Ragfish wrote:This is a must own controller for ps1 racing fans. I thought I had mastered the original ridge racer, but the day I got this, I immediately smashed all my old records. It's better at making small precise movements than an analog stick, but also better at quickly jerking left or right than a full size wheel.
It does have some issues though. I wish both triggers were analog instead of just one, and the dpad is one of the worst I've ever used (not that you'd use it often). I also think it could have been a little more comfortable to hold, not sure how the slightly redesigned black version compares. But the core gimmick works so well that these flaws can be easily overlooked. Every ps1 racing game that took itself seriously supported it too, and you'll even find some odd non racing games that fully support it, like tempest x3 and soul blade.
I wound up pulling this out again last night to give it another try, and oddly I still find myself disagreeing with the opinion that it's great for Ridge Racer.
I'm not sure if it's just the controller I own, but there's a very defined mid-point to the turning mechanism - it almost clicks into place when returning to the central point. This noticeably hindered smooth steering for me.
I think the reason I found it better for WipEout is because it doesn't seem to be great for quick and precise turning - I was sliding all over the place trying to use it in Ridge Racer, but in WipEout, the more gradual turning motions of the ships suit the NeGcon mechanism very well.
An extra note I'd add on using it with WipEout - make sure you switch the accelerator and weapon buttons (I and II on the controller). The default means that you have to take your thumb off of the accelerator to use weapons (and with the air brakes being assigned to the shoulder buttons, the accelerator has to remain on the face buttons), whereas swapping them means that you can lean your thumb down onto both buttons to use weapons.