Ultimate Controller Score: 90% Developer: Mad Catz Device Type: Controller

Function: The Ultimate Controller is effectively a PlayStation controller for your PC. Because you can only have four-button joysticks without specialized drivers, the four shoulder buttons are turbos for the four main buttons. Otherwise, the shape is the same. Mine was jet black, and looked very nice. It handled well in the hand as well.

Performance: Plug this sucka into your gameport (usually on your sound card), and set it up in the Control Panel. Very easy. The Ultimate Controller is great. It?s one of the best digital control pads I?ve ever used, and the button placement is a tried and true placement. It?s digital, so you won?t get the analog 360 degree support, but it works beautifully for all the games I tried it on. And since Direct Input supports four-button gamepads natively, there?s very little setup or calibration. Plug it in, set it up, and go.

Features: Precise floating crosspad 7?2? Cord Four buttons with shoulder turbo buttons Ergonomic PSX-esque design Easy to set up

Drawbacks & Problems:: The turbo button tends to work unreliably. Plus, the cord?s a bit short, and I could have used it longer so I could sit a little more comfortably when I play with it, and some of the plastic casing didn?t feel cut right, so it hurt until my hands wore off the ?trimming.? The turbo buttons have a bad habit of being too fast for the game to detect, so I just stopped using them. Otherwise, though, this controller is perfect. If you just use the front four buttons and the superb cross-pad, you?ve got an excellent product.

-Sunfall to-Ennien, GameVortex Communications AKA Phil Bordelon

Minimum System Requirements: Unavailable   Test System: AMD K6-III 450 running Windows 98, 256MB RAM, Creative Sound Blaster Live! Sound Card, Creative TNT2 Ultra w/32MB RAM, 6X/24X DVD-ROM