Joytech Controller Plus 64

First impressions of the Controller Plus are good. The pad has a good quality feel to it and so do the buttons. The control stick has a metal base and shaft, and is slightly firmer than that of the official controller. Comfort isn't an issue, although the lack of left and right prongs mean that you'll shape your hand differently to hold this controller. All the standard buttons are present, and there's also Turbo and Slow buttons that work in conjunction with A, B and Z.

The button layout feels good at first and those extra chunky c-buttons feel better than the official ones. Start playing a shooter and the novelty wears off. Although the c-buttons are a nice size, they're the same size as A and B, and this can cause confunsion over which button you're pressing. The buttons being so close together doesn't help either; there's not even a small distance to seperate A & B from C. This takes time to get used to, and even after a good few hours of play I was still finding myself have to look at the controller to press B. Not a good start then.

The control stick also has a few problems, which I first noticed when playing Super Mario 64. Running in any direction is hampered by what I thought at first was a loose top to the control stick. Basically, when you apply pressure in a direction, the slightest movement causes the stick to spin, and you'll either lose your grip or make a mistake. The reason for this became apparent when I opened up the controller; there's nothing anchoring the stick to stop it from spinning, and there's no evidence of it ever being anchored. This is a terrible design fault; how this could have been play-tested and released is beyond me. The problems don't stop there though.

The octagon in which the control stick moves is uneven. After a quick measurement I found out that forward and back have more distance between them than left and right: a whole 2mm. This doesn't sound like much, but you'll find you need to push harder to get full run forward/back than left or right, which feels very strange. Combined with the spinning stick problem and... well, it's rubbish. The only way I found that would get Mario to run at full speed forward was to hook my finger under the top of the control stick and then push forward. Needless to say, that’s not comfortable.

So is there anything else wrong with this pad? Well... just look at that nose! Which member of the design team thought that looked good? It's meant to be a controller but it looks like the kind of toy you'd find at a ladies lingerie party!

As you can probably tell, I don't like this controller. It had me fooled into thinking it might be good, but it just isn't. The design is very poorly thought out, and that's a shame because I'm sure there's a decent pad hiding underneath. The good ideas are all let down by poor design.

I did, of course, take some comparison photos of this pad and the official controller. But there's not much point in looking at them because you don't want this controller. It's just not very good.

Joytech Controller Plus 64 - A 2009 Update by alxbly

These reviews have moved around a fair bit since they were first written. This review of the Joytech Controller Plus actually dates back to 2006, so when I recently came across another Joytech Controller Plus I thought I'd take the opportunity to see if I still thought it was as bad.

The short answer to that is... yes, it is that bad. This controller has the same twirling control stick problem as the first so it obviously is just bad design. I never talked about the d-pad in my first review; it's okay-ish, but nothing special. After much more time spent with the controller my findings are the same; it's rubbish.

Source : Review by Alxbly