I bought a joystick today. It’s one of those Logitec Extreme 3D Pros, so nothing super fancy, but it has a dinky little throttle and it twists and stuff. I already slightly regret not getting a cheaper HOTAS like a Thrustmaster T.Flight, but it’s probably more than I need.
I’ve never owned a PC joystick before, what should I add to my to-play list, currently:
TIE Fighter etc.
Terminal Velocity
Descent
Freespace games
I guess I’m pretty aware of space games so left a bunch off the list, so am particularly interested in what’s good with a joystick apart from space games and flight sims. All I could think of was Mech Warrior. Any games that’re funner to play with a joystick welcome though!
I had a pretty good time when I found my PC joystick and used it to play Space Harrier, After Burner and Night Striker in MAME. Anybody have any other recommendations for games like these? I really wish there was some way to play After Burner Climax on PS3 with it though… wait, doesn’t the PS3 sometimes accept standard PC controllers? Oh shit, I gotta try that later.
I too totally played through the DOS version of megaman x with a joystick because it seemed more like an SNES controller than a keyboard did at the time
I got a gravis gamepad sometime between then and ZSNES though
Too bad it didn’t have shoulder buttons. Though for MMX, they were just for quick swapping weapons, so it wasn’t too much a problem pinky tapping keys occasionally, or just doing it through the menus.
God help you dealing with shit like the top down stages in Contra 3 though.
We used to plug in whatever to play split screen Serious Sam (which I think the newer engine remakes unfortunately ditched), and I ended up grabbing the sidewinder at least once.
[quote=“Ymer, post:5, topic:1230, full:true”]I really wish there was some way to play After Burner Climax on PS3 with it though… wait, doesn’t the PS3 sometimes accept standard PC controllers? Oh shit, I gotta try that later.
[/quote]
I have a Thrustmaster joystick that supports PS3. It works great in After Burner Climax and IL-2. It has a switch to move between PC and PS3 though, so I’m not sure if generic PC controllers will work.
First up was Aquanox. First mission is an escort mission. I thought I’d played this and it felt nice and underwatery, but I guess I mixed my memories. No inertia or anything fun like that.
I turned off TIE Fighter after the first mission because there was ship scanning and I just wanted to shoot things. Def gunna load it up again, and maybe just jump in the combat training thing. Apparantly the best version of this (the 95 version) is only on GOG at the mo’. Might stick with the original release…
Terminal Velocity is lots of fun with this thing. I had a demo of this when I was a kiddy, and the first bit of computer music I ever did was made from cut up WAVs from this game. Works really well with the dinky little throttle, too. DOSBox took a little configuring, but nothing brain bending. There’s a tunnel in stage 1-2 that’s full of afterburners so you can just zoom through A+
Probably going to play Crashed Lander for a bit next, then Magic Carpet.
Thanks for the MAME ideas @Ymer, hadn’t thought of that D : I keep forgetting I have a jog/shuttle thing I need to try playing things with too.
Hmmm. I suspect they’re kinda Hawken, in that thematically they sound like a good fit, but in practice they only really suit a mouse and keyboard setup. Haven’t played the Strike Suit games though!
#Joystick Report B Magic Carpet didn’t work well at all. I had to joy2key it. I guess my memories of playing it with a joystick back then are wrong. Maybe they’re just memories of me playing it with a mouse and that seeming novel at a time where I had to play through Sam and Max with a keyboard.
Also misremembered Crashed Lander having a joystick setup, which I only started playing a month ago Got it setup, but again it didn’t really feel good enough when it came to trying to get a good score. Kinda felt right though.
Wing Commander II is probably the best shoot things in space game, if you can get past the often sexist male fantasy story bits. III is more of the same, but with Mark Hamill. Wing Commander IV has a good story, but an insanely difficult mission really early on that can’t be skipped (in the in game options menu you can turn the difficulty down though!).
Got it setup, but again it didn’t really feel good enough when it came to trying to get a good score. Kinda felt right though.