The RedOctane Reload Pedal is meant to be a replica of its arcade counterpart, essentially designed after the Time Crisis pedals, which is obviously its main focus. In a game like Time Crisis: Crisis Zone (which was our main test bed), the pedal acts as the "Reload/Position Shield" button. Releasing the pedal will take cover and reload, while pressing it will pop you out into the open to fire. If you've played any of the Time Crisis arcade games, you know exactly what we're talking about.
According to the pedal's official product page, the RedOctane Reload Pedal officially supports:
While those are the "officially" supported titles, what we discovered is that the pedal is actually a gigantic R1 button. Any light gun game that can use R1 as reload, hide, or any other main action should work perfectly fine with this controller. If you'd want to test it out beforehand, try plugging in a controller along with your light gun and see if R1 will handle your reloading or whatnot fine; if so, this pedal will work great for you.
The Reload Pedal is pretty responsive, as much as its arcade counterpart, anyway. It needs to be pressed in a bit so if you're really light on your feet you may miss an action or two, but that won't be a problem for most people. It's heavy enough and the springs provide enough feedback that you can sorta tell when you're pressing it far enough anyway, even without looking at the screen or even really paying much attention.
The bottom line is that it simply works, which in turn makes the light gun gaming experience more arcade-like. Being as that's essentially what fans of the genre are aiming for anyway (no pun intended), the Reload Pedal goes a long way to bridging the home/arcade gap and making the experiences that much more similar.
As far as build goes, the unit is made of fairly thick metal with a diamond plate top and weighs in at about four pounds. Needless to say, you'd really have to try to damage this thing. Even the attached cable seems to be fit quite snuggly into place and should withstand a number of ill-advised yanks, even with it pulling against the pedal's weight.
The pedal's weight also keeps it snuggly affixed on the floor. The bottom is a large rubber foot that should keep it from sliding on a wood floor (and help protect the finish), and we had no problems with the unit sliding around on our carpet in the office. The only problem that we had with its stability was when trying to use it while seated. You don't really get the correct "leverage" on the pedal from a sitting position, and it tends to tip up on its end. It's still totally usable like this as it still doesn't slide around, but it's obviously not perfect. Standing up to use the Reload Pedal is the way to go, especially since you're going after the total arcade feeling anyway.
In short, this is a big-ass, single-function button that works really well for light gun games. $40 may seem a little costly for something as seemingly simple as a pedal, but for fans of light gun games that's actually a good investment. The RedOctane Reload Pedal will make you want to play through your whole (supported) library at least once more and does a whole lot to bring the total arcade experience home.