RedOctane Metal Pad Review

[genedefect]

If you have any questions, be sure to reply and ask them. I will do my best to answer.

This is just a quick review. I have only had about 5 hours on the board so far, and watch one of my friends for about 1 hour.

To start, I will say that I wish RedOctane would offer shipping through anyone but Airborne Express. They always just leave the box outside my apartment door. They never even knock.

PAD ARCHITECTURE

The pad weighs about 40 pounds but is quite small. It is approximately 1 1/2 inches thick. Most of the "casing" is made of some nice thick and heavy steel. I am pretty confident that it would take a lot to damage the main structure of the pad.

OVERALL SHIPPING

It was shipped in a cheap cardboard box with minimal styrofoam. The box that I got had been severly damaged in route to my place. One corner entirely ripped off and exposing the Dance Pad. A couple of more cuts all the way through the box. But the Dance Pad was not damaged at all.

PAD SHIPPING

The Pad itself had some kind of cheap white sticky material over the 3 metal squares (center, bottom-left, bottom-right) and a plastic "static" stuck cover on all 6 arrows. The Plastic ones came off without a hitch, but it took me the better part of 15 minutes to get the white plastic stuff off without leaving any stuck in the grooves by the buttons. This would be my one complaint with the pad.

CONTROL BOX

The Control Box cord is about 3 feet from pad to control box and about 3 more feet from Control box to your game console. The Control box feels a little cheap, but no worse than any others out there. It is clear red and you can see the small circuit board in it. The pad has a cable that goes to the control box and connects with an identical connector to the one you will find on your video card/monitor for your computer. There is no screws included to screw it on, but it holds on quite snug anyways. Both connectors have screw holes, so if you take a set of screws off a monitor you can screw it on if you want to. Off the pack of the control pad is just the cable that goes directly into your PSX/PS2.

ARROW LIGHTS

On the website it states that the arrows light up. This is incorrect. What it does have is 2 rows of 3 red lights down the side of each of the 4 main arrows that do light up. This is nice for arrow testing, but they aren't anything special.

PAD STRENGTH

The pad itself seems pretty sturdy on it's own. I tried playing it on 1/2 inch thick carpeting as well as a 3/4 inch piece of plywood. It felt the same both ways.

ARROWS

The arrows do not sink into the pad much if at all. It appears that the only the very edge of the arrows can sink in and that is limited to about 1/8th of an inch. Press the center of the arrows with my hand of foot did not produce any noticable movement. They are very responsive and haven't stuck on me or my friend as of yet. We tried several songs on Heavy or Maniac including Matsuri Japan, Exotic Ethnic, Rythem and the Police, DXY!, End of the Century, and Max300. If it was 9 foot and on 5th mix or DDRMAX USA, we tried it. All of them ran great.

MOVEMENT

When playing on my apartments slick carpet, it barely moved. I noticed approximately 1 inch of movement after playing the following 5 songs on heavy on DDR MAX. Matsuri Japan, True, Exotic Ethnic, Orion 78, and Candy. When on my 3/4 inch block of wood with a nonslick surface, it didn't move at all.

DOUBLES

The pad's sides appear to be thin enough that pressing 2 together would be the perfect distance for doubles. But I have yet to take the measurements to confirm



TWO THINGS to consider,

1) This most probably apply to any hard pad or even the arcade for that fact. If you are mostly a home player and use soft pads like the Ignition 2.0, you will notice this not nearly as forgiving. You do play in your shoes on this pad, thus you can't slide your feet like you can in socks around the pad. Thus expect to get worse scores on some of your favorites till you get a little more practice.

2) EXTRA NOISE. You will hear your foot steps. Tap Tap Tap. With everystep. That is unless you can turn up the volume to be as loud as the arcade :-) This was annoying to my friend, but didn't bother me. This is definately something to consider but don't let it stop you from buying the pad.



Once again, I have only put about 5 hours in myself, but if you want a more arcade like feel at home, have 200$'s to spend, I would go for it.

Of note, before I purchased the pad, I eMailed RedOctane with a couple of questions about the pad, and they replied in under 10 minutes.

[Orion87]

Does it feel like the arcade?

[genedefect]

To me it does, with one little exception

The buttons are not recessed from the metal as much as in the arcade. Though it is not perfectly flat like a Cobalt Flux.

[Orion87]

Great, thanks a lot. I'll probably be ordering 2 of these late tomorrow at about 7:00.

[genedefect]

Sweet.

If you live on or near the west coast, you don't have to do ultra speedy shipping. But either way you might want to make sure you are home on the day they are set to arrive.

Man do I have Airborne Express

[oXpaperdollXo]

I'm thinking about buying two of the metal pads, but I've got two questions. Could you freestyle on it with no problems and would it move if you freestyled?

[genedefect]

As long as your freestyling does not involve using a bar, I would say yes you could freestyle on it.

I would recommend that if you plan on freestyling, in order to stop movement, get a piece of 3/4 inch plywood or corkboard, then get some non-slick surfacing (with some ridges facing all directions preferred)

Glue to the non-slick surfacing to one side of the wood, then just set the mat on that side.

With that setup, the pad does not move even on the heaviest songs for me

[oXpaperdollXo]

Thanks for the tip genedefect. I can't wait till I get the pads.

[Orion87]

im gonna build a bar for mine

[oXpaperdollXo]

That's cool. I want to do that too, but I'll let someone else do that for me. hehe.

[Orion87]

im just gonna put them on some plywood and hopefully they won't move. anyways, ill trace positions around them on the wood with a marker so that if they do, i can just place them back at the end of the song. so ill just mount some barz to the ply wood... its gonna be sweet

[Orion87]

anyways- the point of tha is tha tthere is no chance to breaking the pads

[Orion87]

sh!7- double post sry

[TheManOfTheSea]

Thanks for a great review. Be sure to update it if anything changes in the long run, like screws coming loose or cracked plastic and the like.
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Are you enjoy?

[genedefect]

Will do.


For those thinking about bars, you may actually be able to add them pretty easily to this pad

The back of the pad has an blank metal plate right were the bars would be and just about the correct width to. all 4 sides of the plate are encased in very strong metal.

What I see you being able to do is cut 2 circles in the mets for the poles. Then permenantly mount either another piece of metal to the entire bottom of the pad or something that tacks on a hundred pounds or so (so the pad doens't tip over) Then you can mount the bars and have them appear as though they are really a part of the pad.

[YmkFX]

Damnit, don't make me think I wasted 100 bucks on a Cobalt Flux when I could've gotten the same metal pad for less. I just ordered my CF a day or two ago.

[genedefect]

I wouldn't say wasted. The Cobalt Flux is a known good pad. I would only recommend the RedOctane Metal Pad right now if you are willing to take the chance that it "may" have issues. RedOctane is being very supportive so far and I imagine most issues will crop up in the warrenty period.

The Warrenty is still 60 days. When I last talked with them, they said they are considering extending the warrenty period and if they do mine will most likely still be included in the new period. (I don't trust this myself, but it's better than nothing)

[Syxx]

Wow... sounds like a CG pad with lights.


And costs more.
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whites

[Resident Lune]

[diabloslayer469]

Can you post some pics of it? Maybe some pictures that show how flat it is.