Get Better At Mortal Kombat By Hacking Your PS3 Controller

PS3 Controller

Fighting games like Mortal Kombat provide you with a variety of different available moves. These include kicks, punches, grabs, etc. They also normally include various combination moves you can perform. These combo moves require you to press the proper buttons in the correct order and also require you to time the presses correctly. [Egzola] realized that he could just hack his controller to simulate the button presses for him. This bypasses the learning curve and allows him to perform more complicated combinations with just the press of a single button.

[Egzola] started by taking apart his Playstation 3 controller. There were two PCB’s inside connected by a ribbon cable. Luckily, each individual pad for this cable was labeled with the corresponding controller button. This made it extremely simple to hack the controller. [Egzola] soldered his own wires to each of these pads. Each wire is a different color. The wires then go to two different connectors to make them easier to hook up to a bread board.

Each wire is then broken out on the breadboard. The signal from each button is run through a 4n25 optoisolator. From there the signal makes its way back to various Arduino pins. The 4n25 chips keeps the controller circuit isolated from the Arduino’s electrical circuit. The Arduino also has two push buttons connected to it. These buttons are mounted to the PS3 controller.

Now when [Egzola] presses one of the buttons, the Arduino senses the button press and simulates pressing the various controller buttons in a pre-programmed order. The result is a devastating combination move that would normally require practice and repetition to remember. You might say that [Egzola] could have spent his time just learning the moves, but that wasn’t really the point was it? Check out the video below for a demonstration.

12 thoughts on “Get Better At Mortal Kombat By Hacking Your PS3 Controller

  1. Nice for the project aspect, but takes away the fun in playing the game, also nullify his game achievements due to the cheating in place. But if it is fun for him, nice work.

  2. He wins the Reinventing The Wheel Award for building a controller with macro capability. MadCats made a programmable controller that could not only memorize up to 15 instructions but could execute them at two speeds and made room for pauses in the combo. Maybe he can get a job with MadCats?

  3. HAD readers suck the big one. At least this person came up with an idea and took a shot at making it work, unlike most of the people on here that leave negative posts. No one sees a project from them, oh wait too busy trolling HAD and B*TCHING about what other people do.

    1. Some HAD readers suck the big one. At least Egzola came up with an idea and took a shot at making it work, unlike some of the people on here that leave negative posts about other HAD readers valid commentary. No one sees a project from the “Freak” I replied to, oh wait too busy trolling HAD comments and B*TCHING about other peoples comments.

      LOL!

  4. I don’t understand the need for the opto isolators. Doesn’t the controller operate in the 3.3-5V range? I am working on a similar project but with the ability to record macros instead of hard coding them.

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