Best and Worst stock controllers

[GreyGhost]

Agreed. The first time I played my friends TRS80 he had one of those non-self centering joysticks. We played a version of Donkey Kong called Donkey Monkey I think. It was very hard to maneuver the little man around and hit the ladders just right. Later on if I remember correctly, he got one that did center itself.

[Muzz73]

Oh, man... the CoCo stick was awful!

Best: XBOX 360, GameCube, Genesis (comfy and plugs right into a VIC-20)

Worst: 5200 (ugh), the Odyssey 2's stick (utter garbage), the Wii (nice concept; getting kids off of the couch, but I hate bouncing around like a ninny)

On the fence: Intellivision (pain in the rump, but I'm used to them), Atari CX-40 joystick (stock with the 2600, not wonderful, but you can still buy rebuild kits for them)

[eslapion]

The TRS-80 Color Computer joystick sold at Radio Shack was pretty terrible; it was an analog stick, which should have been a good thing, but it was really lightweight and felt fragile, and when you let go of the joystick, it didn't have any springs to push it back to the neutral position. Funny that no one has mentioned it so far.

I more or less disagree with your opinion about these analog sticks.

I remember playing the game Doubleback which was a game definitely designed for an analog stick with no equivalent on the VIC or 64.

Within that specific game, the CoCo stick allowed you not only to control in exactly what direction you were going but also how fast you wanted to go. To feel this accuracy is something that was simply unavailable on any other computer at the time and completely new to me, back then.

To me, the best stock controller, however, remains the Colecovision's Gemini stick which also happened to work well on the 64 and VIC.

[Tetsuo_Usagi]

The Saturn pads (not the first ones but the mk2 smoother versions) were very good for beat-em-ups. Very much the same shape as the 6 button Megadrive pads.

The Xbox 360 pads are a good shape, weight and feel but the D-pad was never responsive enough for me. Shame really

[CBR125R]

Worst: 5200 (ugh), the Odyssey 2's stick (utter garbage),

Interesting. I bought an O2 a couple of weeks ago and it is my first exposure to this machine (other than emulation).
I really like the controllers! They seem to work just fine for me, and although they're 8-way directional, the stick has a bouncy, almost analog feel to it. FOr me they are comfortable to hold and to use.

I guess everyone has different preferences.

[ArugulaZ]

Saturn joypads are, by a wide margin, the best controllers you'll find on a game system. I modified one to work with a variety of control-impaired game systems, including the GameCube (and by proxy, the Wii), the 3DO, and the Xbox 360. The last controller is fine for modern gaming experiences but just rotten for versus fighters and retro titles. I really wish someone had made a Saturn controller for the Xbox 360, but because the system has protocols to lock out unlicensed USB controllers, I had to make one myself. (Note to Microsoft: be less greedy k thx)

Early home computers seem to have the worst controllers. Even our beloved VIC-20 had a turdburger of a joystick, a sort of mutant offspring of the 2600 stock controller (which I didn't really like in the first place). However, the TI-99/4A is worse yet, with its pair of joysticks being damn near impossible to use. So stiff and unreliable! Who came up with these awful things, and can I shove them up his butt? Anything with a numeric keypad is also generally pretty crummy. Intellivision especially, but also ColecoVision, Emerson Arcadia, APF-1000, and a host of other ill-conceived controllers.

[akator]

Favorites:

Astrocade: combines joystick and paddles in one easy to use controller that is shockingly ergonomic for the 1970s.

Vectrex: play with the controller on a flat surface and it's like a mini arcade controller, perfect for the system and its games.

Genesis: comfortable and durable, good for hours of use even with my middle-aged arthritic hands.

Saturn: basically a Genesis controller with shoulder buttons, still just as awesome. (edit: I'm not referring to the first US controller, enlarged and angled, but the original worldwide controller that was released as the second model in the US)

PlayStation Dual Shock: comfortable to use with all buttons and analog sticks easily accessible, which is pretty amazing considering how much stuff there is to keep track of.

...

Then there's everything else, most of which I'm OK with and a few I'm not.

I've got a pretty fair selection of 2600 controllers and currently use the Wico bat and Wico trackball most often, so that probably means they are my favorites out of that controller class.

I used to love the standard ColecoVision controllers but these days they induce pain within 30 minutes of use. The Super Action Controllers are more ergonomic but I've never fully felt at ease with them. I now find the Intellivision and Atari 7800 controllers even worse than the ColecoVision because they make my hands painfully cramp even sooner.

I've always liked the Magnavox Odyssey 2 controllers. They share many things in common with computer sticks like the Kraft joysticks made for Apple, TRS-80, and IBM.

I have never been a fan of the N64 controller because even with plenty of time using it, I never felt like I was holding it comfortably or correctly. It always felt like my game was off, that if I only had a different controller I would do better. In recent years I validated that by using controllers for other systems and enjoying N64 games much more than before.

SNES is pretty good, but I prefer the Genesis and Saturn. I was impressed wih NES, SMS, and TurboGrafx in their time but won't use them now unless I have no other choice.

At one point I thought the Neo Geo AES joystick was the ultimate home controller, an opinion further reinforced by the number of similar arcade style sticks that appeared for every other system. Then in 2003-2004 I discovered X-Arcade and other arcade controls (thanks, Internet).

Dreamcast, Gamecube, Xbox are good but there's just a little something off in each one that holds them back.

The 360 controller is damn good, but it isn't a favorite and I haven't been able to figure out why yet. Maybe it's because I can't use it without thinking about how similar it is to the Dreamcast controller, but better because it has 15 years of refinement, but not as good as it should be after 15 years of refinement

[ral-clan]

I don't mind the Intellivision "disc" at all. I find it faster for games like Pac Man, and great for games where that use it in an innovated manner (i.e. as a steering wheel, etc.). The placement of the side buttons was not comfortable, but I could live with it.

The Intellivision II, however changed the controllers so they had sharper, less ergonomic corners and hard plastic side buttons which absolutely hurt your thumbs after only a few presses.