Joysticks Are GO!

Joysticks Are GO!

RICK JOHNSON

Do you remember your first joystick? OK, so maybe it wasn't an experience up there with your first kiss or first taste of new smoker's mayonnaise. Think hard— are you sure you can't recall that cuddly, primitive plastic carrot that stuck its little nose-stick out of your very first, freshlyripped-to-shreds game box in the glory days since-the Great Paddle Disavowal?

Well, if you remember it, forget it! Those days are over! Gone! Never happened! Science has#arrivedon planet joystick. Technol«gy even!

How do you improve tfie joystick? Pet us count the ways. But first, let's look at how a joy-cane wo’rks.

Inside the little plastic box (techmcolly speaking) is an itsy-bitsy racetrack. On this racetrack are minute treadmills for five pygmy slugs from the jungles of Montana. These littlecritters*learn early on that, if they don't crawl fast enough, there'll be no slug chow in the tiny dishes tonight.

Worse yet, at the point*vhere the stick connects to the inside of the case, nastylooking slug prods dangle precariously close to tte track. When you move the stick, these prods are Wlpd with electricity, encouragirtythe petite rmffes to move it or else.

Enough of this hi-tech blah-de-blah. To give all our tria4 sticks a good workout, we put each of them through a grueling, exceedingly amateurish session on four different games. We tried all types of contests: maze games, climbing games, shoot 'em up games, shoot 'em down games, crawling games, square dancing games, falling-right-over games and, of course, wiggling games. The main tests were conducted on the following carts:

Alien—This is a maze contest that, let us say, borrows significantly from PacMan. Instead of eating dots, you're stomping on nasty alien eggs, an activity you never get a chance to do enough of in regular, boring life itself. Alien also has the same sort of problems as the Atari VCS Pac-Man does. Corners can be difficult to negotiate and sudden changes in direction sometimes cause a frustration level near the point where, what the heck, you might j ust as well be the side of a barn. As an added feature, Alien has a bonus round that consists mainly of traveling a straight line fast. Way over my head.

Beany Bopper—Here's a real measure of a joy-rod's ability to make 90-degree turns. You, the skewer-wielder, have a Bopper with

which to bop—you guessed it, Beanies! The mean bean machines bounce around the screen randomly and you have to play 'em off the edges at ever-increasing speeds. The fatigue factor quickly reaches a level where your paws feel like the disembodied hands in TV commercials that reach out of walls and mirrors to steal personal hygiene products.

Missile Command—Just in case you've awakened to a fuzzy world (as the contact lens blurb goes) and don't remember this cart, the player sits in a downscale missile base, trying to protect six cities that—on the VCS at least—look a lot like cute little outhouses. Line up your cursor and blam, blam, blam.

Fast Eddie—Here's a climbing and jumping game that's a lot easier to deal with than that big ape and his offspring of questionable legitimacy. You'd almost think it was strictly for kids (or editors) at first. It gets considerably tougher in the later going and makes rather adorable noises to boot, including the now-classic "blort!"

Needless to say, we tested all the "gourmet" joysticks we could get our mitts on. We used the Atari VCS exclusively because that's what they're for. Now, is that scientific or what?

There are attachable/replaceable joycudgels for Intellivision and ColecoVision (whose own joystick is just dandy with the VCS by the "way"), which we'll take up at a later date, like next monsoon.

We were very much surprised to find that all the joysticks tested worked as well as they turned out to. You'll never know what total dillweeds the regu la r Atari sticks are until you try some new ones. As with the famous Knit Wit Kit, "you're an expert in minutes!" Or you

feel• Iike it anyhow.

Our big finding? The usefulness of the stick depends on the game you're playing, We're not copping out (much). It's just plain true!

Still, six of the joy-prongs stood out from the massive heap we tried. They were so good, in fact, they brought us out of the videogame doldrums that had set in since the coming of a new VCR. It was so much fun recording and erasing Patricia Neal ads that we'd forgotten the fun of reaction abuse. But hey— whipping our sentimental fave, Missile Command, game after game was almost as exciting as sneaking up on bait!

So listen up, despoiled carhops, even if you're the kind of person who won't believe anything unless it counts in horseshoes, take a serious peek at these heavy duty joystick road tests. It won't decide anything as monumental as the Viva paper tissue/paper sponge debate, no way. But until machines take over everything but the actual act of yawning, these fax 'n' figures might just come in handy.

So here are the Big Six, in descending order of excellence. Please remember that these are the cream of the crop, the six sticks that killed the most alien bad guys the funnest. Technologically speaking.

1) KRAFT ATARI-COMPATIBLE

When you hear "Kraft," what's the first thing you think of? Cheese, of course, and annoying recipe supplements in TV Guide that invariably mess up the Monday prime-time iistings, right?

Wrong Kraft. This Kraft has been making control sticks for medical, scientific and other purposes for a couple decades now.

Their new, "generic" joy-cane tested superbly. It did, in fact, revolutionize our own approach to Missile Command. You can really rip your cursor across the "sky" in an exact straight line, making the blanket-blammo method of city protection effective with relative ease and quickness. Also, the flatness and location of the fire button makes for EZ defense. With this maneuverability, you'll feel as though you possess glandular intuition when you tackle those deadly 90-degree turns in Beany Bopper with ease and climb up a storm on Fast Eddie. The fatigue factor hardly even appears, regardless of the condition of your grasp 'n' whip muscles.

The only drawback worth mentioning is the shortness of the stick itself. This causes some problems cornering and reversing field in Alien and slightly inhibits response on ladder-turns in Fast Ed.

Still, this joy-pole is the finest development since the Weather Channel's fascinating Aunt Jemima Presents The Wind Chill Chart show.

