No AccuTwist option.
The problem wasn't so much the feel of the physical control--which is great, by the way--it was the translation of my movements into action on the screen that was wonky. The emulation of the paddle handling, in other words. I probably could have tweaked settings to improve it, but it felt like my buckets were lagging behind where they would be on real hardware, and I couldn't get past the 4th or 5th screen.
I had to test this out, and in doing so, it jogged some very old memories. After about a half dozen games, I was able to hit 1700+ points with the TT2 and the sensitivity in Stella set to 15 (all the way up). After that it gets a bit unwieldy because this particular game has a somewhat "cheap" play mechanic at higher levels, where it comes down to how fast one can sweep the buckets back and forth, without much regard to where the bombs are falling. I now clearly recall playing this way when I was a young'un, and it was the main reason I lost interest in the title. When a friend and I played, we found that we could literally play for as long as our stamina held up
. Unlike Avalanche, the falling objects are rather large, and where hit detection is concerned, the buckets act as a "block", with no space between them. So "clacking" the controller against the stops as fast a possible was all it took to keep the bombs wiped.
So yes, I would agree that a spinner is a poor choice for this particular title, at higher levels. The control emulation issues are also a bit odd. I found that the buckets were linked to the cursor, and when the buckets hit the edge and stop, the mouse cursor keeps moving to the extents of the screen. In my case, my dynamic marquee is a logical extension of the desktop to the left. So I could literally move the cursor so far off the playfield that I would need to traverse a whole screen before the bucket would start moving again. So yeah, not the best way to handle the control emulation.
If you like this kind of game, and want to play with a spinner, try Avalanche under MAME. It's a better experience, but be prepared for a challenge.
*EDIT*
I went back to this, to analyze some more. There is something
very wrong with the mouse/spinner control emulation in Stella. When moving to the left, the buckets move smoothly and accurately, even when moved very slowly. When moving slowly to the right, however, I turned the spinner a quarter turn, and the buckets didn't even move. When I turned it faster, it jumped several positions. I'm sure the spinner would work well for this title, if the emulation wasn't so thoroughly borked. I'm surprised I could do as well as I did
**EDIT 2**
If you are having the difficulties I was above, update your Stella to the latest version. I found some posts describing the exact issues I was having, but without any indication that it was resolved. So I checked out the Stella page, read through the change logs and found that the paddle emulation was improved the beginning of last year. But it still doesn't update fast enough to use the tricks we used on the VCS and paddle control (and I'm a lot slower than I was then
.) The sensitivity can now be increased to 20 and control is definitely better. Managed to hit 1900 after a few more games. Also didn't feel like I was losing center. If you are on an older version, get the new one and play with the sensitivity settings. I'd also recommend a large, light knob and no flywheel (ESC) on a spinner. And if using a smaller knob than the original paddle control, be sure to reduce the sensitivity for finer control.