Well I came back into town yesterday and found a swarm of visitors from Digg, Shoutwire, Engadget and the like. Thanks for all the links. However, I’m afraid that Engadget inadvertently stumbled upon my secret plan. Last week, I put together I free motion gun mouse for PC gaming. However, unless I tape the motion trigger on the gyro mouse, I can’t play any FPS games because my gun takes both hands. The proper hack-tastic solution? Hack an old NES power-pad to control the character motion (or W, A, S, D keys) with your feet. Brilliant, no? Except now that Engadget has planted the thought in thousands of minds, my surprise attack strategy has been ruined. Nevertheless, a home gaming rig hacked together with old NES peripherals that “fully immerses” the player is still an idea that needs to be realized. Maybe after it is complete I can get together with the plastk.net guys to see if they will let me play on their sweet setup.

So, now that my intentions are disclosed I might as well post on the project as it progresses (not my usual strategy but hey, why not). First, I will need to choose and acquire the components. I could go with the original NES Power-Pad:

The updated NES Power-Pad:

Or the much harder to find NES Roll N’ Rocker, which would be really easy for navigating but really difficult to add any extra functions. Plus, it says that it is only suitable for 100 pounds or less so it would need some reinforcement if any gamer above the age of 9 actually wanted to use it.

I’ll keep posting on any progress. If anyone has any brilliant suggestions let us know and feel free to join in.