Best Joystick for these 3 games??

[Goat Tongue]

First of all, I do NOT actually live in a cave...and yes..i'm a gaming nut!

...so I have NO idea how these 3 games ever managed to slip under my radar! (until now!)

Grid Wars
Geometry Wars
and
VECK!!

OMG...I am HOOKED!
Sci-Fi shooters are my anti-drug...and these 3 games are like crack for me!

I'm wondering what type of controller setup / joystick you all think would be BEST to play these in a cabinet!
(a trackball for movement and buttons for rotate (ie: asteroids) seems like it'd be impossible)

I don't play using a mouse and keyboard right now....
...i'm weird...I know..
I am using a USB gamepad....and I use the D-Pad for movement.
Then I have a button assigned for UP fire, Down fire, left trigger is Left fire....right trigger is Right fire.
For whatever reason...my brain works well with this setup...even when there are a billion things chasing me on screen.

I've been thinking that a standard 8-way stick and 4 buttons setup in a "diamond" pattern might work well in a cabinet...
...but then I got to thinking about rotary joysticks...like the kind in Ikari Warriors.
Does anyone have any thoughts on this....anyone ever play these 3 games in a cabinet or know someone who does?
Would a rotary joystick even work? How would I map the rotation in the game?

[retrogamer]

Gday....first of all i have to say that i am completely unfamiliar with the games you mentioned......but i wont let that stop me!
I have pondered the ideal controller setup for my cabs for hours....days.....weeks even, and i have come to the conclusion that there is no single perfect set up.... especially if you dont want your cab controller to look like some sort of dementedly decorated xmas tree! The only way to go is to set it up to run you favourite games, and then work in any others that you can.
I had a chat on another forum a while back about setting up a control panel for the newer style games (N64,PS,PS2,X-box,PC) and a fella there swore by a 2 joystick set up....one an optical rotary, and the other analogue with several trigger buttons (I dont know where he found one of these for a cabinet, rekn he must have hacked a pc controller). I figure that a trackball/optical rotary stick combo would work nearly as well, but could be awkward as far as getting fingers to buttons in the heat of the moment. For me personally I have my cabs set up with switchable 2/4/8 way joystix, six buttons a side(4 in the diamond shape you mentioned, and two triangular illuminated at the top of diamond) trackball in middle.....this covers all the old school stuff right up to certain PS, PC games. For everything else i have 2 wireless controllers hidden in the cab door......Nuthin i cant play on them and also handy for the impromptu four player rumble on some of the arcade games. I know its not really authentic for that arcade experience, but its the cheapest (and by far the simplest) option, and you dont end up with a ridiculously oversized confusing console that even leaves you, the person who made it scratchin your head wondering which buttons do what on certain games! Trust me, Ive done it myself!
It really comes down to personal preference and what you want it to do.....me, i like practical and tidy..... others want the flight deck off the Enterprise

Footnote.....six pages of unanswered posts.....this forum is dead......its a shame.

[delusional29]

P.S. - The forum is not dead.

To answer your question, I have a dual joystick setup on my arcade that fit's the bill with these "Robotron" clones.

Although the video was posted a while back, you can see how the game runs with dual joysticks: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUNCK9GN11I

Mutant Storm is another good game and you can play with 2 players at once!

DeLuSioNaL

[Goat Tongue]

First, I want to thank you BOTH for your posts!

Retrogamer - your advice about stashing traditional controllers is what I'm going to do. I used to own the chubby dual-analog controllers that Logitech makes. (mainly for the PS3 crowd) It worked great on the PC. I've never held an X360 controller though but i'm assuming they might be better suited (and longer lasting) than the logitechs. I'll borrow one from a friend and see how my big ol' hands feel with them before I go buy a pair. You're totally right about "there is no perfect setup". When I started planning all this stuff - i'm thankful that I didn't have the funds available to start ordering all the parts right away. I would have ended up with a control panel from HELL! Someone should make a top-10 list of DO's and DO NOT's for control panels. NOT adding every button style and joystick to a setup should be high on the list!


Yes...this was ALMOST me...disaster was averted however!
If anyone out there is thinking of doing this.....please...think twice!


There are just some games (like Super Metroid) that are just more fun and better suited for use with a game-pad. Like you said..there is "no perfect setup"...but adding at least ONE controller comes damn close!

DeLuSioNaL - You are going to laugh at me when I say this....(but it's ok..I can take it) I was laying in bed recently...thinking about different control panel designs...(I know..it's sad..hehe..but I was..) then the idea of just mapping Player-1 and Player-2 Joysticks for use in Geometry Wars hit me like a sack of Smurfs! One stick to move...one stick for directional shooting! What's sad is the next day I spent a long time on YouTube searching for ANY videos of people playing GridWars or Geometry Wars using this setup.....found nothin'.

Then I read your post! I saw that video AGES ago and totally forgot you showed off GridWars in it!! I even think it was already in my Favorite List the whole time too!

So yeah..that's what I get for straying away from this forum. I wasted time looking elsewhere and didn't need to... but oh well! I'm sooo happy that using two joysticks will work well....I watched the clip of you playing it a few more times and drooled....My cab will eventually be able to run everything from Centipede to Crysis....but it's GridWars and Geometry Wars that has me the most excited! If anyone reading this has NEVER played it....do yourself a favor and go download it. The better you get..the more you'll want to play!

[retrogamer]

True DeLuSioNaL....i was probably being a little hasty and melodramatic in declaring the forum dead, and i meant no offense to the old girl......she's just resting eh?
It does seem there are an awful lot of threads being 'viewed' and not so many being answered or replied to....i like to offer what little i can when and where i am able, even tho my knowledge base is fairly limited ( I blame the beer )!
Perhaps a little reorganize of the forum layout is in order? I dunno really, and i don't pretend to be an expert on the matter, but i am a member of several other emu/arcade forums that don't seem to suffer this dilemma. It seems to me that more is less if you know what i mean......more detailed threads/topics = less doubling up on questions already answered and less confusion for newcomers making them able to locate specific subject matter more easily instead of having to wade through a sea of posts that don't appear related to the issue they are encountering?
Like i say, i don't really know and am just thinking out loud.....albeit in a public forum

P.S. Yes, i am a cheeky bugger, and sorry for hijacking the thread!

P.P.S. Goat Tongue, let us now what you come up with for your CP....always keen to see how others tackle the never ending CP quandry!