Reviews / previews
Every joystick has its own personality-looks,
habits, attitudes. Some are just working joes,
nice enough guys, nothing to write home about.
Some are all glitz but kinda flaky when tough
times actually come, and some are just so darn
boring you never learn anything about them. Not
the Panther XL from Mad Catz. In the joystick
socio-tech tableau, the Panther XL is a sassy,
hot-looking 19-year old.
Yeah, the Panther looks pretty cool, all right...and
as long as it does the job, there's nothing wrong
with buying a controller for its looks. But the
Panther is a rock-solid control device,
incorporating a rubber-booted, reasonably stiff
six-switch joystick on one side and a glowing,
removable jelly-red trackball. Also built in are five
contour-flush buttons of better ergonomic layout
than those in the somewhat cramped SideWinder
base. The trackball portion is, in effect, a mini
Assassin 3D that controls the mlook function in
Quake configurations, or it can be your rudder
control in flight sims. The combination of joystick
and trackball facilitates some difficult and
frighteningly effective moves-slashing attacks and
circle-strafing, just like its FP Gaming ancestor.
The Panther XL is satisfying to use, and the firm,
booted joystick doesn't feel like it's going to break
any time soon.
Two minor downsides exist: a dinkoid little
left-thumb throttle positioned just microns short of
perfect, and the unfortunate placement of an
unprotected switch right near the right pinky. Do
not, for example-and this is just an example, it's
not like I actually did this in front of a bunch of
other players who howled their butts off with
laughter-assign your afterburner here. It's likely to
get flicked on in a tough situation, thereby
instantly, stupidly, and fatally sending your space
superiority fighter slam-bang into the side of a
friendly freighter at Mach 79 or thereabouts.
The bottom line: There'll always be times to call
on a SideWinder or Gamestick, but the Panther
plays a little rougher, looks a little better, and is
slightly cheaper.-- Danny W. Lam / GamePro
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