The suction-padded joystick was once the games controller sans pareil until it was usurped by the multi-button joypad – but with the return of retro gaming, it’s making a comeback
For home computer gamers in the 1980s, your choice of joystick was a matter of intense importance and debate. Unlike buying a console, you didn’t get a controller with your machine, so every player had this vital input decision to make from the offset. Most of my friends went for the ubiquitous Quickshot II, a great hulking giant of a controller, designed to resemble a fighter jet joystick, complete with multiple fire buttons and an autofire switch so that you could cheat on R-Type. It was reasonably delicate, though, so a session with a joystic-waggling sports game such as Daley Thompson’s Decathlon could see over-enthusiastic players wrenching the shaft clean off – surely the most Freudian mishap ever to befall a schoolboy.
When I asked Twitter users for their favourite ever joysticks, the Quickshot got many mentions but so did the Super Pro Zip Stik and the pastel-coloured Powerplay Cruiser, both rugged, dependable stars of the Amiga era. More eccentric designs were also recalled – the squat little Cheetah Bug, the Konix Speedking (also known as the Epyx 500XJ), an ergonomic oddity designed to sit in the palm with the fire buttons on the side. Continue reading...
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