1st July 2007, 9:24 PM
The MS Sidewinder 3d Pro has four buttons on the handle, four on the base, a throttle, and a twist (rudder) axis as well. However, its drivers do not work on anything beyond Win98 or so, so you have to use it instead in two other modes it supports: analog Thrustmaster FCS or ... um, some other stick emulation. In one mode you get four buttons (on the stick) and the throttle, but not the rudder or other four buttons, but can only have one button pressed at a time (kind of annoying); in the other mode there are just four buttons, no rudder or throttle or anything, but you can press multiple buttons at once. I use the former mode. I don't miss the base buttons at all... after all, your other hand is going to be on the keyboard anyway, not the base of the joystick. Even when they worked I almost never used them. Now the twist axis, that I miss... oh well.
We had an ancient 2-button (with throttle) Kraft Thunderstick before that one, that came packed in with our P90 (because the system came with Rebel Assualt, presumably), but that thing was awful... analog, so you had to constantly adjust the trim pots, and only two buttons...
Anyway, I'd never want to play a space sim (or realistic mech game) with a gamepad. It's harder, a LOT less fun, and shreds a lot of the illusion of immersion... outside of civilian flight sims, a genre I don't enjoy, there aren't really any games anymore that actually use joysticks, so I haven't missed not having one, but even so it's something I'll eventually have to deal with. After all, I never did finish ... well, um... MechWarrior 2, TIE Fighter, X-Wing, X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter, or X-Wing Alliance... or Wing Commander... to name all of my PC space sims/mech games... :D (though technically I did finish the base TIE Fighter; I played the CD version which includes the original floppy missions plus the missions from both addons and got through all the missions from the original game and first expansion before bogging down near the end of the second (and last) expansion... but other than that...)
We had an ancient 2-button (with throttle) Kraft Thunderstick before that one, that came packed in with our P90 (because the system came with Rebel Assualt, presumably), but that thing was awful... analog, so you had to constantly adjust the trim pots, and only two buttons...
Anyway, I'd never want to play a space sim (or realistic mech game) with a gamepad. It's harder, a LOT less fun, and shreds a lot of the illusion of immersion... outside of civilian flight sims, a genre I don't enjoy, there aren't really any games anymore that actually use joysticks, so I haven't missed not having one, but even so it's something I'll eventually have to deal with. After all, I never did finish ... well, um... MechWarrior 2, TIE Fighter, X-Wing, X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter, or X-Wing Alliance... or Wing Commander... to name all of my PC space sims/mech games... :D (though technically I did finish the base TIE Fighter; I played the CD version which includes the original floppy missions plus the missions from both addons and got through all the missions from the original game and first expansion before bogging down near the end of the second (and last) expansion... but other than that...)
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