A Dreamcast Flightstick?

Oh Dreamcast. When will you stop surprising me?

I found a new controller that I had never heard of before. Perhaps someone here has seen one before but it doesn't seem to be listed on any of the major Dreamcast sites and is only mentioned in the odd message board post.

Behold the Dreamcast Panther Flightstick:
Look at all them buttons...

Apparently this controller was also able to be used with FPS games like Quake 3 and perhaps even the unreleased Half Life.

As it is there are several opinions out there ranging from "Crap it doesn't work on many games" to "Wow this works awesome on Starlancer" to "Ugh Madcatz...". (I personally never had a problem with Madcatz stuff on the Dreamcast My steering wheel works well and my lightguns are good. I actually sold a new madcats controller for nothing because I was told that 3rd party controllers shorted out the Dreamcast's control board...then a first party controller shorted out my control board...)

As soon as I get this and my copy of Starlancer I will give a proper review of this seemingly rare controller. Is it a good controller? Is is crap? Is it worth it as a collectors item?

Only time will tell.

16 comments:

Anonymous said...

I used to have one of these in college, it worked quite well in Aerowings (the only game I bought it for).

Unfortunately it was destroyed in one of my more wild dorm parties, but I managed to salvage the perfectly smooth, translucent rollerball, which I still have to this day.

Caleb said...

Yeah. My original Dreamcast got stolen in college...

Oh college. How much video game destruction has gone on...

Anonymous said...

I have never heard of that controller, but I'm not surprised that it was produced. Sega had a nasty habit of producing peripherals and then not supporting them, especially for DC.

We at Gaming Insurrection did a look at the DC (my favorite system) way back in the 2nd quarter 2008. You may find it interesting being a lover of all things DC. We will definitely add you to our new blog roll when the new blog launches in April.:)

Barry the Nomad said...

I've always wanted a control stick, but I'm not sure which games that I play regularly would benefit from it. I wonder how Jet Set Radio would play...?

Caleb said...

Hmm. Jed Grind Radio with a roll ball?

Caleb said...

And Oh My God I Never knew that Jet Grind Radio had Slow by Professional Murder Music on it.

That was one of my favorite songs in college.

Barry the Nomad said...

I'd love to see an article on JSR being played with every possible controller, meracas controller anybody?

As for this controller, does it correspond to the analog pad and work with any game?

Tom Charnock said...

Cool find! I've never seen that peripheral before

dpicciotto said...

I have one and must say it is a really good controller. It is really responsive and is visually stunning when the trackball is lit up. It has two modes standard controller and panther mode. On standard mode the trackball is not lit up. If you look on ebay it goes from $20-$60. It goes buy panther, flight stick, and yoke stick. I use on Quake, Unreal, and Outtrigger. Half-Life was suppose to support it but it doesn't. Maybe the final version would have. I believe KISS, air Force Delta, Aerowing, and Iron Aces do work with it. I tried other games that didn't support it and got a mix response. Rainbow Six Rouge Spear did kinda work. I was able to do the missions but, pressing start is unresponsive. Yet when you play it is easier to aim move around, blows the standard controller out of the water. Hidden & Dangerous was worse than the standard. I think that really needs a keyboard and mouse. Toy commander air plane and helicopter mission are fun. The damn car mission hard for me. (I am not a very good gamer)

Barry the Nomad said...

To Caleb: One of the pluses to owning all region releases of JSR are the different playlists. Music like "Slow" wasn't my kind of music, but it fits perfectly and totally rocks in the Grind City levels. It has since become one of my most played JSR songs in iTunes.

fatherkrishna said...

dpicciotto that's quite a recomendation there! good work fella!

Caleb, why does it not surprise me that you got your hands on one of these! Interestingly I DO have a weird phobia about Madkatz stuff. I had a green controller that I hated.

I never liked the lightguns either...

hands said...

I used to have this controler and it worked with great with Air Force Delta, Aerowings 2, and Iron Aces but not sure about FPS games. I got $15 trade in credit for it at game store last week.

Unknown said...

Well i was looking around at 5 in the morning too tell one of my online friends what i used too play dreamcast q3a on and it brought me too this site and im glad it did so i can give your a decent review of the pather DC

first off it was the best controlling thing i ever used on the dreamcast i mean it even beat the mouse and kb combo all the bottons on the stick move in differnt directions so i was able to bind my weapons to all directions of both bottons which was a major plus and the trackball was dead on perfect aim ppl used to wonder how i aimed so well with this thing and 250 ping :)switching weapons on the fly with no issues at all cause if u look at the top of the joystick you see the 3 bottons well the 2 bottons on the right move up down left and right so u are able to bind a differnt weapon to each direction and then the fire botton was right next to them so like i said in the controls department this gets a 10 out of 10

but heres the bad part of this joystick and maybe it was just me maybe not but i went thru 5 of these things because they was made so cheaply they broke so easy maybe it was because i played q3a like 16 hours aday backthen LOL! but 5 of them come on and it was always somthing differnt once it was the stick then it was the inside where the ball goes the metal balls in there broke i even fixed these things a few times like when my track stoped moving right jaming somthing in there so it can move the right way or lil things like that

anyways this is my review of one of the best sticks i ever layed hands on but one of the cheapest made things i ever layed my hands on also so its a catch 22 But u know what i recomend this in a heartbeat cause your will do some mahor ownage with it just be easy with it and maybe it may last

P.S Sorry about the bad bad bad grammer but i hope it was understandable enough to understand the majic of this joystick (RIP) Panther DC :)

hoogafanter said...

I just bought an ASCII mission stick. I assume it works with all the same games that this one does?

Unknown said...

Hey!

I think 9 years later, time has told! I wish that you did received your starlancer copy in the meantime.. so what about your feedback about this stick?

Starlancer is the only game I owned on my DC, I finished it on PC but wanted to play back in time and this stick appears almost magically in my local craigslist so I was looking for reviews.

Thanks Mike for your comment, I guess that it will be a great controller but not very sturdy as was all the mad catz "toys" at that time. I'll try to negociate it at 20$, above would be unreasonnable from my point of view.

BASANT KUMAR said...
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