Hyperkin Trooper 2 Premium USB Game Controller for PC, Mac, Linux

This joystick brings back so many childhood memories! Works perfectly with my retro gaming setup and feels just like the original. The build quality is solid and responsive.Easy to plug in and start playing right away. Great for classic arcade games and brings that authentic vintage feel. Really well made and exactly what I was looking for.

This is a solidly made Atari style joystick for modern gaming. It is essentially a two button controller with an ambidextrous layout. While this is perfect for Atari and 8-bit computer emulation, It can be used with a ton of different games and is best for anything that can benefit from a two button joystick. I actually played some Cave Story and modern shoot 'em ups with it and had a good time. Not all software will recognize it but only one game didn't play well with it from my experience. This is now my go-to joystick for Commodore 64 and DOS computer gaming. My only complaint is that it doesn't work with my C64 Mini but that's not Hyperkin's fault. Like retro games? You should really get it.

This is a great joystick. As long as you don’t vigorously move the joystick, it won’t break. I use it with my openemu emulator on my Mac mini, and works great. Their are extra buttons on this joystick so your able to map them to other game functions or console functions. I recommend it, but like I say, moving the joystick will probably break off if rapidly and vigorously move it back and forth, I’m sure that would happen to an original atari 2600 joystick too. Those pictures others put that show the joystick broke off was probably cause of what I mentioned, cause mine still works and have had it for quite some time. Like a year.

I purchased this product to use with my WinVICE emulator for playing retro games. Plugged it in and got it to work rather quickly without much effort. Used it for a grand total of four sessions totaling maybe 10 hours of gaming. I should note that the joystick was NOT used with any games that required heavy or repeated motions of the stick (i.e., games like Decathalon where you have to wiggle the stick furiously for certain events). During a gaming session last night, I was holding the stick to the right to move my character when I felt the stick give way in my hands. The pictures show the story - nearly a clean break right at the base of the stick.I had such high hopes for this controller. I liked the aesthetics, the dual buttons on top (left-handed people could really benefit from this), and the design which evokes memories of the old Atari 2600 joysticks. However, I cannot give this one a positive review after such a terrible experience. I will shop for a more durable controller in the future.

Great little joystick. If you're using an Atari emulator (Stella) on your PC, this is the perfect companion. Its got enough buttons on it to emulate the switches on the original Atari, but it doesn't all work out of the box, just the core joystick functions.. You WILL have to map the select buttons and such, which isn't hard to do at all. You simply find the command you want the button to do in the software, click map and the press the appropriate button on the joystick.The joystick itself is very responsive and smooth, much easier to use then the stiff joysticks from the original Atari. People who are saying this doesn't work don't understand how joystick mapping works.

Works well with Windows. Did not work with the C64 mini. Fun to have all those buttons.They also register as different inputs. Not very comfortable as the original is. Very nostalgic feeling.Main reason to purchase other than nostalgic side of it was to play 4 ways games like Pac-Man and some old arcades games and it works great.

TL;DR: I managed to get this joystick to work for my needs, but it has a physical design flaw and so Your Mileage May Vary.Out of the box, this joystick feels sold and well-made. The base has beveled corners which make it easier to hold in one's hand than the old Atari 2600 joysticks on which the physical design of this stick is based. The addition of more buttons than the Atari 2600 classic is also welcome.There’s a significant physical flaw with these sticks, which I’ve now experienced with both of the units I’ve purchased. The stick’s method of actuating the button switches inside the base is basic leverage, with a plastic tab pressing down on one or two of the switches depending on the direction you’ve pulled or pushed the stick as you operate it. There’s four tabs, one each for up/right/down/left. The plastic component with these tabs is made of a soft, weak plastic material that will wear out, eventually causing the tabs to crack and even break completely off, which will render the stick incapable of activating the corresponding internal switch. You’ll know you’re in trouble when you start to hear the rattling of the tiny piece of plastic that’s broken lose inside the base of the stick. I’ve typically experienced this problem within about four weeks of using a new stick, and although I play a great deal, I’m not thrashing the heck out of the stick when I do. The plastic is just weak and not really up to the challenge of lasting long enough. I may try to 3D print an equivalent part from tougher plastic – not harder so much as less prone to cracking from fatigue. Though I bet making the part from metal or even hardwood would be the best long-term solution.Don’t even bother trying to get support from Hyperkin. In particular, you will find no driver software for this stick at the Hyperkin website, nor will you find any documentation, nor is there even a users forum to which one might direct questions about setting up and using the stick. There is a support form, into which you can type your request, and the response from Hyperkin was pretty quick in my case. However, the response was largely unhelpful, providing no specific information to help me solve my problem of configuration on my computer.If you do buy this joystick in order to use it with a Mac, I can recommend the USB Overdrive shareware driver, which made it possible for me to use this joystick for its intended purpose. I also tried using the Joystick Mapper driver, available on the Mac App Store, but that software did not help me. As stated before, YMMV.Summary: Hyperkin built an inexpensive and rather fragile joystick which they then fail to support in any useful way.