2) QUESTAR II: This fine console is the single biggest scholarly advance since the discovery that, if you lay a year's worth of Wendy's french fries containers end to end, they'd stretch from San Francisco to New York 1 09 times over!

Ain't Nobody Can't Play!

Another fab development in the joystick biz is customized controllers for the disabled. If you think you, the insensitive clod, get bored, imagine being stuck in a wheelchair, bed or whatever all day long every day. Indefinite, forced viewing of Family Affair reruns is not good for the morale, not to mention the brain.

A California manufacturer called KY Enterprises (3039 E. 2nd St., Long Beach 90803) has developed several different "joystick" controllers for many kinds of disabilities: hand/wrist, mouthoperated, head switch, portable selfcontained game units and even a multi-game board that allows remote selection of cartridges.

The only one we were able to try was the hand/wrist number, which has five soft-touch buttons, one for each direction plus a fire button. When they say softtouch, they mean it. Just looking at this unit is almost enough to click the switches.

Actually, some of these items sound real attractive to the non-handicapped as well, particularly the portable job and the multi-game board. Hey, KY guys—send us those last two pronto, and start working on a typewriter for the stoopid!

The heft resulting from the placement of the stick on a base this size makes for phenomenal back and forth movement in Missile Command and Alien, including the cornerning that can be as tough as climbing soap in the latter. Ditto the speedy maneuvers required to bop those damn beanies in you-know-what.

One hitch—the fire button's location is such that you'll need two very quick hands for some games. This proved to be a slight problem in Fast Eddie, where the ability to jump is as important as keeping a fresh glasscutter in your car trunk. No problems in Missile Command, though, where the fire button/joy wand coordination is less potentially confusing. 3) WICO COMMAND CONTROL In Beany Bopper, there's a stage we refer to as the Bouncing Orange Eye test. If you've nailed x amount of Beanies, these big computer-nerf eyeballs start bouncing out from everywhere even crazier than a bad day at the USAF Bird Impact Range. The BOE round is also an excellent measure of fatigue, as you mustshootto-stun the whizzers to slow 'em down. Wico cleaned up here as well.

With a fire button located on the end of the stick itself, you can perform the squeeze 'n' spray action of Missile Command so fast you can't even hear the blasts, much less see them. The tall joystake makes for good turning ability on Fast Eddie and Alien—quick, clean, all that good stuff. Only slow spot was encountered during Alien, where the box fire button kept getting in the way.

4) DISCWASHER POINT MASTER

Here's one to nearly eliminate the aforementioned fagged-out factor in Bopper of Beanies. The featherweight base is hollowed out in the center, giving the player a grip as tight as that of a disgusted podiatric narc busting Mick Jagger for his sissy sneakers. This lightness can work against you, however, in Missile Command, when you zoom left and right getting even with those damn missile spitters. Hey, c'mon —don't you remember the old Klingon proverb? Which one? This one: "Revenge is a dish that's best served cold."

The Point Master negotiated the mess that is Alien very well, scrambling dem eggs like an anti-protein operative from Hostess. The corners were a bit harder because of lack of heft, but not quite what you'd call a problem. Ditto Fast Eddie, where those sudden jumps from "floor" to ladder can be most difficult.

5) D-ZYNE SUPR STICK This baby's hotter than a cot full of blazing oxygen candles on certain carts. On others... well, times like this are made for Taster's Choice. Being comparatively heavy, the heft really assists you, the hopper, in Fas1 Eddie and you, the corner dodqer, in Alien.

The Supr Stick's slight delay in response, however, can be a real headache in matches like Boppo Beano and Missile Commies. Further, the fire button is too hard to press down continuously for successful rapid fire, which means rubble city when those missiles start falling.

6) SPECTRA VISION QUICK SHOT Here we have a slightly different customer, with a porky joy bludgeon that will be ideal for some hands and cement mittens for others.

One particularly good feature not available on the other sticks is the offcenter placement of the fire button on the box. It's not so far over as to tire or confuse, but in a spot just right for shooting pro|ectiles out of the air in Miss Command or blasting ghosts...uh, monsters in Alien. Fast Eddie himself says, "don't try this one on me, 'cause you'll eat rung if ya do!" As for Beany Bopper, better you should invest in a good hotdog.

Still, this one makes our Big Six despite minor flaws because, in response and accuracy, it's way better than a regular ol' Atari stick. ■

Intellivision Improved!

Like many a gamester, we've had our share of trouble with Intellivision's disc controllers. Even after getting the hang of it, fatigue becomes a problem early on.

Some smart manufacturers have finally come to the rescue of Intell-paw sufferers. Each has a product that replaces the disc with a small-but-lively joystick.

Here's a quick peek at these handy contraptions:

SKIL-STIK—This one is the easiest to install. Simply peel off the double-sided tape on the bottom of the stick and apply it to the disc. Action is instantly improved and fatigue takes a nap. Only possible drawback—it's hard to remove, if and when. (Available from C & T Creations,

127 Weybosset St., Providence, Rl 02903)

DISTICK—To lay this one in place, all you have to do is unscrew the bottom of the controller, insert stick and put it back together again. Sounds scary, but it's absolutely no sweat. Listen, if we can do it, so can you . Again, movement is drastically improved and your wrist won't feel like something on the menu at a Chinese restaurant. (From G.A.M.E.S., 6626 Valjean Ave., Van Nuys, CA 91406)

ALUMINUM JOYSTICK SET—Again, this addition requires some screwdriver twiddling to install. Well worth it, however. This stick has a metal ball on the grab-end that really makes it go. It radicalized our Demon Attack game, which really needed something. (Also from G.A.M.E.S.)

All of the above joystick attachments greatly improve wham-dexterity. Now all that Intell needs is a fire button you don't have to fracture your wrist to shoot with.