[barryg]

My nephew wants a "good" USB joystick for Christmas. He's on a DV iMac and likes filght sims, Unreal Tournament and shoot em ups. He also uses a Connetix Play Station emulator. Not being a gamer I'm clueless, so I thought I'd ask the experts. (BTW, also not being a "rich uncle" it would be nice to keep this below $50:-)
Any help is appreciated!

Without hesitation, I'd recommend the Saitek Cyborg 3D Joystick.
http://www.saitekusa.com/uk/cybg.htm

It's under $50, very versatile, extremely well-designed and durable. The original is still available as well as the one released this year which adds a button or two and comes in gold. They're pretty widely available for purchase.
http://reviews.macnn.com/reviews/saitek/cyborg.shtml

[This message has been edited by Trevor Covert (edited 11-28-2000).]

[barryg]

Thanks for the tip - Best buy has them fo $29! I'm in there...

[jholmes]

I just got a Thrustmaster Top Gun USB - a middle age crazy gift from my wife. It's very cool and works killer with Hornet/Korea military flight sim. Has a separate throttle control and enough programmable buttons to do everything but bring a drink. I doubt it's 30 bucks but it's pretty slick.

------------------
`Everybody is ignorant. Only on different subjects.' -- Will Rogers

[druber]

Holmes, I've seen that stick for $10-$15 on ebay and at some online retailers. In fact, I saw such low prices across the board that I figured something was up and didn't buy one. I've got an adb flightstick pro, which has been great. Only have usb at work, so I'm in no rush, but I'm still watching price dif between an adb-usb connector and a new stick. One-a these days I'm gonna get me a new Mac. Honest, I am.

Avoid the Logitech Wingman Extreme. I bought one of these suckers a couple of months ago, and it only went six weeks before the z-axis (twist handle) rudder-control broke.

Another problem with the LWE was that the stick interacted with the throttle control, meaning that if you moved the stick just right, you could actually lower the engine setting in a sim plane to *idle,* even while you were climbing. Not fun in a combat situation.

The LWE was a cheap stick, but it still wasn't worth the price I paid for it. I would also avoid the even cheaper LW that doesn't have the z-axis feature, just to be safe.

If you get a joystick, make absolutely certain that the stick and the throttle control are in discrete locations on the unit; don't get something like the LW where the throttle slider and the stick are physically attached a to each other on a common axis. The slider and stick might interact, and that isn't a good thing.

BTW, in case you are interested, I gave up on joysticks entirely after my second joystick died, and now I use a Macally iShock, even for flight sims. The main thing it has going for it is durability, though (1 year without any mechanical problems whatsoever). Joysticks are definitely cooler-feeling for flight sims.

Tristan.

Regarding the Top Gun USB joystick...

The original Top Gun USB was not a very nice joystick. It had very few programmable buttons and, if I remember correctly, it didn't have a throttle control. The original Top Gun stick is probably the one that is selling on e-Bay for 10 bucks, not the revamped model jholmes is using.

The new Top Gun USB joystick is nothing like the old one, and is probably worth checking out.

Tristan

[pathogen]

I've got a couple personal favorites:

Macally "ishock" game pad USB and Suncom's "IFX 4000 Joystick" USB

First of all, for the games Unreal Tournament and Quake III, you'll want to use an extended keyboard only.

The ishock is terrific with Connectix Virtual gamestation: after trying a number of game pads, nothing comes close. If you download the free emulators for Super Nintendo, its a dream come true.

The IFX is a highly capable joystick and I've found it to be great on all the flight Sims. Its also very good with Episode 1 Pod Racer (so is the ishock). Both of these are USB and are fully input sprocket compliant (8.5 to 9+), have great transparent plastics, and are very, very durable.

I don't recommend anything from Gravis.

Good Luck!

[rupee68]

I'll second the Macally iShock reccomendation. Its the best controller ever.

Ca$h

[Brazuca]

I stand by my Cyborg. Unless you want a set of throttle and stick separately, its the best out there.


Junior Member!!! Whooo-Hooo!!!!

[druber]

Yeah, get that Junior Member! All right!!

Is there any flight sim where you'd want the throttle and stick to operate together? Would this only be for sticks with z-axis turning? I mean, I can understand if there's no throttle on it. That's one thing, but have the throttle and stick together seems really strange.

re Top Gun, a quick search at Outpost shows some Top Gun usb joysticks, but they're made by Guillemont, not thrustmaster. Is this the wrong stick again? These look silvery-metallic. Is this the one you got jholmes? They look slick enough, though the specs at the bottom of one of the models says it requires MacOS8.2

Re: Throttle and Stick Combos.

