| #850 - X-Arcade Tankstick |
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| Written by Zach Jeffers | ||||||
| Sunday, 29 July 2007 | ||||||
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A Closer Look: Taking a closer look at the X-Arcade Tankstick controller, you can see that it is laid out like any other console that you would see at the arcade. There are two player controls on either side with a player select and trackball in the middle.  Looking at the front of the Tankstick you can see that there is a slanted surface to the controller making it very comfortable for waste-high playing. The back of the controller has the communication cables, a selection switch and two programming buttons. On each side of the Tankstick there are two white action buttons. These are typically used for Pinball type games.    The bottom of the Tankstick unit is a solid piece with six soft rubber feet. These assure that during that final match of Soul Caliber you are not going to miss that vital combo.   The control surface is made of a textured laminate that is very slick to plastics but gripping to the hand. I would not suggest setting a aluminum can on here as it would more than likely slide off. The player controls consist of six durable action buttons and an eight-way paddle. In the center is a track ball available for playing games like Golden Tee or Simpson’s Bowling.     The trackball is made of a very durable material and has the same look and feel of professional arcade machines. The size of the ball is about is not really that big but does have enough surface area to get that 350 yard drive on Tiger Woods Golf. The track ball has its own controller that recognizes as a standard three button mouse on a PC. The action buttons are very stout and can take a beating! Again, these are the same materials that you would find on a brand new arcade machine.   SWF 20 The side buttons are made of the same materials as the surface buttons but are colored white and are located just beneath the edge of the top surface. When playing pinball games, these were placed very nicely and I never had a problem using them. These are link to the same controller as the tack ball and act like the left and right mouse buttons. One thing to note is that the track ball is not supported on consoles thus the side buttons would not be available on console either. Thankfully the paddles are linked with the action buttons on top and they are fully supported on PC and console. SWF 21   To the back of the controller again, there is a PS2/Serial connection and is ran as a keyboard type device. This control cable is for the user controls and is the main connection for the unit. The included Serial-to-USB adapter can be used for easier installation. In the center of the backing is a slider switch. This is essentially a memory selection switch. You can set up to four preset configurations of the Tankstick so that you do not have to reconfigure the system between games. There are two buttons located near the USB/PS-2 trackball cable that aid in the saving of configurations in the controller. You will need a PC of some sort to create your own configurations as the controllers act like keys on your keyboard.    |
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