Joytech Advanced Controller for GameCube
http://www.joytech.net
Price £14.99

Although the GameCube is blessed with the ability to have four player contests out of the box, the amount of third party gamepads that are on offer is not great and at £24.99 for each official gamepad it's going to cost you just under £75 to make four player gaming a possibility. Of course Joytech were on the ball and had an Advanced Controller available for the Cube's European launch. To make matters better the Advanced Controller only costs £14.99, a whole £10 cheaper than the official gamepad. Let's take a look at it.

While Joytech have retained the same button layout of the original gamepad, the overall shape is a little more funky looking and resembles something of Batman's utility belt. Thankfully the Advanced Controller has a bigger directional pad than the Game Boy like one, found on the official gamepad. The analogue stick has a concave surface which is smooth and has no ridges like the official gamepad. Thankfully the Z button has been ergonomically angled which is far better than the official gamepad which wasn't comfortable at all and if you look at most games the Z button has been kept for minor, infrequent functions because the Nintendo gamepad's Z button is very poor. The L & R triggers, A and B buttons are virtually identical to the ones found on the official gamepad. The C-stick has a concave surface instead of a convex one like the official gamepad and the X and Y buttons are more angular but whilst they might look uncomfortable this didn't prove to be the case at all. One extra feature the Advanced Controller has is the ability to turn off the force feedback via a switch that's placed above the start button. This is a nice feature especially if you have young children who don't like the force feedback.

Of course what we really want to know is how it performs. Let's have a look at how the Advanced Controller gets on in some of the top GameCube games.

Luigi's Mansion
The Advanced Controller performed flawlessly here. The force feedback was very good and there were no problems reaching the buttons or any other difficulties.

Super Monkey Ball
Super Monkey Ball is a game that requires precise analogue stick control. However after months of playing with the official gamepad I found the Advanced Controller's analogue stick to be a little over sensitive. After a couple of hours play, the situation improved as I began to adjust to the extra sensitivity but nevertheless it initially came as quite a shock.

Rogue Leader
Like in Super Monkey Ball it becomes obvious that the analogue stick is more sensitive. With Rogue Leader though this is not so much of a problem. In every other aspect the Advanced Controller was fine.

Driven
One of the few racers on the Cube at the moment but I chose it to test the L & R triggers. They performed equally as well as those found on the official pad.

Conclusion
For a whole £10 less the Advanced Controller is really a good deal. The only thing I can say against the gamepad is that the increased sensitivity of the analogue stick can make it awkward for Super Monkey Ball sessions but otherwise there were no problems at all and this is definitely recommended as a second, third or fourth gamepad.

Overall Score 8.1/10