IMG has posted a review by flight sim guru Tim Morgan of the SideWinder Precision 2 USB joystick by Microsoft.

Here's an excerpt in which Morgan departs briefly from his focus on flight simulators to evaluate the effect of two of the joystick's notable features, a twist grip and a shortage of buttons, on first-person mech combat games:

Twist-grips have gained popularity on the PC side in mech games. Typically, the twisting action is used to control the mech's torso, which allows the player a very enviable amount of control in strafing (walking one direction while looking and firing in another). With that thought in mind, I decided to give the joystick a try in my one choice of mech game: Laminar Research's Young's Modulus. (Ambrosia Software's Avara does not have modern joystick support.)

Young's Modulus has very respectable support for InputSprocket, and I was able to configure the joystick to handle the game's most important commands. However, with a four-way weapons selection system, a three-way target selection system, and a four-way jump-jet system, this game calls out for more than one hat switch. Gamers' hands will be darting between the stick and keyboard in this game as well.

Alas, Young's Modulus does not support torso-twisting, but the twist-grip made an adequate turret control. Turret control is more obscure than torso-twisting, however, so one shouldn’t expect a phenomenal boost in one's kill ratio.

IMG Review: SideWinder Precision 2

SideWinder Precision 2

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