XBox Arcade Stick
Being a child of the 80's, I'm far more comfortable with a joystick than a gamepad. I grew up on the Atari 2600 and Pac-Man. My first gamepad was the block of pain that is the NES controller, quickly replaced with the NES Advantage.
While I've come to appreciate a good gamepad, there are some games that demand a stick. Enter XBLA and the trio of Pac games; Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man and the outstanding Pac-Man Championship Edition.
Now I love classic arcade games; I built an arcade machine for the express purpose of playing Pac-Man. However, I can't bear to play these with a thumbstick. Add in the pain of using the teeny, tiny buttons for Track & Field and the arcade stick is a must.
There are several joysticks available for the 360. Hori makes one with an 8-way stick and six main buttons. I have the SoulCalibur IV version. While it's great for fighting games, the joystick and buttons don't feel really substantial. Madcatz makes an ugly little stick... thing. Imagine the evil love child of a 2600 stick and an 360 controller.
What I really wanted was a 4-way joystick using an arcade stick and arcade buttons that I could beat to death without fear of breakage.
4-Way mega madness
So what's the big deal about a 4-way joystick?
Games like Pac-Man were designed to only allow the four standard directions: Up, down, left and right.
Since you can't move Pac-Man diagonally in the game, if your joystick hits a diagonal, funky things happen.
Exactly what depends on the game; you may move in one of the directions or you might not move at all.
;)
Arcade sticks are pretty simple things.
Moving the top of the stick causes the bottom to pivot until it eventually wacks into a switch.
Most arcade sticks have four switches.
If two adjacent switches can be hit at the same time, it's an 8-way stick; that is, it allows diagonals.
If you can only ever activate one switch at a time, it's a 4-way stick.
;)
;)
To ensure two buttons are never hit at the same time, a 4-way stick has a restrictor (a hunk of plastic) that limits the path the stick can travel.
If you try to hit a diagonal, the shaft runs into the restrictor.
This ends up making the stick move in a sort of diamond pattern.
For Pac-Man, this is ideal.
In my arcade cab I used Happ 8-way sticks.
For this I wanted a true 4-way.
And it needed the cherry red ball-top.
I settled on a Sanwa JLW-TM-8 stick from LizardLick.