Gravis Xterminator Gamepad
By Robert Irwin
Lets get this out
of the way - this gamepad was bought for one reason - M$'s cool arcade flight-sim,
Crimson Skies. Being a first-person shooter addict, I would not normally recommend
a gamepad to anyone, finding them generally a cumbersome and unresponsive way
of doing things compared to a mouse. I found that mouse control in Crimson Skies
to be near unworkable however, and spotting one of these things second hand
in a junk shop, snapped it up.
So on to what
you get on this gamepad, brazenly ripped from Gravis' website as it seems accurate
enough:
Xterminator Digital
GamePad Features
Digital
Directional Pad (D-Pad). The standard 8-direction
digital D-pad (the larger of the two directional pads) is ideal for quick directional
changes in arcade and sports games.
Proportional
D-pad. The proportional D-pad allows smooth directional movement for games
that require more accurate directional control (the kind of control usually
available only with a joystick). Use it for realistic throttle/brake in a driving
simulation, fine-tuned steering—even use it to fly your favorite flight simulation!
Digital Buttons.
The six main buttons on the pad’s face and the lower triggers (the ones
you operate with your middle fingers) offer quick, standard digital response.
Start &
Select. In games that support these functions, these buttons do the obvious;
otherwise, you can use the software to assign keyboard commands to them.
Proportional
Flippers. The two large, index finger-activated flippers at the top
of the pad are proportional. Games may support these proportional flippers in
a number of ways. For instance, in a flight or driving simulation, the flippers
are typically used for proportional rudder or throttle control. The flippers
can also be assigned to send keystroke commands to games that do not support
additional axis-type controls.
HotSet Switch
Button. Use the Hotset switch to switch temporarily to a second Gameset.
This allows the buttons to perform two separate sets of button functions. (If
you prefer, you can use Gravis Xperience to assign a different function to the
HotSet switch button, and you can set any button on the game pad to function
as the HotSet switch.)
Proportional
Throttle Slider. The throttle slider provides smooth, proportional throttle
control for games that support it.
Point-of-View
Switch. The 8-way point-of-view switch is a third directional control, typically
used to change cockpit views in flying or driving games. In other games, it
may be used to twist the torso of a game character or as an additional control
for strafing motions.
Setting
it up
Unlike
some modern gamepads I've spotted, this one still uses a midi port rather than
a USB slot. The part that plugs into the midi has a pass-through affair on it
so you can chain other devices on there, but to be honest it sticks out quite
far and I would be very concerned about attaching another device on there, given
the weight it would put on the back of your soundcard.
Windows
wasn't able to see the Gamepad plug-and-play style until the Gravis software
was installed on the machine. Below is a pic of the Windows Gaming Devices Control
Panel once it is installed. Here you see it with both the D pads pressed down:
Most
of the time this will be enough to let you run games. Crimson skies seemed happy
enough with the default settings, but you may want to play around with things
a bit. To do this you need to go into the Gravis Xperience software.
Gravis
Xperience
The
designers of this Control Panel have obviously subscribed to the Kai's Power
Tools school of interface design. You get a large oval control panel on your
screen with all kinds of features which can be enabled by pressing odd buttons.
Have a look:
It
takes a bit of getting used to, but after 10 minutes of playing round with the
settings I was fairly comfortable with it. The most important and frequently
used part I found is shown above, which allows you to decide whether the gamepad
uses the proportional or D (on/off) pad, the axis it uses and the sensitivity.
You can set the proportional pad up to emulate a joystick or even a mouse if
the game doesn't seem to like talking to what it rightly thinks is a gamepad.
Settings can be saved so you can load a particular set for a game, although
I couldn't find any really quick way of switching between multiple sets other
than the Hotset function.
In
use
First
the bad news. I couldn't find any games that wanted to work with the Digital
D-pad (s opposed to the P pad), having tried all sorts of settings. The D pad
is the one with only on/off settings, which should be great for games that need
fast reactions but little precision. It all seems to be set up okay, and it
detects fine in the normal windows control panel. Maybe I just chose the wrong
games to try it on, being Metal Gear Solid and Mortal Kombat 4. Both these games
worked fine however with the proprtional pad, although proportional is slightly
too slow IMO for a beat'em'up. Also the D-Pad is not very comfortably postioned,
being set too far over to the right for my left thumb to easily reach. Priority
in the design has obviously been given to the P pad, which sits on the 'sweet'
spot. In short this is not a good pad if you want to play this type of game.
The
P (proportional) pad is a different matter however. I found the gamepad to be
very comfortable in my mid-size hands using this controller, more so than the
standard old-style Playstation pad I used in the past. In Crimson Skies it was
very smooth, detecting subtle changes very well while reacting quickly to fast
movements. The rudder controls on the top are also useful for strafe type movements,
again registered proprtionally. It took a while to ge the feel to the speed
contorl above the 6 buttons on the right as it is a bit high up, but with some
patience it bcame second nature. The Point of View Switch is effectively a third
D pad, allowing you to, for example, look around from within the cockpit in
a flight-sim without changing the direction the plane is facing. the buttons
all seem to map correctly to DirectX button settings, so games set up properly
for DirectInput should be happy.
I
say should because results vay a bit. Crimson Skies seems perfectly happy.
Metal Gear Solid was fine with the P pad too. Unreal Tournament just seemed
to want to slowly arc round in a downwards spiral whatever settings I used,
even unplugging my USB mouse in case that was interefering..Battlezone 2 seemed
very happy with it, including the accelerator control. I tried GP500 to see
how a racing game did, and while I could set it up as a 'Gamepad' fine in the
Options screen, it would only work properly once the in-game menu was told it
was a joystick.
So
in conclusion
A
very nice gamepad to use once you have gone through the sometimes difficult
procedure of setting it up. I have not tried other gamepads on a PC before so
cannot honestly tell whether the difficulty there is in configuration is specific
to this controller or a general gamepad problem. This is hardly as big a drawback
as you might think - games that are more suitable for gamepads seem to be easier
to set up with it, so I suspect a lot of the blame for compatability problems
I have seen lies with poor support within the games. It is very comfortable
to use and features such as the throttle control and the proportional rudder
and very nice to have. Most importantly, it doesn't cost a mint (£20 in
most High Street rip-off stores) and Crimson Skies runs great.
