These days you can’t look at a console without commenting on its controllers. Call me an old fart, but sometimes I long for the days when controllers were a D-pad and a few buttons. Unfortunately, I have to admit, the analog stick is here forever. There’s no point in arguing that point.

To me though, the best controller was and always will be the dinosaur claw on N64. Great balance for the size and yeah the nub wore down, but so what? Every controller has it’s issues, that’s why you whip out the old soldering iron, dermal tool, epoxy molds and get down to work and mod away.

Doing a little mod these days is sooo much easier. Solderless options abound and you get custom cut circuits to fit your controller perfectly.

That’s where Instafire comes in. Everything I saw at E3 a few weeks back impressed me.

The premise here is simple. Why buy a whole controller just to get a few rapid fire buttons? Ya don’t. Instead, you pick up an Intensafire mod chip. Take your existing controller apart, drop in the pre-cut perfectly fitted mini-board and flexible circuits onto your controller (with easy to follow instructions). It’s all solderless, so you don’t have to worry about 3rd degree burns on your fingertips.

Everything you need is included in the kit. Bonding glue, board, etc. Once you get the thing installed, rapid fire modes are controlled through the D-pad, so you don’t need to shave out a hole for a toggle switch.

The solution works in a ton of games where rapid fire comes in handy. You’ll find an impressive 45+ presses per second. Sexy.

Ease and simple installs come at a price though. The Xbox360 version is around $30, while the PS3 (non-Six Axis, DualShock 3 controller only) is around $70.

Still, if you can pop a canon 45+ times in a second, that’s a whole lotta frags. You might find this worthwhile.

For me? I’m not sure about this whole thing. I’m the snipe and camp type (hate me!). One shot one kill: SK1.

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