Wico Trackball

Big K

WONDER WIDGETS Each month a new slew of bizarre and beautiful bolt-ons arrives at the Tower of Power. Here's a selection - from the Neat 'n Needful to the Numbingly Naff. You've been able to get the Wico range of joysticks in this country for some time now, though not "officially". Those who have had any experience with these American controllers know them to be without equal for durability and sweetness of action. Now they've found a home in the UK on a permanent basis. CGL, who already distribute the Sord MS computer plus the largest range of standalones in the UK, have now picked up the Wisconsin company's action in this country. Like all US companies, Wico target Atari, Apple and CBM 64 most widely (though with the various interfaces now available there's no reason why Spectrum owners shouldn't consider them also) Stick power is yours with The Boss for £13.00 - this squares up looks-and quality-wise with the Pro Stick or Spectravision II. Move on up to the Red Ball stick on shape, action, weight and sensitivity - 8-way directions are yours for £10 more. Those who treat joysticks as precision instruments, like forceps, will approve of the choice represented by the 3-way Joystick at £25. Three changeable handles come supplied - a mini-baseball bat and two contoured shapes. In the US, Wico is pretty much a connoisseur's stick. Now that their prices are significantly lower than when they first arrived, others can experience them too.

C&VG (Computer & Video Games)

Getting the right joystick for your TV games centre is becoming as difficult as choosing the right squash racquet or set at golf clubs. Adverts claim all sorts at things for sticks - that they will increase your scores and turn you into a pro-player. We have already reported on the latest batch of souped-up sticks now being imported into this country from the States and this month the C&VG staff sat down at our Atari VCS and played a few games using the sticks - purely for research you'll understand! Here we bring you the results at our bench-tests on four of the new sticks - plus the novel Wico Trackball and the simple but effective Byte Stick-Stand. Our general impression was that these sticks add a great deal to your game and will prove a valuable addition to your games centre. Most of the sticks we tested were in the £15 - £25 price range - less than one at the top at the range VCS cartridges. Pretty good value in our humble opinion. We would like to thank Silica Shop, at Sidcup, Kent, who supplied the sticks we tested, and import them from the States. STICK-STAND The Stick-Stand was the cheapest and simplest product we tested. Basically its a plastic stand into which your standard Atari joystick fits snugly. You also get a little red ball which slips onto the top of the standard stick to improve the grip. Simple but effective. The wide-bottom base provides a good stable support for the stick - and that little red ball does improve playability - especially when the on-screen action gets fast and furious. Made by the U.S. firm Byte, the SlickStand costs £7.95. TRACKBALL The Wico trackball is truly a video games gourmet controller. Once you get used to this unusual method of control and develop some speed, it gives you unbelievable responsiveness and adds greatly to playability of any game. Left and right commands are fairly easy to master but up and down movements are a little bit more difficult to control. You will have to readjust your Pacman technique accordingly! My one reservation with the trackball was with the fire button. This was particularly heavy and choked unnecessarily every time you released a missile. It would also have been an improvement to have a fire button in the top right hand corner as well as the top left for left-handed people. The trackball does not come cheap. At £48 you would have to forgo one or two games which you have had your eyes on for some time in order to pay for it. But in my opinion this would be well worth it. DATABASE If you are the proud owner of an Interton VC4000, Radofin, or Acetronic video games centre then you might not be quite so proud of the ever decreasing range of games available. As these little-known machines have not generated the mass sales of, say the Atari, Phillips or Intellivision machines there is not a large enough owner base to support independent software. It also means that the firms who produce the machines do not tend to produce a very wide range of games themselves. The situation has been improved slightly by the production of an adaptor from Voltmace which enables all software for the Database system to be played on any of the above machines. The range of games for the Database is probably about the most up to date of these lesser known machines and includes versions of the popular arcade games Frogger and Pacman. The adaptor plugs into the software ports on the various machines and the Data base software is then inserted into it. The adaptor is available at £4.50 from the Baldock, Hertfordshire-based firm. LE STICK Le Stick from Datasoft is a really nice idea. A joystick without a base seems the easiest way to describe it. It works when the player tilts the stick in the direction he wants to move, and a pressure sensitive 'switch' inside the stick freezes the action if the player squeezes it gently. As I've said before it's a really nice idea. However in practice - on a video games centre anyway - it's just not responsive enough. You really need a lot of practice to get it working as well as one of the regular design sticks. We tested it on maze and space-type games and found it difficult to keep control of the action - which, of course, is all important in TV games. Le Stick, which costs £24.95, may come into its own when it's used for computer games - but unfortunately our testers just couldn't give it the C&VG seal of approval - despite the nice design concept. STARFIGHTER Suncom's Starfighter is described by its makers as the ultimate joystick. Well, in our opinion, despite the two year warranty that comes with it, the stick fails to come up to this extravagant claim. The Startlghter stick is short, stubby and difficult to get a good grip on - you'll soon be suffering from Astro Fighter thumb or some such affliction that all video game players suffer from time to time. The fire button is not one of this stick's best features. It's slow and allows those aliens to escape too easily. As you've probably guessed Starfighter is not one of C&VG's favourite sticks. It costs £19.95 WICO STICKS The Wico Command Control range of joysticks are the best known "gourmet sticks" as they are termed in the U.S., where they are currently the number one sellers. There are two sticks in the range - the Red Ball stick and the Extended Lever stick. Both are highly responsive and offer you a choice of two fire buttons. One is mounted at the top of the joystick itself and the other at the base for those of for those of you used to blasting away with Atari sticks. The Red Ball joystick is the dearer of the two at £27.95. The Lever stick is £6 less - which I feel was not reflected in extra responsiveness. Both Wico sticks are compatible with Atari VCS, Atari 400 and 800 and the Commodore Vic-20. An adaptor enables the sticks to be plugged into the Ti99/4a, Apple and TRS-80 home computers. Wico also produce an extension lead for their sticks which is useful for those people who like to sit in their armchair and play. It sells for £5.95.