Customer Reviews

Thrustmaster Dual Analog Gamepad

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

 

 

I will never buy an other Guillemot product. The fact is that the software included with this controler is aweful. It slowed down my powerful system to the point where games are unplayable. Customer support was lacking as well, and I was informed that the problem must lie somewhere in my system software (even though my computer is brand new). The manual contains less than 500 words in English, the buttons are not labled, and the controler was not compatable with contemporary EA titles. Do not buy this product.

I found this gamepad to completely blow away my exisiting Gravis Gamepad PRo USB. installation took two seconds, calibration was easy, and soon i was playing NBA live. the control is amazing, your hands never get tired, the thing is exteremly comfortable too. Plenty of buttons in the right places too. All in all, highly reccomended.

The other reviews slamming this product are correct. The associated programming interface is useless and slows the system down to unplayable status. And due to the layout of the buttons, it is next to useless as a geenric controller. The shoulder buttons are set up as 1 & 2 on the left and 3 & 4 on the right. The regular pad buttons on the face of the controller are 5, 6, 7, & 8. Without the ability to use the programming interface to change these, it's too awkward to play just about any game. This is unfortunate as the analog sticks work smoothly and the physical layout & feel of the controller is pretty nice. So much so, that I'm gonna rip it apart and see if I can resolder the connections to put the buttons in their standard places.

As it stands though, this controller is frustrating and next to useless.

From opening the box, to installing this pad it took me less than 2 minuites.

I run windows 2000 and the pad works excellently with all the latest games, Even with emulators for obsolete consoles like the snes and megadrive.

I am more than happy with the price of this customisable and comfy gamepad. And with over 10 buttons this gamepad means you can sit back and relax without having to mess about with the keyboard.

Thrustmaster makes a great product and I found this joystick to very user friendly. The amount of buttons to be used for a multiple of functions is outstanding. The force-feedback is great and adjustable. The software is easy to install and also found easy on Thrustmaster's website. This joystick is very solid and offers a lot for the money.

The feel and action of this controller are great but the install was a pain in the neck.I have Windows ME and it wouldnt recognize it as being connected,so I went into the little paper that comes with it(there is no detailed Instruction manual) and it stated that if this problem happened ,to uninstall the drivers and go to the Thrustmaster website.I had to download and install a NEW version of the Setup.exe and manually install the driver(which Ive done many times before but never with this much aggrivation).Finally after an hour(it would normally take 3 minutes to install this if they included the proper files)I got the thing installed and it's working fine.
I would only reccomend this to those of you who are familiar with computers and able to manually install the drivers.Maybe they'll get a Setup.exe together before too long that will make this truly a "plug-n-play" controller.

The controller itself is good, but the documentation is poor and pretty confusing. The manual is on the cd-rom that comes with it, but it is hidden in a .html document a few folders in. And it took me a couple of hours just to figure out which driver I needed to download from the website (they probably could have put the driver(s) right on the cd-rom).
There are many programmable buttons though, and if you're much better at this stuff (or much more patient), its probably a good deal.

i bouhgt this gamepad and i was really afraid it would be a real disappointment, but on the contrary, it was really easy to install and use, and it didn't slow down the system one bit, and the analog controls worked in all of my games, even in the emulators. but the reason i'm giving it a 4 star rating is that when i used it through the games port not the USB, it was really slow and it gave me multiple head aches, but once plugged through USB, it works perfectly.

I installed this product on my iMac--as always, iMac installs are easy. Guess what! The driver software is the bare minimum and the only documentation is for Windows. In fact, the Windows documentation appears to be well-written and easy to follow. It just won't work on the iMac, especially since many of the features in the documentation don't appear to exist in the Mac version.

The pad that I received installed well but is out of alignment, meaning the POV in all my games moves down and to the right. The Windows instructions have an alignment feature that can't be found on the Mac. I have tried using the company website and toll-free support number and I'm still waiting for an answer.

A word to the wise: Amazon shouldn't even sell this as Mac compatible.

My third Thrustmaster Dual Analog Gamepad just broke for the same reason -- the flimsy analog joystick. While otherwise a comfortable and precise pad, it's poor joystick design makes this a product ready for recall. When it breaks, the pad can go in the trash because the analog pad is the only useable X-Y controller since the D-Pad is useless ... .

Unfortunately for me, I otherwise like this pad. The buttons are Playstation layout, so the other reviews complaining about the button layout are probabily used to other pads. There are a lot of buttons, but most games don't use all them all. Unfortunately, two of them are below the analog pad (another design mistake) so they have an annoying 'click' when you press down on the stick with your thumb (which, of couse, occurs each and every time you are about to shoot something and your reflexes kick in). This click will eventually go away (if your pad survives) after you break the plastic part which 'clicks', leaving a spongy feeling to the stick. Oh yea, dont drop it off your desk onto a hard floor -- instant product death.

Still the overall shape is ergonomic and ideal for adults, and the force feedback is great (but with the three I have I've noticed variations in overall intensity of the shock from unit to unit). Bottom line -- 2 stars. If Guillemot can get there act together in vers. 2.0...I'd get another.