Analog "Stick" Games Poll

[FrizzleFried]

Welp,  I am considering building a dedicated analog stick MAME cab with an analog stick on the right and a number of buttons on the left.  I figure I could use it for analog flight stick games as well as first person shooters and it may actually translate to Exidy style shooters decently enough?

What do you think?   Are there enough of these types of games emulated in MAME to warrant a dedicated 25" cabinet?

[ahofle]

One thing I will add is that an analog trigger stick plus MAME's input mappings plus a spinner can be used to play Tron just about perfectly now.  Same with Mad Planets.  It's also a good way to play 49-way games like Sinistar and Road Runner.  Food Fight also comes to mind.  So it really functions well for more than just analog flight type games.

[CheffoJeffo]

I voted yes, but that isn't surprising given my love for frankenpanels ... 

[FrizzleFried]

*bump*

...looking for more opinions...


Worth a dedicated cabinet?

[Minwah]

It's also a good way to play 49-way games like Sinistar and Road Runner.

I'm pretty sure Road Runner actually uses a true analog stick...it was a hall effect joy originally.

Personally I am making an analog control panel with analog stick, trackball and spinner. I'm not sure I would bother with just an analog stick panel (or indeed cabinet), but with that said there are some cracking games like Space Harrier...

[TOK]

I think its a cool idea, but more for the gun games... I'd really like to have a positional gun game for the Exidy stuff as well as Operation Wolf and Terminator. How good are the regular lightgun games with a positional analog controller?

Most of those second gen analog shooters like Space Harrier don't really grab me, but I'd still say yes on this project just based on shooting games. Its fun spending other peoples money! 

[u_rebelscum]

I think there are enough, but I really love analog games.  A couple things that might weight you one way or another:

- Are you going to play 270 driving games on this cab as well?  If yes, if adds quite a few great games.
- Are you thinking of playing lightgun & positional gun games?  Same as above.
- Is it going to be a plain analog stick, a flightstick, or an analog stick with a top button?  Some games play better with one type or another.
- Are you going to add a spinner to that CP?  There a few games that use spinner + joystick, and Mame currently has a pretty good analog2digital convertion, that's adjustable with the -joystick_map option.  Depending which type stick (see last above), adding the spinner could increase the number of games.
- Do you already have a digital cab?  If not, your "analog cab" could make a pretty good one player cab, depending which type of analog stick you have (with mame's -joystick_map option).  OTOH, if not, there are a lot of 2 player digital games that a 2 player 6/7 button cab would cover better.

[jasonbar]

I'm a fan of using my flightstick for racing game accelerator & brake "pedals".  Works pretty nicely.  Also for that T-handle "throttle" controller used on some flight/race/etc games.

-J

[Turnarcades]

The question isn't really 'are there enough games to do it', more like are there enough games you want to play that can't be played fine with an alternative stick.

If you're struggling to think of games that would use it then obviously you haven't missed those games up til now, so is it worth building one for games that don't interest you? If you liked any of them enough you'd have done this by now.

Not a dig, just trying to save you time and money you may regret.