Favorite Joystick

[Level42]

Meet my buddy. The very first home stick Suzo released. Note that it has a black handle. The black handle Competition Pro's have leaf switches, the red handle ones have micro-switches....but more on that later....

 

So guess what I voted....

 

This Suzo Competition Pro joystick and I have been together since 1982.

 

Both 2600 sticks naturally broke mechanically completely not long after the 6 month (impossible here now) warranty.

 

Then I got a Spectravideo Quickshot because it looked SO impressive to me as a kid and I thought the suction cups would be great because holding the Atari sticks was pretty painful after some long plays....

 

The Quickshot turned out to be a very mediocre stick,,,,,the flightstick shaped handle is good only for....flight games of which I had none....for every other game it sucks to have a flight stick handle. Buttons on top of the stick suck too IMHO.

 

Anyway, the worst thing about it was that it crapped out within 6 weeks or so, waayyyy earlier than the Atari sticks !

 

So I went back with it to the small shop I had bought it from....the seller said....what you need is this....and put that very Suzo Competition Pro joystick on the counter. He said this is the best stick ever. Man was he right. It was almost twice the price of the Quickshot but he did return me the money of that one and I figured.....o well. It was 75 Dutch guilders which was a small fortune for a school kid in those days but somehow I managed to get it....

 

I have never looked back.

 

Note that this is the earliest version of any Suzo home joystick, Suzo (based in my hometown Rotterdam) had been building brilliant joysticks for arcade machines so they had a lot of experience. This first home version featured leaf switches for both the stick and buttons. And that's what I love. There are no loud clicking micro switches....there is no "pressure point" which you need to "push through".

Many people say the leafs broke on this stick...but this one got a LOT of play on my 2600, A8's and STs....up to this day.

 

I did have to replace the cord at one point, only because the plastic cover got torn near where the wire enters the stick.

 

The feel of it is so brilliant. It has extremely short throw so moves from left to right/up down or diagonally extremely fast (much in contrast with the Wico stick f.i. Which is a great quality Stich but has a very long throw because of its (too) long handle), it needs very little pressure to move the stick and activate the buttons....which makes it lightning fast.

 

The best thing is that the leafs can be adjusted to one's taste. I like extremely quick activation of the contacts, so I simply bent in the leaf contacts a bit.

 

I recently bought another exact one and this did show less wear as mine....the rubber grommet on mine probably needs to be replaced but otherwise....it's perfect still.

 

During my arcade collecting days my favorite arcade sticks featured leaf switches too, like the Midway Pac Man stick.

Edited July 2, 2018 by Level42

[Level42]

P.S. there are quite a number of fake Suzo Competition Pro joysticks, which are usually horrible compared to the real thing.

 

Also the recent USB version is absolutely horrible so don't let these fakes and bad repro's fool you.

[Level42]

Competition Pro Mini

compmini.jpg

That "Manufactured in the U.K." is a COMPLETE lie......They were manufactured in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. Edited July 2, 2018 by Level42

[gozar]

Nowadays it's almost always the Sega Genesis 3 or 6 button controller. I try the CX40, Epyx 500, or the WICO Boss every once in awhile, but usually end back up with the Sega.

[Schlortt]

I had a wico red ball. It was good and reliable but I never understood why they put a button on top of the ball when no arcade game that I knew of had a button on the ball.

 

One interesting stick that I had was the Amiga Power Stick. It was way too small and very sensitive. One interesting thing was that if you pushed the stick into the base, it would signal all directions simultaneously. The best use of this on the Atari 8 bit was with "Beyond Castle Wolfenstein" because it would immediately take you outside the castle (which meant you survived even if you didn't complete your mission.)