Worst joystick you've ever encountered

[johnim]

i made my own

http://www.amibay.com/showthread.php?t=20515

[lordofchaos]

Originally Posted by tomcat666

What about this monstrosity of a joystick:


Quickshot IX Deluxe... you controlled it with the FULL hand (or feet if you like ;-) ) ... it made practically anything almost completely unplayable

It's hideous! Get it away from the screen, my eyes are burning garhhhh It should have been a prop on Blake 7...

[s2325]

Maybe it's designed for disabled players.

[lordofchaos]

Originally Posted by s2325

Maybe it's designed for disabled players.

It was designed?

[Old Fool]

Originally Posted by tomcat666

ADS Joystick, made in ex-Yugoslavia... commercially sold. Mechanics were WORSE than Quickshot 2 - aluminum leafs as "switches".

and YES - that is a handle from an actual ski pole ! Your eyes do not deceive you!



Was the first joystick I had on my ZX Spectrum. When I got to C64 we changed to QuickShot II and the Turbo version... one would think we traded up... ;-)

This looks so stupid that it's unreal.

[lordofchaos]

Originally Posted by Old Fool

This looks so stupid that it's unreal.

Yeah I would have loved to be a fly on the wall on that design brief.

[pickaweapon]

Hats off to Photon and his TI-99s! Hilarious. Also, gotta love that quicksilva budget stick on a sucker lol!

Echoing most of the other posters, the worst I've personally encountered is everyone's worst nightmare, good-for-nothin' emergency joystick, that creaky, crusty old waste of good plastic the Cheetah 125+. Trying to coax a corner out of that thing was the definition of 'threading a needle'.

For sheer style over practicality, check out these Batman and Alien joysticks.

[lordofchaos]

@ pickaweapon. That alien joystick looks wrong on so many levels

[protek]

Originally Posted by s2325

how about this one:

Ahh, the Cruiser with a selectable stiffness setting of: stiff, stiffer and welded.

[jimbob]

Originally Posted by lordofchaos

It's hideous! Get it away from the screen, my eyes are burning garhhhh It should have been a prop on Blake 7...

Haha, I have one of these. I bought it on ebay a while ago. I might have thought it was a trackball, I can't recall, anyway it arrived, I saw it was about ten times the size I was expecting and like you thought, gah! it's hideous and can't be any good to use, then I tried it and it was horrible, made me even crapper at sensi.

But actually, after a while I got used to it and actually quite like it for some games. You palm kinda sticks on the massive ball and there is no tension in your hand, just rock your wrist a bit and . . . uh. . . I think I'll stop there . . .

Point is, not as bad as you think when you get used to it. Can't speak for reliability but it's style encourages less violent moves than normal sticks.

[s2325]

small, black and depressing: [ Show youtube player ]

[ElectroBlaster]

Originally Posted by s2325

I have to disagree on this one! They arent too bad, not amazing but anything with a microswitch is ok with me. Well as long as they are laid out like a proper joystick and not some stupidly dumb design.

I absolutely hate anything with those little "pop" switches, the type found in the atari 2600 and others that are held down with sellotape! complete and utter rubbish lol.

I have a strange pair of quickshot python joysticks, one is fully microswitched and is quite solid and ok and the other has god awfull "pop - leaf" switches and feels like a bag of mush.

[fryguy]

Originally Posted by Retro-Nerd

Nothing beats the quicksilver stick.

Hehe is used to have on of thoose, playing platform games etc was impossible because it always moved in some direction

[fryguy]

I bought two of those to use with my C64GS. They were unusable.

[rare_j]

My brother and i quite liked the cheetah 125+
It lasted forever while all the microswiched ones eventually broke.
And they were only 8 quid if i remember. Everyone had one!
I found the leafs to be much more reliable than the microswitches and no less accurate. I had no idea they were so loathed!
It was a bit fat on the shaft, though.
My favourite was the quickshot topstar (google it for a picture)
It had an autofire switch that engaged on the second button press, rather than being on and firing all the time like the cheetas, so it was really controllable. Awesome. I hated pounding buttons so good autofire was important.

[moijk]

Originally Posted by Leffmann

The original Atari 2600 joystick, no doubt.

I got two since i wanted one working atari joystick next to my atari 2600. But one were very loose and the other where just wonky. well, i took the first one apart. I was pretty amused by the low-tech inside. the stick have jumped out of the center pin - what a terrible way to build a stick. The other stick were previously opened and fixed with something that felt like bubble gum. the white plastic inner stick were all torn to shreds and the board had all the leaf contacts flattened. I know you can get spares and fix it up but damn if i bother to waste money on this crap. now i got one stick that works and it'll going to be a decorative piece since the first round with one of the many annoyingly hard atari games it'll have had too much force applied.

[DH]

Broke within a week, replaced for free and that did exactly the same. These joysticks were never designed for the hardcore gamer of the time. Complete waste of money and even after fixing the second one, those micro switches were an absolute nightmare, as you never really knew whether they would work or not. That's probably why the handle and base always broke because of the sheer force used to get that left switch to work. Still, it was an annoying but fun time

[Sektor 83]

I concur 100% with the Atari 2600 joystick... I remember 'em being very uncomfortable to use!

[T_hairy_bootson]

Originally Posted by DemonHellraiser

Broke within a week, replaced for free and that did exactly the same. These joysticks were never designed for the hardcore gamer of the time. Complete waste of money and even after fixing the second one, those micro switches were an absolute nightmare, as you never really knew whether they would work or not. That's probably why the handle and base always broke because of the sheer force used to get that left switch to work. Still, it was an annoying but fun time

I had one that I reserved for using with flightsims... god I can still hear how loud the microswitches were....

[Predseda]

Originally Posted by DemonHellraiser

Broke within a week, replaced for free and that did exactly the same. These joysticks were never designed for the hardcore gamer of the time. Complete waste of money and even after fixing the second one, those micro switches were an absolute nightmare, as you never really knew whether they would work or not. That's probably why the handle and base always broke because of the sheer force used to get that left switch to work. Still, it was an annoying but fun time

Second that. Also very unergonomical autofire switches, I had to adapt the border around them with a rasp to get it at least useable. Cord went from outside and was quickly broken by stupid piece of plastic that was in its way. Nice, but bad joystick.