Customer Reviews

Gravis PC Gamepad

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I've seen the reviews for this Gamepad and I had to put my two cents in. I bought my Gamepad back in 1996 and it's been working fine since then. Only recently has it started giving me problems after I slid a desk over the cord, fraying the cable. So apparently, as long as you keep it out from under the furniture, you'd be okay.

It's a simple gamepad, but it's worked for every game that I've used it so far. Unfortunately, it doesn't have USB support, but most of the games that I like to play are older games.

Anyway, buy this pad and it'll last you forever.

After the 1 review below I just had to create my own !!

I had one of these for almost 10 years and it worked fine for all the games that I tried it on.

Here's a rundown of the Pluses:
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- It was superbly compatible with all DOS games at the time and maintained compatibility all the way up to Win98-SE. IF your PC still has a Joystick port (which I doubt) I bet It'll work fine (drivers are included in Win2000/XP).

- Aside from a top-brand console pad (e.g. Nintendo), it's the best D-pad I've played with (IMHO the top 3 are SNES pad, original NES pad and the PS's Dualshock / Dualshock 2 D-pad). It could actually be used for Fighting games (i.e. Street Fighter2, etc.) even though it only has 4 buttons. Anyone who has played Fighting games will know that the D-pad can be MUCH more crucial than not being able to use the weakest attack of your character.

- Also, it has been one of my longest-lasting gaming controllers, withstanding years of abuse with the D-pad and buttons still working fine.

- At this point, the price. You can probably grab it for next to nothing. I've even seen it at flea-markets.

Now the Cons:
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- OOOLLLLLDDD technology !!! (obviously). This thing came out way back when a PC could handle 2 joysticks with 2 buttons each, so the fact that this pad was using 4 buttons was a BIG deal (by taking over the "possible" 2nd joystick's buttons). As mentioned above it requires a 15-pin Joystick port which almost no existing Desktop has let alone any laptop that I've seen since 1997!

- Needless to say, No USB support.

- Lack of buttons (only 4).

Final comment:
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This WAS an awesome pad and if you find it and have the required joystick port could probably provide a pretty decent gaming experience for only a few cents. It was one of the first REAL gamepads for the PC so you'd get a part of gaming history !!

I only stopped using it because I was able to connect my old SNES pad directly to the PC (only ~7 Diodes) and now I have adapters for the N64 pad (only good for N64 emulation really), PS1/PS2 (great for general gaming) and will (probably) end up buying Microsoft's PC hookup for the X360's wireless controllers (not for fighting games though).

BTW, I recently TRIED buying a USB PC controller (PS2 Dualshock2 knock-off) and STILL the BIG headache for these companies is getting the D-Pad juuuussst right... awesome how Gravis had it down in 1991 !

HTH

No Start and Select, no L and R's. Just 4 buttons and a D-pad. And what's that little switch? Oh, it flips it so you can use it upside down (makes the color buttons be directions) I had one of these for a while and I hated it. Nice for two button NES game emulation, but not SNES or anything else. Get a Lik-Sang adapter and use your old Playstation 1 or 2 pads instead. Get Joy2Key and you can do keyboard and mouse mapping like a Saitek pad.