I've been buying redoctane products for a while now. When it comes to soft mats, they've really got the market cornered. The Ignition 3.0 is no exception. They've improved upon what I had already thought to be a system of perfection. The pads are well designed and feel pretty sturdy when you play on them. Given theyre not metal pads, but they dont move a third as much as regular flat mats.

First Look - The packaging

Pretty standard stuff.

Moving along - The pad setup

... was simple as always. The foams are numbered now (my ignition 2.0 didnt have that) so assembling the foams wasnt difficult at all. Something I noticed is that the foams on the 3.0 feel more dense than the foams from the 2.0. This isnt a huge deal, but I didn't like how the 2.0's sorta 'sank' after extented play.

Introducing - The new stuff

The pad is compatible out-of-the-box with Xbox and PC, which is really convenient because getting a hold of a working USB adapter for the PC is a pain in the ass. Same with most xbox converters - you know, the ones you buy at Gamestop that dont map the option buttons (like X and O to A and B).

Zipped up - It's go time

In less than 5 minutes. Stick the foams together, situate it into the pad and zip it up.

I'll be honest, the first few games weren't too pretty. The pad takes some time to 'break in' and will throw a decent amount of off steps while the innards of the pad decompress from being folded into a box. But worry not! After about the first half an hour of play, as the pad gets a little room to breathe and you get some air between the inner layers, youll be nailing full combos in no time. You'll also notice that over time the wrinkles in the top layer will smooth out as well

The Conclusion

Responsiveness, once the pad is broken in, is great. WBR swung by and AAA'd a bunch of stuff, and beat all of DDRex's 'mission mode' using only this pad in 1:03:37 (leet time, kekeke)

SiN gives this pad a 5/5 Initial unresponsiveness easily falls upon the product being packed in a small box. After the initial run, the pad is awesome from there on in.

PC and Xbox Support - Written by nekura

Ah, the Ignition Pad -- RedOctane's flagship product. My dancing game career started with a RedOctane Ignition Pad 2.0, which lasted for half a year before being put out of commission by a smashed control box. Though my next dance pad was the nigh-indestructible Cobalt Flux, the 2.0 line of Ignitions continued to be the choice of many gamers since then. It's hard to deny that series had stagnated, however; there was only one real feature added during its life-span in the form of Xbox support (which, judging by the complaints on DDR Freak's forums, didn't work for a whole lot of people), but it really wasn't in need of improvement in the first place (aside from the aforementioned dysfunctional Xbox capabilities).

However, now that RedOctane has a dancing simulation of their own to publish, they've revamped their entire lineup of dance pads, partly to give them a facelift so that they resemble In the Groove (the dancing sim that they're publishing) a little more, and partly because some of their products (namely the regular soft pad and metal pad) were often seen as inferior in comparison to the competing products on the market. The Ignition 3.0 underwent the least amount of overhauling, though it did receive fully functional Xbox support and USB connectivity in the process, two features will which prove to be beneficial to many players.

As SiN covered initial setup and PS2 support in his review, I focused on testing the Xbox and USB functionality. For the Xbox, I chose KCEH's excellent Dance Dance Revolution Ultramix 2, which, despite its various problems (if you're reading this KCEH, please fix the timing windows and the scrolling of the arrows), is my favorite DDR game to date. Testing consisted of starting from the beginning of the song list and working my way through almost all of it, only skipping a few of the less appreciable songs. As SiN mentioned, there is some breaking in required, though I was getting full-combos and single digit greats after only a few songs (which isn't much of an accomplishment given the almost Pump it Up-like perfect window in Ultramix 2). Even when I played MaxX Unlimited and MAX 300 -Super Max Me Mix-, the pad performed admirably, though it definitely moved a bit. Of course, some movement of the pad is forgivable, and it wasn't bad enough that it ever caused me to lose my place on the pad. Unfortunately, since I cancelled my Xbox Live subscription a while ago, I'm unable to test to see if the Ignition 3.0 is detected as a dance pad online, though RedOctane tells me it does (and there's no reason to not believe them, since the Ignition 2.0 did as well).

USB support functioned well on my Powerbook. No drivers were required to get the pad to work on Stepmania, I simply had to remove the Xbox end of the controller cable and replace it with the USB end. There was no noticable lag, but since no two computers are built equally, that might not be the case for everyone. Three or four panel hits proved to be no problem, and given the hypersensitivity of the pad, weren't a pain in the wrists to perform.

Featuring a price-point somewhere between its low-end softpad and high-end metal platform brethern, the Ignition 3.0 intends to satisfy players who would destroy anything lesser with their fast-paced leg flailing, and in this regard, it does its job well. Considering the numerous complaints about Ignition 2.0 down arrows ceasing to function after only a short period of time, I am slightly concerned about the lifespan of the 3.0 line; however, only time will tell whether or not it has improved in this regard. Still, retailers such as EB Games are willing to sell you an extended warranty for a measly $10, which is a wise investment either way. Even if the circuitry itself doesn't die quickly, a smashed control box is no fun. Besides, it's far better to be safe than sorry.