can also confirm that some of the newer Pump skins for Stepmania have actually started to get things right in terms of look and feel, but most of them are also on hard to read mexican sites. (Also, there is now an option for freeze arrows to act in the same way that they act in the primary Pump series.)

One thing I have looked into possibly doing is to build my own platform since it should take all of $400 for a full nightmare capable platform. (Albeit this also doesn't take having a bar into effect.) I don't really know though if that would really be worthwhile since in some cases it's $2,000-$3,000 for a machine that could be easily upgraded to a newer release.

[lgolem]

I should mention that due to the lack of a nearby arcade with Pump for me I am very interested in finding a decent solution for playing PIU at home.

The descent solution would be the PS2 Exceed, even though it is 4 versions behind, all in all it is the most accurate feel to modern Pump. However the past 2 versions (NX and NX2) have brought newer and more interesting stuff to the table, still all in all PS2 Exceed is the most accurate version of Pump to play at home.

One thing I will mention is that I can confirm that many songs from the newer releases have been hacked to work on the PC version of Prex3, but sometimes the sync isn't dead on.

It is not just the fact that the sync is off on some, it is the Prex3 system itself that is is buggy, and it simply can't handle what the new charts do since they have re-done the engine in the past couple of versions. Out of all the hacks (which trust me, i have gone though A LOT of them) I have found, I have found 1 that worked great which was an exceed hack (which is pointless to me cause I have the PS2 version). However you can find the regular PC versions un-hacked and they work as great as those versions did in the arcade.

I can also confirm that some of the newer Pump skins for Stepmania have actually started to get things right in terms of look and feel, but most of them are also on hard to read mexican sites. (Also, there is now an option for freeze arrows to act in the same way that they act in the primary Pump series.)

Actually the freeze arrows for stepmania, what you are talking about, they function the holds like pro (because Pro is Stepmania through and through). If you want to simulate pro that is VERY easy to do, all in all there is no simulator that will be the same as Pump it Up.

The closest manner of home Pump would be the Exceed SE for PS2 or X-box which are actually fun to play if you don't have a pad that sucks. And no simulator released yet will be able to cut it, it would be nice if AM released another version other than on PSP but I doubt that will happen anytime soon.

[Amp Divorax]

In one of the Stepmania ini files there is an option to have 'pump scoring' for freeze arrows. This was something that was done after pro's development from what I've seen.

[MonMotha]

Is it Pro style holds or Pump style? Pro style is "you have to attack the hold, are graded on the attack, and then get <highest grade possible> on every 8th note tick as long as you're on the hold and a corresponding miss if you are not on the panel". Pump style is "attack is not graded, chart specifies how fast you get <highest grade possible> if you're on the hold and a corresponding miss if you're not on the panel". The difference is pretty stark on some charts. Try playing LIADZ2 with Pro style holds. It's totally different.

The old Prex3 engine can't handle rapid tempo changes or stops, which new charts make sometimes rather gratuitous use of. StepMania can do some of it, but it still seems to have problems (and/or the Pro developers got lazy when translating stepcharts and left a lot of that stuff out). StepMania's support for full size, full framerate background movies is also still somewhat poor.

Other minor differences between Pro/SM and mainline PIU include the size of the arrows on screen (Pro/SM is larger than PIU), scroll rate (probably has to do with the size of the arrows) and correspondingly what happens with speed mods (3x on Pro is about 4x on PIU), and the stage break bar (Pro is notably easier than PIU and always fails you at the end of the stage, while this behavior is often disabled on PIU machines). Differences between Prex3 and newer PIU include background video support (Prex3 and older used a sprite/transition system with a max res of 256x256, while Exceed and newer uses full motion video at full screen size of 640x480), the aforementioned tempo change and stop support improvements, and lots of other tweaks.

Of course, the scoring systems are universally different. Just about every dance game version seems to introduce a new scoring system. So far, only DDRMAX2 and DDR Extreme seem to have shared a scoring system amongst sequential versions. ITG even changed it in a patchlevel. Of course, if you ask me, the arrows scroll up, and the points don't matter (to quote a certain member of this forum), if you ask me.

[lgolem]

In one of the Stepmania ini files there is an option to have 'pump scoring' for freeze arrows. This was something that was done after pro's development from what I've seen.

yeah, I know, and it is like Pro holds, attack and get VERY VERY little value, it doesn't make it Pump style of holds, it makes it Pro style of holds where you are graded for the attack then givin a very small amount of perfects and misses if you aren't holding it.

[BigBadOrc]

good for me since i like pro style holds much better than pump holds +_+

there's also this program called Kick It Up that I haven't tried yet o.O