Customer Reviews

Thrustmaster Top Gun Fox 2 Pro USB Joystick

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Best $26 I have ever spent on a game controller. As one who enjoys flight simulations of all kind I was looking for good solid joystick at a low price since I could not afford the HOTAS controllers that flight simulation enthusiasts prefer to use. This was a good compromise.

The construction feels solid and durable and the stick response is as firm and precise as you will likely get for under $100. The throttle, twist rudder, hat switch and 7 buttons are well placed and have a decent feel to them. All in all, a great buy.

There are sadly, NO, NON, ZIP, ZERO companies out there that makes a high quality joystick.

I'm buying this joystick for a 2nd time, after the first one (I got about 3 years ago) broke. The inside build quality is absolutely horrid. Outside, it looks ok. The rubber flakes off pretty easily. It's some cheap rubber they use on the outside.

Sadly, this is the only joystick I found to be the most comfortable, and of the highest quality. I've tried the latest Saitek and Logitech models, holy god their biuld quality is absolutely subpar.

I Game A LOT. As a serious gamer, this joystick is the only joystick available out there that provides that meager quality for you to game for one year, before you have to go out and buy another one.


Don't even look @ the saitek/logitech models. They didn't even last 3 months on continious hardcore usage.

At least, this one lasts 1 year of hardcore usage (I had it for 3 years, used it for 10 months of intense usage).

The wide, heavy base makes it absolutely tip-proof. It has excellent response on the basic controls. The only negative was with the Thrustmapper software (to program the extra buttons). It caused all kinds of funky behaviour on my PC, so I removed it. With games like BF 1942, you can map all the commands in the game anyway. Good device, software womps.

Thrustmaster has always made an excellent product through the 1990s. The FOX PRO 2 SHOCK is no exception. For under $30 you get a force feedback joystick that doesn't shake your joystick so much that it causes you to crash! The handle is extremely comfortable and the buttons easy to use and program. There are only two downfalls. 1. 7 programmable buttons. In most games you need at least eight to twelve. 2. The drivers that ship with the CD ROM don't work with WIN XP. They cause your system to reboot, over and over again. SO, please download the newest drivers from Thrustmaster.com and install them and not the ones on the CD. If yo have XP that is. Other than that...go buy one!

I really like this joystick. It has all the buttons most of us need. I especially like the dial on the underside that allows you to adjust the stiffness (resistance) of the motion. I did a lot of flying in real aircraft and have trouble getting accustomed to the flacid low resistance video game feel of most joysticks. It installs on Windows XP without having to use drivers or intallation CD's, which often are a problem. If you are going to play with flight sims many hours a day, get a higher quality CH joystick, otherwise this one one works great, at a good price. And it can be adjusted much closer to the feel found in real aircraft.

I purchased this joystick after having not purchased a joystick for the PC since I had a "gameport" on my sound card. I just wanted something solid for the arcade style games I play (Crimson Skies) and the light sims that I play (IL-2, Janes USAF, Microsoft Flight Simulator).

This joystick feels great right out of the box, needs no software to run on XP, and every game I plugged it into had the keys mapped properly from the get go (i.e., the hat switch controlled the view, the trigger was the main gun, the analog throttle was mapped correctly). Of course I made some changes for my personal prefferences, but those were minor.

All in all, I am very pleased at the price/performance of this joystick.

Brought this product for my kid, ended up using it whenever I got time, feels nice and smooth, not disappointed at all.

It worked well out of the box, but after a month or two, it started behaving erratically, especially in the twist axis. Now I experience drift and position spikes even after I calibrate. Maybe I just got a lemon, but I doubt it.

EDIT for 2012: Just dug this up to mess around with it for a few minutes. Popped it into my new Windows 7 laptop and recalibrated and it worked good as new.

***

After reading lots of bad reviews for Logitech Joysticks in the past, I've decided to go with this joystick instead. The first thing I noticed when I received this is that it was pretty big, about 9.5 inches tall and 9 inches wide from the base (not sure how that compares to other sticks since I'm a first timer). It is heavy enough to not move, even when you get too into a game. I bought it mostly for the online combat flight simulator, Aces High II.

When I first connected the joystick, it was instantly recognized by Windows XP. I calibrated it, even though it was working perfectly fine, just to be safe. The calibration is extremely easy with the Windows calibration device.

The joystick has pretty good button placement with enough buttons to rival more expensive joysticks. There is a switch-like button on the right side of the tip, next to the trigger, which is nice for things you might need to do for a split second. The three buttons on the base are large enough to press easily without having to look down. The throttle is easily reachable from the hand on the base buttons, and it seems to be easy to control it as precisely as you want it. The twisting/rudder control is easy to use and sensitive enough. The hat/Point of view switch is easily reachable from your thumb on top of the stick.

The only tiny problems with button placement are that you may not be able to easily use the Hat switch and the button opposite of it simultaneously, and the fact that if you don't have enough buttons and you need to use the keyboard, it might leave you open while you move your hand from the base buttons.

The rubber circle around the base of the stick can probably help to keep the stick from getting damaged. The raised hand-rest keeps your hands from hitting each other and it's pretty comfortable as well.

Overall, I've had the joystick for almost a month. I've never had any problems with it, and never had to recalibrate it yet. I think it is a great and affordable choice for all first-time joystick users. I plan to add an update to this review in a couple of months or if any problems ever occur.

I purchased this joystick and have about 10 to 15 hours in on it at the time of this review. Overall it's a good stick. I thought it was drifting at first but noticed that it was actually my hand that was "resting" wrong. I took my hand off it it stoped the drift. I've only had to calibrate the stick once so far.

I like the stiffness of the stick, and it's uniform throughout the movement (ie not increasing/decreasing as you near the end of it's range). The grip is a little small for me, and I don't have overly large hands (sorry ladies) so this might be a consideration if you have big hands.

The front button above the trigger button presses a little awkwardly at first, but once you get used to it it's not too bad. The three buttons on the base at the front of the stick are spaced so that you can have 1 finger on each of them without difficulty.

I would like to see a pinky button on this stick, but didn't expect one since it wasn't in the picture.

All in all it's a good stick, but I can't speak for the life-span, just the out-of-the-box performance.