In the relative quiet of Kentia Hall, I took the opportunity to speak with Michael Sexton of CH Products. CH specialises in joysticks and controllers, primarily for the flight simulator market, and Michael was kind enough to show me a set of their products designed for flight simulator players: the CombatStick USB, the ProThrottle USB and the ProPedals USB.
The equipment was being demonstrated with UbiSoft's Pacific Fighters, a physics-accurate combat flight simulator. The controllers are designed for this kind of environment, where small, accurate and precise movements of the controls are expected. The target market is squarely centred upon the armchair pilot, as opposed to the arcade game player.
I briefly tried out the CombatStick, ProThrottle and ProPedals. All three seemed well-made and solidly built, and were very sensitive to my movements. Unfortunately, I'm no pilot, and the sensitivity combined with the accuracy of the simulation was a little too much for my skills. Even though the game was set up to load with the plane already flying (thus avoiding the additional difficulty of performing a successful takeoff), I still managed to crash my plane within thirty seconds of flight. After three failed attempts, I asked Michael to demonstrate the controllers for me.
With an experienced player at the helm, it was clear that the controllers are designed for the high-end market - subtle, smooth movements were all that were required to bring the plane around, accelerate and engage the enemy fighters. The throttle doesn't need to react with quite the same precision, and I wasn't able to follow the rudder pedal action - but from the time I spent using them, all three seemed to operate on the sensitive side.
The CombatStick features three axes of control - two via the joystick, and a third via a side wheel, designed to control the throttle. It also provides six push buttons, a 4-way directional switch, and an 8-way point-of-view hat. The ProThrottle boasts a primary axis for throttle control, three 4-way switches, one 8-way hat switch, three push buttons, one 3-way mode switch, and a mini joystick. Finally, the ProPedals feature three axis of control, providing both sliding motion for rudder control, and heel-and-toe control for braking.
This impressive array of knobs and switches is complemented by the Control Manager software (included), allowing you to assign these buttons (and combinations thereof) to keyboard commands. When set up with an appropriate control configuration, these controllers can become very versatile indeed. With the CombatStick alone, it's possible to handle all of the major aircraft controls from just the one controller. Whilst this is great for the pilot on a budget, the controllers do work best in tandem. When flying with all three, you have access at your fingertips to independent flight, rudder and throttle control, along with various ancillary controls, such as mouse emulation for point-of-view control.
One feature not included is force feedback - but considering the sensitivity of the controllers, this is almost certainly a good thing. Nevertheless, it is a point to consider for those looking to make use of this controllers in games other than the flight simulators for which they're primarily designed.
Compared with competitors' offerings, the CH Products controllers don't look like much. They lack the sleek styling and reflective plastic of some of their competitors, but more than make up for this in their solid construction and control accuracy. I'm no expert on flight controllers, but I was distinctly impressed with what I saw, which seemed to be a solid offering aimed directly at the high-end market.
As I'm currently living off a student budget, my recent purchases tend to be from the various budget ranges of older titles: I'm more likely to be found playing Quake II or the original Unreal Tournament than Thief III or FarCry. I'll probably make an exception for Doom 3, though. (For the record, I did try Doom 3, and wasn't very impressed. Thief III has made it to the budget range here in the UK, and one day I'll play it. Perhaps after I've updated this profile properly...)
I enjoy online games, but I prefer the persistent world offered by the MMORPGs to the competitive environment of the CounterStrike servers. I've a feeling too many years of leisurely RPG playing have ruined my shooter reflexes; needless to say, I tend to end up on the tail end of the scoreboards in online FPS games. That said, I enjoy the competitiveness of multiplayer gaming, but prefer the face-to-face encounters of LAN gaming to the anonymity of the public servers.
