The all-in-one gamepad (Gravis XTerminator)

Member Name: loulou6

Product:	Gravis XTerminator
Date:	26/05/01 (322 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: I can play pinball without killing the keyboard

Disadvantages: quite hard to programme the buttons

Playing games on the PC used to mean having to have double-jointed fingers and being v. agile with the arrow buttons. Not any more! I bought the ‘Xterminator’, sounds quite impressive doesn’t it? and it lives up to its name (blowing everything in its path to kingdom come).

Being a stalwart Playstation user, I needed something I could grab hold of....and no chaps, not that! This PC game pad has the performance of a directional pad plus the added joy of a baby joystick for 3D role-playing games. You also get flippers (underneath) for pinball, which are much better than using the space bar and carriage return (as you can tilt the controller to 90° without it falling off of your workstation!). In my case these were my only two reasons for buying it. Oh, and to save the keyboard from damage – hehehe.

However, for people who want to know, as well as the joystick, D-pad and flippers it has 12 buttons and a ‘proportional throttle’ for flying and driving games. These buttons can be programmed in any which way you want, but I found that this was a bit of a bind – especially when you want to play your new games straight from the box. The shape and style of the gamepad mimics the Super NES controller and it fits nicely into your hands. Everything is placed well so that you don’t have to dislocate your fingers to reach them. The buttons have a nice ‘sturdy’ feel, although I would have liked the flippers to have more of a ‘clicky’ feel to them.

It comes with a USB port so it’s v. easy to plug ‘n’ play, well except that when programming the buttons for Diablo 2 it took 3 days! But now it’s set up, I can play all day…. Well, only if the bf lets me! Reading a little bit of the instructions showed me that you could even programme macros (for those special moves in fighting games). A lot of people have had trouble between analogue and digital,
but to be perfectly honest, I have had no problems whatsoever. It comes with a 3 years warranty, so if it ever goes wrong or disintegrates in your hands at least you know they are willing to replace it. It doesn’t use a battery either which some other ‘add-on’ controllers do.

The system requirements are:-
Microsoft Windows 95/98 or Apple MacOS 8.1 or later
Ram - 16mb, HD - 15mb

In my point of view, if you want to buy a gamepad for your PC, you could do much worse than this.

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