For years, the Joystick has been the quintessential video game controller. That was until video game consoles finally standardized on the already classic gamepad. However, these are still used by a minority of players and in particular those who play flight simulators. Although the key question is: what is the best joystick currently on the market?
Today on PC there is a type of controller that has disappeared from most games and that is the joystick disappeared as soon as two levers started to be needed to control the action of games as they were in three dimensions. And it is that in the already classic two-dimensional games it is not necessary to have a second stick to control the camera. So, for convenience and familiarity, a new generation of gamers who had grown up with video game consoles abandoned classic joysticks for gamepads.
However, these are still used in certain genres, the best known of all being flight or space simulators. So, like racing wheels, they became a niche device. Not in a derogatory sense, but due to the fact that its usefulness has been reduced from being a general purpose device to being used for a specific domain.
The best classic joystick we can buy
Today the best are the Hotas for flight simulators, so buying one and using the main part will be enough to have a quality joystick and we talked about it yesterday, so we decided to focus on this article. This article is not for flight simulator controllers, but for those who still love their old computer games and still want to play the old fashioned way. And yes, many retro enthusiasts will surely have raised their hands over their heads due to the fact that the recently launched Amiga 500 Mini has a gamepad and not a joystick.
Our recommendation if you are retro lovers are the Monster Controller, its controllers and buttons are of high quality and equivalent to those of the classic arcades of yesteryear and are suitable for your old computers, especially those using the Atari standard. Also if you have a Raspberry Pi they also double as a case for those to get the full experience. In case your goal is to turn your computer into a machine for playing retro games you don’t don’t have an old machine, it might be worth it with the previous example and that’s enough with something like Professional Competition
Although if you want a more traditional option, a good option is the Side handle Thrustmaster TCA Airbus Edition, which is currently the best joystick for PC, period. Although if you want an explanation, it’s very simple: how about having up to 17 buttons with 5 of them on the lever and another 12 on the base? All this with the possibility of choosing up to 4 different configurations for the flight simulators.
