joystick recommendation

[SteveDallas]

Originally posted by SteveDallas
the MAME docs suggest it shouldn't be a problem, but they also suggest that you can use the mouse as a controller, and mine (a plain-vanilla PS/2 one) doesn't work.

Duh. You have to specifically enable the mouse as a controller. RTFM. Millipede is much nicer with the mouse. (Millipede performance is extremely important because it's Mrs. Dallas' favorite arcade game.)

Anyhoo, I picked up a Logitech Wingman Attack 2 for $19.99 at Best Buy. I played with some control pads that had thumb-operated mini-joysticks, but I didn't like them. I liked the larger stick, I liked having a fire button on the stick, and I thought the extra programmable buttons might be handy.

In practice, it was a dud because of exactly the problems perth described. The action is very mushy and it's hard to control. To be fair, this may just be a failing of analog sticks in general, as opposed to more discrete digital ones. It's actually not horrible for something like Millipede, where you want to move around freely within the boundary. But in something like Pac-Man or Frogger where you have to change a specific direction at a specific time, I actually found the joystick to be far inferior to using the arrow keys on the keyboard. It's going back at the first opportunity.