I have a friend who occasionally uses his PC to play racing games. The joystick he uses (I don't know what brand) has a feature that intentionally links the throttle with the stick. If you pull back on the stick, the car goes faster. If you push the stick forward, the car slows down or stops. It's actually a pretty cool feature for surface racing, and it is an intentional design feature of the joystick.

The Logitech Wingman stick has the stick and throttle control as nominally separate controls (meaning that there is a stick for direction, and a slider lever for velocity), but they are physically linked together in such a way that the stick can interfere with the throttle function. The results are inconsistent in a bad way, and can be hard for the user to manage (though maybe other people have had better luck than I in this respect).

Other sticks, like ones made by Microsoft and Gravis, have stick and throttle controls that are located on completely different points on their respective units, so that there is no way that the stick can physically interfere with throttle function (i.e.rub up against the throttle slider and drag it forward or backward, such as on the Logitech sticks).

If you get a chance, and you have a local CompUSA, go look at a Logitech Wingman stick, and then look at offerings from other companies. The throttle control on the Logitech stick is physically wrapped around the stick stem. The other sticks don't have that problem, and they probably work a lot better than the Logitech stick as a result.

I use my Macally iShock even for flight sims now because I can set the pad up to make the throttle and stick physically independent controls. As a result, my Me 109 or Spitfire no longer conks out on me when I pull into a climb. However, just the opposite happened while I was using my Logitech Wingman.

I think the Sytek Cyborg has physically completely separate stick and throttle controls, so it shouldn't have the problems that the Logitech sticks have.

Hope this was helpful. Sorry for rambling.

Tristan

[jholmes]

My stick is most definitely a Thrustmaster Top Gun USB and a pretty new model. It requires Game Sprockets 1.5 (1.7 is downloadable from Apple) and I'm sure at least OS 8.5.

The only drawback is the size - it's a big mother, but it's heavy enough to stay put and cool looking with a silver metal finish with matte black inlays in the grip areas.

The throttle lever has a programmable button and a rudder toggle at your finger tips and three programmable buttons at your thumb. The stick, which can be separated from the throttle by a three foot cord, has a right handed joystick with a trigger, an index finger button, a top hat, a covered weapons selector and a thumb button.

It's great in Hornet/ Korea as you can assign all the views and instrumentation to the throttle side and all the weapons activities to the stick. I don't know if this is how McDonnell/Douglas designed the aircraft flight controls but I think it works pretty good. It's made me a better "pilot" than I ever was with my old Gravis Mousestick

[druber]

Yeah, the cheap top gun sticks I saw on ebay were all black, definitely the old ones. Not sure why Outpost didn't list their manufacturer as thrustmaster, but oh well.

[tpitts1]

The Saitek Cyborg is the controller I use. An awesome controller, and very durable. I would agree with everyone who had something good to say about this controller.

If I were buying a flight controller now, though, I would have to say the ultimate controller is the Saitek X36 Flight controller. It can be gotten on ebay for less than $50, but it costs $89-$99 new. I have used this controller with a few flight sims and MechWarrior games. It is awesome.

IMHO, Saitek is the best at making joysticks. However, there is a lot of customization to go along with this flight controller. There are over 200 programmable functions.

Go to their site to view:
http://www.saitekusa.com/uk/x36.htm

Don't forget this is German Engineering!!

[tpitts1]

Another thing. If your nephew really enjoys flight sims, concentrate on a controller for flight sims. I would not buy anything for a game such as Unreal Tournament...except a 3-5 button mouse. UT is definitely not a game for a joystick, at least with my experience (UT is my favorite all time game on the Mac). As I said before, the Saitek X36 is a very good flight controller. See, even the name lends itself to someone looking for a flight stick. The second (throttle) controller is more than just a throttle. It has rudder control and a multitude of buttons.

Put it this way, my friend that uses this controller has a pilot's licence and he said it is the best "flight" controller he could find.

Best all around--Saitek Cyborg--this even has a hand rest!!
Best flight controller--Saitek X36--nuff said.
Best junk--any stick by MS.
Next best junk--sticks by Logitech.. just kidding on the last two, b/c I have no personal experience with their newer controllers.

Good Luck!!