1.  What joystick do I use for SWOS?
(by Paul Turner - 12/5/00)

I am sure that this is a question that a lot of people want the answer to.  Some already know what ther favourite joysticks are and which are best for SWOS.  I will run through a list of the the joysticks which I have found to be the best for SWOS.

AMIGA JOYSTICKS

SWOS was first released on the Commadore Amiga.  This is the best place to start talking about game controllers.  There were many great joysticks for the Amiga, the best ones for SWOS were those which were comfortable to grip, loose and responsive.  Arcade style joysticks were the main style for the Amiga, you could get gamepads, but mostly joysticks were used.

There were four types of joysticks that I used for SWOS, but probably around 8 actuall sticks because they kept breaking.

1.  Quickjoy SV-127 TOPSTAR

This was the joystick I got with my first Amiga, so it was the first one I played SWOS with.  It looked cool, with an ergonimic grip and a cool see-through base.  It had one thumb button and one trigger button, with the option of having both auto-fire, or just the top one as autofire.  The trigger was very good, it was light to press but clicked nicely.  The top button was very handy for shoot-em-ups, especially XENON 2 (Wicked game with that bomb da bass intro).  The joystick itself was very responsive and clicked when it moved to one of the eight directions.  This joystick was very fun to play with, it also had this slow-mo switch.  What the slow-mo switch did was to slow down the response time of the joystick to make some games harder.  It was a bit annoying when I left this on playing Sensi, the players started jerking around like they were hopping on one leg.  I played loads of games with it, particularly Sensible Soccer.  Unfortunately it broke after about 2 years.  I got another one though, but after another two years this broke as well.  About 2 or 3 years ago I managed to fix both of them but they broke again, oh well.  May the Quickjoy TOPSTAR rest in peace(s).

2.  Quickshot MAVERICK 1

I once won a match 70-0 with this joystick (10mins).  It was always my second favourite to the Topstar when I had both joysticks in use.  But this stick is still very, very good.  It has an original design.  The wide base with two buttons and a small 8-directional stick works suprisingly well when you get used to it.  There is the option of plugging this same joystick into both ports and then switching between player 1/2 using a switch.  I can't say that I ever saw the point of this.  The joystick has autofire, and also compatibility with 4 different machines (Amiga/Atari, MSX, Amstrad, Sega), I only used it for Amiga though.  This joystick also broke after about 5 years.

3.  Quickjoy QJ1 (Microswitched)

With this joystick I won the world cup managing Australia on SWOS 96/97 - nuf said.  I used this joystick a lot.  It was the only one that was working when others were all broken.  I found it very good to play SWOS with.  It clicked loudly when you moved the stick or pressed a button, and you could hear when I was playing SWOS by what sounded like morse code whenever I played a match.  There were lots of different designs for this stick but I think they were all the same model.  A flat sort of base and a simple stick with two buttons.  Unfortunately it broke after about year or two.  It lies in pieces on my top shelf after I failed to fix it properly.  Joystick surgery was something I had to perform quite often, and this one just didn't survive the op.

4. Quickshot Python

There were several Python joysticks from Quick shot.  The one in the picture is the Quickjoy 137f Python joystick, this has a very responsive stick, two very reliable fire buttons and an auto-fire feature.  I never used this one much for SWOS, I was using the TOPSTAR instead.  My brother broke this one before I had a chance to use it much for Sensi.

The joystick which I currently use for my Amiga SWOS, is a bit like a python but it is different.   The model number is QS-131, but I'm not sure what it's called.  The stick is different, the base is smaller and it doesn't have autofire, but it feels about the same.   Along with all these other joysticks it is probably your best bet for playing SWOS with.  It has a sensitive control and comfortable grip.  I have two of these, which is good, they haven't broken yet, and lets hope they never will.

PC JOYSTICKS

There is only one I can recommend for playing SWOS on the PC.  I tried sticks from people like Logic3 and Microsoft, and generally avoided gamepads.  But I had to return these joysticks to the stores because they were crap for SWOS.  Eventually I had to write to the makers of the best Amiga joystick to find out if they made any similar sticks for PC.

1.  QUICKJOY PYTHON 5
(model no. QS-189)

And thank goodness, they did.  This unquestionably the best SWOS stick you can get for the PC.  Some of you might prefer gamepads if you have been used to that from playing Sensi on the Megadrive, SNES, or Gamegear.  But this is the best, it is just like the good old Amiga joysticks - very responsive and reliable.  It makes you feel just a bit like you are playing SWOS on the Amiga again.

I think the Python 5 is available in quite a few shops, I got my two sticks from TEMPO.

Here are some useful details for finding out about quickshot:

Visit QuickShot Online:
Compuserve: GO QSHOT
Internet: http://www.quickshot.com
E-mail: support@qticom.isp.net (QuickShot Technology, Inc.)
            info@quickshot.co.uk (QuickShot (Europe) Ltd.)
            info@quickshot.com.hk (QuickShot Ltd.)