readme of Desert Strike:
Code:
Red - Always fires the Cannon
Blue - Always fires Hydra
Green - Always Fires Hellfire
Red - Fire
Yellow - Bring Up Map Screen/Exit Map screen
Play - Pause
Play+Forward+Reverse - Quit
Green+Forward+Reverse - Abort Game
so what you describe looks normal to me. You could try green+forward+reverse just to see if it quits to wb to test left shoulder (reverse) and green.
As said earlier, whdload slaves with joypad controls use the "state of the art" joypad reading routines. try others, I've fixed dozens of them last year. I don't think I can help more.