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The 5200's controllers have long been its biggest
weakness. Many people felt that the 5200 had the worst controller of any
system in existence so far! Although the sticks cause control problems due
to that floppy dead-fish, non-centering joystick, I must admit that few games
are truly ruined by it. On the other side of the coin, the 5200 offered 2
different firing buttons, which was a big deal when you were used to the
2600's single button stick, which rendered multi-button ports like 2600
Defender into a completely different game. Also, the 5200 had a numerical
keypad with 12 buttons available. Although few games use these during gameplay,
there are a few that do, such as the 5200 Defender game, and especially 5200
Star Raiders. Also, if you compare the controllers from the 2600,
Colecovision and Intellivision with the 5200 -- frankly, they all have their
own problems. But the biggest problem with the 5200 controllers
is that they break and wear out quickly, and finding replacements is rare and
expensive.
