BATTLEFIELD JOYSTICK

Joysticks are your most immediate connection with any game you play - the man-machine interface. The melting joystick makes a nice image for an advertiser who's suggesting that his games can beat anything, but do joysticks in real life really stand up to the beating they receive, are they tough enough for the job, do they move well, are the handles right, will the buttons fire?

The CRASH reviewing team settled down for a weekend of joystick bashing on several types and makes, and here we look at the results...

There are now many makes of joystick available, and almost as many types as there are makes. Each boasts design innovations so that it is better than all the others - and they come in a range of prices too. We all know that joysticks on arcade machines take a battering, so too do those at home. Do they stand up? We tested 19 joysticks from well known manufacturers to see how they all compared.

A joystick must be able to withstand games that require fast and repeated movement, so what better than Ocean's Daley Thompson's Decathlon? We used the Commodore version of the game because it is more violent than the Spectrum! But it isn't only toughness; joysticks must also be capable of fine and positive movement, comfortable to use with sensible fire buttons. Several arcade skill games were used to test four major points for both the stick action and the fire button action.

TRAVEL means the maximum movement between opposite poles (e.g. up/down) on the stick, and how far the fire button had to be depressed. On stick action over 1.5 inches was considered to be very long. Oddly, some of the short sticks had longer to travel than the taller sticks.

ACTION FORCE means the amount of hand or finger pressure required to keep the stick pressed over or the fire button down.

REACTION SPEED indicates how fast contact is made, how quickly the action affects the game, and how well rapid movements can be made (especially rapid fire buttons).

RESPONSE/FEEDBACK indicates how positive the stick or fire action feels and whether there is any physical or audible feedback to tell the player that contact has been made.

ERGONOMICS how useful is the stick for hand held playing, and how well does it operate on a table top. Is the stick well designed for comfort, ease of fire action and general stability.

After preliminary testing, the joysticks all went through ten minutes of the Decathlon to see how long they were likely to stand up to use. During this test, some joysticks broke.

Finally, all the sticks have 9 pin D connectors and are Atari compatible on the pin outs. They all need an interface of one sort or another to work with the Spectrum (except the clip-ons). Some offer 2 independent fire actions, but these only work with either a Cambridge interface or the programmable Comcon from Frei Ltd., which was the interface used for this test.

Each joystick review is split into two halves; firstly a brief technical breakdown; secondly the review team's report.

FAMOUS REDBALL

Supplier: CGL, CGL House, Goldings Hill, Loughton, Essex IG10 2RR, Tel (01) 508 5600

Price: £23

Lever Action: Long and hefty steel shaft supported in elastomeric bearing. Plastic ball sleeve activates 4 leaf contact switches

Fire Action: Thumb activated lever switch activates leaf contact via central tappet and dome head. Round fire button at 10/11 o'clock activates further leaf contact.

Ergonomics: Large body with 4 rubber feet designed for table top operation

Lead: Moulded D type connector and integrally moulded sleeved retaining grommet.

Special feature: Button selector switch for lever or enclosure fire button control.

Weak point: Lever suspension allows slight axial movement which can activate fire leaf contact by mistake.

STICK ACTION

Travel: medium long.
Action force: medium
Reaction speed: good.
Response/feedback: no audible feedback, response quite springy.

FIRE ACTION

Travel: short to contact with over travel.
Action force: light
Reaction speed: last - good rapid fire from base not bad from stick top
Response/feedback: positive response, feels solid on base, less so on stick button.

Ergonomics: solid and heavy base make it very stable, but hard to hand hold. The round knob shaped stick is comfortable and very good for single handed use as the top fire button can be disenabled for hand over the top action. The disenabling switch is at the rear of the base. Flexing of the centre steel shaft however, can cause unwanted firing action during direction movement, and is particularly pronounced during fast games.

Life expectancy: very good due to solid construction.