Does this joystick suck, or is it me?

[Ziggy]

I'm talking about the Super Advantage pictured above.

This is the only joystick I own, so I have nothing to compare it to. What's more, I don't have much experience playing on arcades and home arcade sticks like many of yous out there do.

I've had the Super Advantage for a while, but haven't really used it until now. I tried out Mortal Kombat II in MAME on my PC using a Smart Joy SNES-USB adapter. I found it hard to input a lot of moves using this joystick. I was wondering, is it the joystick that sucks? Or am I just awful at using it because I don't have a lot of experience using them.

I found that sweep motions were fairly easy to input, like Sub's freeze or Scorpion's teleport punch. But moves where you'd have to tap directions were hard to execute. For instance, Scorpion's spear throw (back, back, low punch) or Kitana's fan throw (forward, forward, high & low punch) seemed impossible to input.

I figured, maybe the joystick's sensitivity is weird, so tapping the same direction multiple times is hard to do. So maybe tapping different directions isn't too hard. So I tried Raiden's teleport (down, up) and even that was hard to do.

So anyways, does this joystick suck or do I suck at using it?

[fastbilly1]

I always found the Super Advantage's joystick to be a bit fiddly. I thought the Advantage was a great controller, but the Super was a bit weak all around (which is why I dont own one yet). Fine for beatemups and some puzzle games, but I couldnt use one in Street Fighter to save my life. So I blame the stick - but like I said, I dont own one so this is all based on my limited experience with it.

Granted even with a bad stick, once you get use to it, you can be good at a game.

[MrPopo]

The Super Advantage is complete ass for SF2, since the buttons aren't layed out properly. I've always had problems with the MK taps in the arcade, so it could just be not being used to it.

[noiseredux]

it's not you. It sucks.

[Gnashvar]

Yeah it's not sensitive enough IMO and the buttons feel sorta weird.

[gtmtnbiker]

Too bad it sucks because it's a cool looking controller in my opinion.

[Ziggy]

Yeah it's not sensitive enough IMO and the buttons feel sorta weird.

Yeah, the buttons are another thing that are pretty bad. I had a lot of them sticking on me. This stupid thing is almost unusable, actually. I'll have to just keep it as a conversation piece.

I'm glad to hear it's not just me though, I was getting scared that I might totally suck with a joystick. One day (when I have the funds) I really want to built a MAME cab for myself, so I was getting worried there for a second.

[CRTGAMER]

Yeah it's not sensitive enough IMO and the buttons feel sorta weird.

Yeah, the buttons are another thing that are pretty bad. I had a lot of them sticking on me. This stupid thing is almost unusable, actually. I'll have to just keep it as a conversation piece.

I'm glad to hear it's not just me though, I was getting scared that I might totally suck with a joystick. One day (when I have the funds) I really want to built a MAME cab for myself, so I was getting worried there for a second.

Controller is a beauty though. Makes a great bookend conversation piece to hold up all the Game Guides.

Older controllers had bubble switches and marginal carbon dot contacts under the joystick and buttons.
Over time the carbon would rub off the button and coat the PCB contact.

You could try some contact cleaner if the controls are sluggish.
Or as others wrote just a crappy designed controller like the one below.

Atari 5200 controller, the worst Carbon buildup.
I resorted to Wicos on this console.