Joystick Reviews

[SteveJ34]

Is there a general consensus for model (and mfr too) for 8-way and 4-way joysticks?

I see several model options (Ultimate, Super, Competion, etc) from Happ and would be interested to hear opinions from those that have completed their cp so that I might make some purchasing decisions to get construction of new mame cab "off the design page" and into the garage....

Thanks.

Steve

[jjanis]

My impression is that the best choice for 8-way  is the competition joystick...  It's purely an 8-way.

The Super joystick (I have 4 of them) are what I purchased.  It was what the HotRod used, and that was the only reason I went with them.  They're great (then again I haven't tried the competition...  I would have gone with those had I known.)  The Super has the benefit that you can switch some parts around and turn it into a 4-way.  It's a pain in the butt to switch it around, and when you make it a 4-way, it's better than using an 8-way, but I don't think it's nearly as good as using a real 4-way.  I think that when it's made to work as both, it suffers a trade-off of not being perfect for either (although it's clearly built to work best as an 8-way, and it works great as far as I'm concerned as an 8-way).

I read that the above two choices are better than the Ultimate.

Here's a link to pages on this website with reviews:
http://www.arcadecontrols.com/arcade_controls.shtml#Joysticks

Here are some other (conveniently conflicting) things people have said on the net:

"Comments on the BYOAC Forum clearly indicate that HAPP Super joysticks are the best all-round control. They even work quite well for 4-way games, whereas many 8-ways tend to give false 4-way inputs. The HAPP Ultimate joysticks are apparently far from being

[Tiger-Heli]

Just my opinion!

If you have the space, get a Happ joystick in 8-way mode and a Happ Pac-Man replacement (or Wico leaf switch) for true 4-way mode.