Posted by Torgo on August 10, 1999 at 19:22:35:
My kidsball just arrived, and the bottom line is I
probably will not be using it in my cabinet. It works
fine with some games, but others (like centipede) feel
really weird and hard to control. Changing the
sensitivity doesn't seem to help much.
here is a list of games I've tried with it so far:
Marble Madness--Feels really good
Centipede (rev2)--unplayable (too jumpy)
Centipede (rev3)--playable, but you can't make fine movements
Millipede--just a little better than centipede.
Missile command--Hard but almost passable
Arcanoid--Dont bother (yes I know its a spinner game anyway)
Disks of Tron--Works pretty good but button placement makes it hard to fire and aim at the same time
Crystal castles--Works pretty good but does not quite have the acceleration I remember in the original
Tempest--Definately passable
The ball is plenty big but really
lightweight and "coasts" barely adequately.
It would, however, be extremely easy to
mount as the board inside and bottom plastic plate
are very simplistic. And the contacts for the
buttons are nice and big and away from other contacts,
for easy soldering.
I think I'll bite the bullet and buy a real Happs
trackball, but for someone on a budget this thing could
be adequate.
I give it a c+ or maybe a b-