One thing that really gets me upset is that I have yet to buy a good controller. Like games, I've owned quite a few. Saitek, Logitech, etc. I don't buy Logitech products because they knowingly sold a gamepad that didn't work, forums were full of it and their stuff sucks anyway.
Gamepads are fair but they are uniformly too small, hand cramping and hard to control. How much code does it take to put a ramp function on the sticks so they are responsive yet don't jump as soon as you move it a micron? Yet not a single gamepad manufacturer that I know of has tried to make one either ergonomic or more controllable. Same for mice. All too small and hard to control because no one has sense enough to put a ramp function on mouse movement either. Especially hard to control if you are a lefty, the buttons on the sides are usually unusable.
The other problem with almost every single game is they don't have fully programable controls. How much code does it take to let us configure the gamepad the way we want? On my PS3 I am always accidently punching the left and right stick down when the action gets fast and having those functions go off when you don't want them to screws you up if it doesn't get you dead. And I can't change them to nothing on any games, even the configurable ones. Aggravating to the max.
FYI By a ramp function I mean having the movement start slow so things don't move a lot when you just touch the stick and then ramp up the speed. Another words less sensitive to small movements. When you get a little older you will know why.
Just a little history for anyone knowledgeable enough to appreciate it. I had an Atari 5200 when it came out. It was one of the first systems to use an analog joystick. X and Y potentiometers on the joystick instead of the 4 LRUD switches on digital joysticks and gamepads. The problem with this type of joystick is that the center of a potentiometer is a resistance value and if it changes the zero point moves and it drifts. I am sure they figured this out too late and decided to make it non-centering to avoid the problem. When you let go of the stock 5200 stick it flops over, no springs holding it in the center and thus no LR and UD adjustment slides required. This made every single game unplayable. This is a typical trick manufacturers do. They make something unplayable and sell it anyway. The Magnavox Odyssey was the same way. They decided to one up Pong by making the paddles moveable in both X and Y. This required 3 separate potentiometer knobs. Perfectly fine if you have 3 hands, otherwise the games were unplayable. I bought an aftermarket joystick for the 5200 that centered the joystick but it required 2 adjustment pots to keep center. OK but it wore out in no time.
To finish up a long story I decided to make my own joystick for the 5200. I used a 9-ball. Made a housing for it, put 4 pins in the sides to activate switches instead of pots and made a working digital joystick for my 5200. I am probably the only person in the world who has a working digital joystick for a 5200. In case you know a little electronics and want to figure out how I did it I'll give a hint. 2 of the switches have to be normally closed and you need some resistors to emulate the pots.
Log in to comment