ION GO PAD Folding Game Controller

Convenient. That's the go-word for the GOpad. It's small, it's very light, it comes with a 1m retractable USB/mini-USB cord of its own, and... it's pretty durable. The exposed ribbon-cable between the halves of the pad worry me a bit, and the plastic is so light I do worry I might crush it between my mitts, but the buttons are still squishy after a marathon weekend of blue-bomber games and the hinge still works despite several falls and tumbles. The pad does work. It looks like a cross, but given that my thumb was eclipsing it, I treated it like a big and rounded pad, almost like the Master System's d-pad. This means it's comfy enough so I didn't get blisters, but small enough that I sometimes hit 'down' when I meant to hit 'left'. There's good spacing on the face buttons, and they're tilted slightly so you can rotate your thumb over all four with ease without snags. They're a good shape so you can mash each one individually without worry about slipping into another, and they've got good spring to register all those presses. The turbo/clear buttons are a little complex, but they're tied to the controller and will work on any OS (tested on Windows, Linux, Mac, Android): hold the Turbo and then press a button; when you release Turbo, that button now has rapid-fire. Hold Clear then press a button, and when you release Clear, that button will no longer have rapid-fire. The shoulder buttons are an issue; since the controller is so small, you'll probably barely have the flexability to hit the outer buttons while hitting the inner ones (or hitting the outer ones without hitting the inner ones). And that also ties into having no face buttons; there simply isn't enough space for that (well maybe across the Turbo on the right side) and you'll have to make do with the awkward outer shoulders. I haven't tried the bundled Asteroids software, but as it stands the Ion GOpad is a great on-the-go classic game controller. There is no analog stick, there could have been an extra face button, but considering the super small package, I can live with that. Now, where is this other castle my princess is in?