RetroLink Nintendo 64 USB Controller Review

<p>Recently&comma; I have been taking a break from the sleuth of games that we have in the modern era&period; I didn’t have my physical Nintendo 64 with me so I decided to pick up an emulator and all the games that I own for it&period; I set it all up&comma; rigged an Xbox 360 controller as my controller&comma; and began playing&period; However&comma; after a little bit of time I noticed that playing these old classics with an Xbox controller didn’t feel quite the same&period; I felt that this controller was taking away from the experience &lpar;especially since there were no C buttons&rpar;&period; So I did some research about connecting an original controller to the PC and came across the Retrolink Nintendo 64 USB Controller&period; Ecstatic to see such a thing existed&comma; I immediately placed my order and got it 3 days later&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><strong>Design &amp&semi; Features<&sol;strong><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>For those of you who had a Nintendo 64 as a kid&comma; using this controller should make you feel right at home&period; The casing of the controller is exactly the same as an official Nintendo one so no need to adjust your grip &lpar;if you have one&rpar;&period; The buttons have the same placements&comma; look and feel as the original too making it blissfully familiar&period; The buttons function well but can be a little on the tight side to push&comma; something a bit of use will sort out&period; The joystick is &lpar;again&rpar; exactly the same as a standard controller with similar resistance however  there seems to be no &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;dead zone” where the joystick can move around without triggering anything&comma; a nice improvement from the original&period; It even has a small plastic ring right under the joystick so if you are eating while gaming food scraps will not get caught in the sockets&period; The best aspect about this controller though&comma; is that it&&num;8217&semi;s a simple &&num;8216&semi;plug in and play&&num;8217&semi; accessory&period; It did come supplied with a small disc &lpar;I would assume it’s the drivers for certain systems&rpar; but I didn’t need it in the end&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; center&semi;"><a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;bagogames&period;com&sol;retrolink-nintendo-64-usb-controller-review&sol;ku-medium&sol;" rel&equals;"attachment wp-att-50271"><img class&equals;"aligncenter size-full wp-image-50271" alt&equals;"nintendo 64 usb controller" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2013&sol;07&sol;05181131&sol;ku-medium&period;jpg" width&equals;"320" height&equals;"213" &sol;><&sol;a><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The functionality of the controller is superb&period; I felt no lag time between my actions on the controller and the subsequent action in the game itself&period; The buttons and joystick seem very durable and able to take much abuse over time&period; After about a few days of use&comma; it is still holding up just as it was when I took it out of the package&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><strong>Cons&sol;Flaws<&sol;strong><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>One &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;flaw” I could say about the controller is no ability to connect any controller <a class&equals;"zem&lowbar;slink" title&equals;"Expansion pack" href&equals;"http&colon;&sol;&sol;en&period;wikipedia&period;org&sol;wiki&sol;Expansion&lowbar;pack" target&equals;"&lowbar;blank" rel&equals;"wikipedia noopener noreferrer">expansion packs<&sol;a> to the back&period; The flap to lock in an expansion is still there&comma; so you could potentially put a memory card or <a class&equals;"zem&lowbar;slink" title&equals;"Rumble Pak" href&equals;"http&colon;&sol;&sol;en&period;wikipedia&period;org&sol;wiki&sol;Rumble&lowbar;Pak" target&equals;"&lowbar;blank" rel&equals;"wikipedia noopener noreferrer">rumble pack<&sol;a> in the back if you felt like it but there&&num;8217&semi;s no clarification as to whether they&&num;8217&semi;re compatible&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Now the only problem I did come across while playing with this controller was the plastic ring under the joystick to catch food scraps and such&period; The ring is just small enough that when using it during normal play&comma; it got caught on a part inside the controller and bent the ring a little bit&period; That little bend prevents the joystick from sliding anywhere easily and can become frustrating&comma; especially in the middle of a party game&period; Lucky for me&comma; I’ve done a lot of DIY work on controllers and gaming equipment in the past so I have managed to cut a Post-it note to a size just slightly bigger than the original plastic piece and put it in&period; Now my controller works perfectly fine again and I haven’t had any issues ever since&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><strong>Summary<&sol;strong><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The Retrolink Nintendo 64 USB Controller is a must buy for anyone who is trying to emulate the Nintendo 64 properly&period; The design and functionality of the controller match almost perfectly with the controller we used to play with&period; This controller will help to bring back the nostalgia that you were looking for and making it feel like you are playing the real thing &lpar;almost&rpar;&period; I personally have already thought of some interesting projects that I could do with these and plan on buying more when the time comes&comma; keep and eye out for these on BagoGames&period;com in the future&excl;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<div class&equals;"zemanta-pixie" style&equals;"margin-top&colon; 10px&semi; height&colon; 15px&semi;"><img class&equals;"zemanta-pixie-img" style&equals;"border&colon; none&semi; float&colon; right&semi;" alt&equals;"" src&equals;"http&colon;&sol;&sol;img&period;zemanta&period;com&sol;pixy&period;gif&quest;x-id&equals;e52660ae-8667-473c-bc92-12a8b045a685" &sol;><&sol;div>&NewLine;