Yo!

In this category of blog posts I'll review some stuff whenever I feel the urge to do so - which is probably never after this particular case. ;-)

Let's start:
Two days ago I realized to my horror that my favorite gamepad was slowly giving up the ghost, after 10 years no less, so to be able to continue whooping everybody's ass in the Special Attack Arcade Action I had to find a replacement. Being the Emulator freak that I am I have more gamepads but they simply weren't worthy to fill this spot. The first one I found was a cheap-ass SNES-pad clone by some German company (keep that fact in mind for later reference =) - funnily enough Blackhawk had exactly the same idea and bought EXACTLY the same model on the SAME day completely independently. ;-)

Still, this wasn't the multi-purpose pad I was looking for so I delved further and this is what I found:

Tracer Shark Blue

First of all let me tell you that I paid ~11 Euros for that pad, including shipping costs - that's about three times less than the price of comparable products by better known (read: overpriced) companies. I remembered Tracer, which is a Polish brand, by the way, from the days when they churned out pretty crappy products but these days seem to be over - this pad is absolutely amazing and I say that from my years of experience with various game controllers, including console ones. Yes, the layout doesn't revolutionize anything but it's the combination of certain features that make this gamepad stand out, so let's break it down.

1. Build Quality

The product comes nicely packaged in a solid plastic blister, always the first sign of quality. After you take out the gamepad you immediately notice that there aren't any sharp edges left over from the molding process and the buttons don't wiggle around in their sockets. The plastic is high-quality and features a grip-friendly surface (more on that later). The springs in the analog sticks are firm but smooth and allow the controls to center quickly. A nice touch are the translucent two-part buttons which provide a surface without any groves that might hurt your fingers and at the same time provide you with button numbers that will never wear off - OK, blind people might be complaining but when you grip the pad you can feel the buttons relative to each other anyway. The buttons actuate nicely without any cheapo-clicky effects. Even the analog mode switch button gives off a nice light visible from all directions. The force-feedback motors are quite strong and unlike many bad designs don't make the pad rattle like a rattlesnake, which just goes to show how firmly everything sits in it.

2. Features

One of the reasons I chose this pad over many others are the six face buttons - a feature that is rarer than you might think since most PS-controller (et al.) inspired devices settle for just four. You might not need that that many buttons but the day will come when you'll regret not having them and the good thing about the Shark Blue gamepad is that the 4 primary buttons are arranged in the familiar cross configuration without any fancy ergonomic adjustments. All in all the controller comes with an amazing total of 16 buttons, not counting the D-Pad, the two analog sticks and the three function buttons - all this without any awkward placing decisions. Like I mentioned the pad comes with force feedback support, two control modes (analog and digital - pretty standard for this type of pad) and not very common, even among top controllers, turbo function built right into the pad itself - this is very nice since most controllers rely on software-turbo solutions which are less flexible on-the-fly. The analog sticks have an auto-calibration feature by the way.

Sadly the drivers themselves are quite poor with virtually no settings at all - just your basic stuff, no macros, no anything. While this has to count in-minus feature-wise there are SO many freeware applications that provide you with better functionality than any standard drivers you could find (e.g. Xpadder) that I wouldn't cry too hard on that. However, one has to ask why there are so many buttons if you can't customize them by default. Well, Xadder is your friend with that but macros are for losers anyway (eh, Blackhawk?). :-D

3. Ergonomics

The pad isn't oversized which is always good and the grip feels very natural. All buttons, even the additional 4 in the center, are easily accessed. The surface has a very finely sanded finish to it which make the pad stay firmly in your hands even when your palms are becoming sweaty. Like I mentioned before all the buttons have smooth surfaces which is a plus to me since it means less blisters. :-D
The exception to that are two of the shoulder buttons that have small protrusions so that your fingers might rest on them comfortably without sliding accidentally onto the lower buttons - nice touch. A big upside, at least to me, is the shape of the D-Pad. Many designs go with some kind of fancy-pants circular design which is plainly annoying and quite the opposite of what a digital CROSS should look like, in my opinion. Speaking of the D-Pad - while all the directions have the same resistance to them the slightly slanted design of the gamepad makes up and left feel a bit different than down and right - you decide if that's an issue. Turning the turbo function on is a breeze - just press a button and the turbo switch. Like I said before the analog sticks are very crisp and I like the slightly stronger centering springs which don't make them feel too "floaty". Their push-down function (buttons 11 and 12) activates nicely as wel l - I've seen many pads fail on this one.

I have one major gripe with the layout of the gamepad though - the numbering of the 6 main face button that goes in a strange snake-like pattern from top-right to bottom-left. What the heck? This marks the basic 4 "cross" buttons as 6,3 and 5,4 in the bottom and top row respectively - it gets worse when you analyze all the buttons row-by-row: 6-3-2, 5-4-1 - sounds like the Fibonacci number to me. Again, Xpadder is your friend but it's annoying for games that don't have customizable controls AND when you have several pads like I do and need to reconfigure literally EVERYTHING each time you change from/to the Shark Blue.

4. Conclusion

For this price the pad is simply amazing and I think I'll be getting another one next month - good gamepads never lose their usefulness but might be phased out (like the legendary Cyborg 3D Joystick from Saitek - GRRR).
However, these products seem to be hard to get by abroad since, like I said, Tracer is a Polish brand - you'll have to stick to the sucky German pads in this price range, ha, ha.