![]() No rudder-pedals are included with the package, but the joystick can be twisted left or right to cover this feature. The X52 lacks force-feedback of any sort, but does do a good job centering itself and remaining neutral at rest. The pinky-trigger and hand base are both vertically adjustable, allowing a digital ace with even the smallest hands to access both triggers as well as the joystick's face buttons. Quite a lot of buttons! Particularly cool features include the main trigger, which has two points of contact so that in a flight-sim a little pull on the trigger will start firing the machine guns, and a full pull of the trigger will start up the cannons as well. Sporting the full compliment of two 8-way hat-switches, four weapons buttons, a 3-way mode selector switch, 3 up/down toggles, a dual-action index trigger and a pinky-trigger. The visual effect is definitely very attractive and hot. The rest of the stick and throttle bodies are made from very nice looking brushed aluminum and rubberized black plastic. A blue glow more or less radiates around both the throttle and stick pieces from all the LEDs, and the throttle unit has a built in LCD (sexy!) that also glows blue. From the moment we powered it on we couldn't help but itch to do something with it, despite the fact we had to do a little scrounging to dig up copies of IL-2 Sturmovik and MechWarrior 4: Mercenaries for testing. The Saitek X52 Flight Control System is the newest addition to the company's lineup, and sports both a rather sexy look as well as some useful and innovative new features. You can use the suction cups with the stick, but they won't make it any bigger. Lack of competition hasn't spoiled the company either, as the subject of this review makes clear. ![]() The company that made its name in the flight-stick business has held firm throughout the drought of new flight games and has been quietly refining their product line. Though PC aviators will have to make an operating system jump to get back into the action, other developers will likely follow the MS lead and start releasing flight games once again.Īll that said, you've got to hand it to Saitek for holding out through thick and thin. The frame rate was a little choppy, and at one point there was a serious clipping error that got a snicker from the crowd, but otherwise the game looked beautiful. At CES in earlier this month, Bill Gates premiered some early footage of Microsoft's Flight Simulator for Windows Vista. It's been a rough couple of years, but it appears as though there may be an end in sight. The flight simulation genre started to slow down rather seriously around the millennium switch, and the last major releases (Flight Simulator 2004 and IL-2 Sturmovik) both date back to 2003. Saitek doesn't mind if you want to touch their stick.
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