Joytech Advanced Controller for XBOX
http://www.joytech.net
Price £19.99

So you've got your XBOX and you're looking for some extra gamepads so you can enjoy your game with upto 3 friends. So what do you do? Do you splash the cash on some extra official gamepads or do you look at what third party gamepads are on offer? Should you want to go the more inexpensive root, and let's face it most of us do, then you'll have to be careful as the choice ranges from very good to very poor. One of the main third party developers of console hardware is Joytech and today we're going to look at their Advanced Controller for the XBOX.

The Advanced Controller, to be fair, is perhaps not the most beautiful of the third party XBOX gamepads. Joytech have definitely put the emphasis on performance rather than looks. The gamepad is less curvaceous than the official gamepad but looks can be deceptive and I found the Advanced Controller comfortable to hold. As you hold the Advanced Controller you'll notice it doesn't force your hands out towards the base of the gamepad like the official one.

The button layout is basically the same as the official offering. There are two exceptions though. The start and back buttons are closer together and are triangular in shape as well as being slightly larger. This makes them easier to press without looking. The A,B,X,Y buttons are also slightly different. Rather than being domed, like on the official gamepad, they are uniformly raised. I found this makes them easier to press quickly and that it solved my problem of my thumb continually falling in between the buttons. It would have been nice to see them spaced out more traditionally like on the Controller S though. One improvement that has been made is the directional pad. The official gamepad has what must be described as an awkward directional pad and thankfully Joytech have gone for a more conventional design.

To look at the performance of the Advanced Controller we put it through it's paces with some of the top XBOX titles:

Halo
General performance was very good. The buttons were all within easy reach. The one point I did pickup on though, was that the thumbsticks required more force to press down than the ones found on the official gamepad but otherwise everything was fine.

RalliSport Challenge
Control with the analogue sticks was superb. Using the L & R triggers to accelerate and brake was good, although they didn't feel as good as the ones found on the official gamepad.

Dead or Alive 3
The directional pad on the official pad is not very good in truth and the tried and trusted design that Joytech have adopted is far better in a game such as this. If this is your game then this is definitely one situation when the official pad is not your best choice.

Oddworld Munch's Oddysee
No problems at all here. Oddworld makes a general use of the gamepad and the performance and comfort was very good.

You may have noticed that we haven't mentioned force feedback. In all honesty the force feedback was very good and was definitely not far off from the excellent force feedback in the official gamepad.

Conclusion
To sum up then what we have here is a very likeable third party gamepad with a better directional pad and only slightly poorer L & R triggers. There were no errors, crashes etc. during our testing and the gamepad proved itself to be the best third party XBOX gamepad we have used upto yet.

Overall Score 8.5/10