Hyperkin Trooper 2 Premium USB Game Controller for PC, Mac, Linux

This joystick brings back so many childhood memories! Works perfectly with my retro gaming setup and feels just like the original. The build quality is solid and responsive. Easy to plug in and start playing right away. Great for classic arcade games and brings that authentic vintage feel. Really well made and exactly what I was looking for.

good product with decent placement of buttons.

This joystick is pure nostalgia! I bought it specifically for playing classic arcade and Atari-era games on my computer, and it has been an absolute joy to use. It really captures the feel of those old-school arcade cabinets. Setup was as simple as it get, I just plugged it into a USB port, and it was ready to go. My PC recognized it instantly, making it easy to configure in my emulation software. The joystick itself feels solid and has that classic, clicky response you want for retro games. The buttons are well-placed and responsive. It feels much more authentic to play these old favorites with a proper joystick instead of a modern gamepad or a keyboard. The long 10-foot cord is also a huge plus, giving me plenty of room to sit back and play comfortably. If you're a fan of retro gaming and want an affordable, plug-and-play joystick that brings back that classic feel, you can't go wrong with the Trooper 2. Highly recommended

This is a great joystick. As long as you don’t vigorously move the joystick, it won’t break. I use it with my openemu emulator on my Mac mini, and works great. Their are extra buttons on this joystick so your able to map them to other game functions or console functions. I recommend it, but like I say, moving the joystick will probably break off if rapidly and vigorously move it back and forth, I’m sure that would happen to an original atari 2600 joystick too. Those pictures others put that show the joystick broke off was probably cause of what I mentioned, cause mine still works and have had it for quite some time. Like a year.

Did not work on PC, no online game platform I've tried recognizes the controller. It seems I'm not the only one - there are several YouTube video reviews that confirm this.

I bought this to pair with The Spectrum and it works perfectly. The device is built like a tank and is a great addition to the Spectrum

TL;DR: I managed to get this joystick to work for my needs, but it has a physical design flaw and so Your Mileage May Vary. Out of the box, this joystick feels sold and well-made. The base has beveled corners which make it easier to hold in one's hand than the old Atari 2600 joysticks on which the physical design of this stick is based. The addition of more buttons than the Atari 2600 classic is also welcome. There’s a significant physical flaw with these sticks, which I’ve now experienced with both of the units I’ve purchased. The stick’s method of actuating the button switches inside the base is basic leverage, with a plastic tab pressing down on one or two of the switches depending on the direction you’ve pulled or pushed the stick as you operate it. There’s four tabs, one each for up/right/down/left. The plastic component with these tabs is made of a soft, weak plastic material that will wear out, eventually causing the tabs to crack and even break completely off, which will render the stick incapable of activating the corresponding internal switch. You’ll know you’re in trouble when you start to hear the rattling of the tiny piece of plastic that’s broken lose inside the base of the stick. I’ve typically experienced this problem within about four weeks of using a new stick, and although I play a great deal, I’m not thrashing the heck out of the stick when I do. The plastic is just weak and not really up to the challenge of lasting long enough. I may try to 3D print an equivalent part from tougher plastic – not harder so much as less prone to cracking from fatigue. Though I bet making the part from metal or even hardwood would be the best long-term solution. Don’t even bother trying to get support from Hyperkin. In particular, you will find no driver software for this stick at the Hyperkin website, nor will you find any documentation, nor is there even a users forum to which one might direct questions about setting up and using the stick. There is a support form, into which you can type your request, and the response from Hyperkin was pretty quick in my case. However, the response was largely unhelpful, providing no specific information to help me solve my problem of configuration on my computer. If you do buy this joystick in order to use it with a Mac, I can recommend the USB Overdrive shareware driver, which made it possible for me to use this joystick for its intended purpose. I also tried using the Joystick Mapper driver, available on the Mac App Store, but that software did not help me. As stated before, YMMV. Summary: Hyperkin built an inexpensive and rather fragile joystick which they then fail to support in any useful way.

I didn't compare with an actual Atari 2600, but the stick and buttons feel fine. The extra buttons are very useful when playing on RetroPie. Select/Start map to game select/reset. And if you set Select as the hotkey, then you get Select + B/Start/LB/RB to reset game/exit game/load state/save state. In Batocera you can probably get something similar with the correct mappings.

This is certainly a well made product but I found it too stiff to be really effective playing the retro games I wanted it for so decided to return it. Love the ‘Atari’ design but perhaps nostalgia isn’t always what you remember. ;-)

Excelente

Perfeito

Super expensive and does not work with normal PCs on Windows 11, even though the USB port fits.

I love the one made for the Atari 2600 and 7800. This one here works perfectly well on my macOS M4 with Steam and C64 emulator. It is not only confortable, but I am able to use 2 button (fire and trigger) at once while holding the stick. So it is perfect for simple platformer where 1 button is jump and the other is fire. A positive also is that the joystick can be use left and right handed. It is juste the perfect tension, perfect feel, the buttons are clicky. It is so confortable that for a second I was thinking about using it for FPS. lol I am tempted to buy another one just because they feel so good in hand. Hyperkin, you make the best classic joysticks (from a guy who have 40 controllers and joysticks). PS : It does not work on C64mini, but its probably just because that stupid mini computer has no button remapping.