The Edge: We Take A Look At The Latest Atari VCS Classic Joystick

There are many gaming controllers over the years that can inspire nostalgia for many, but only one can inspire memories of a console that launched the gaming industry. That is the original Atari VCS, later know as Atari 2600 CX40 Joystick. With the launch of Atari's latest console now scheduled for December of this year, The Atari VCS team recently announced some additional information and revealed the latest Classic Joystick as well as the VCS Modern Controller updates through their Medium page. Atari has partnered with PowerA to develop the Atari VCS peripherals, and the latest images of both the Classic Joystick and VCS Modern Controller look amazing.

The team has been able to keep the Classic Atari 2600 CX40 joystick look, but give it a great updated look with additional modernized features for current gaming. For gamer's who prefer a modern style controller, Atari and PowerA have been designing a modern controller that looks to be on track to deliver a great gaming experience for modern game play on the Atari VCS console.

Along with the iconic red "Fire" button on the classic joystick, the enhancements made by the design team include an added red "Trigger Fire" button on the corner of the controller body, with the same look and feel as a front bumper button on a modern gaming controller. To make things even better, all buttons, trigger, and inputs on the new Classic Joystick are re-mappable and programmable by the user. This feature will provide an even better gaming experience as gamer's will be able to create a better personal style to game play. As developers learn how the mapping is controlled, they will be able to produce games that give a very unique game play with the trusted classic joystick. Another modern feature added to the Classic Joystick is the addition of a rumble feature. According to the Atari VCS team, this feature is one of the coolest features that they announced, and we at Atari Edge would have to agree. It will be interesting to play the most iconic Atari classic games with the feel of rumbling while blasting asteroids, or driving tanks, etc. There will also be a ring of LED lights that will illuminate as the joystick is controlled, in the direction that the player will push the joystick in, which will also add to a unique gaming experience.

One of our favorite new features for the updated Classic Joystick is the rotating paddle function in the joystick, which will allow gamer's to play games like Pong that for years relied heavily on the separate Atari Paddle Controllers. Instead now gamer's can play paddle type games by rotating the stick between their thumb and fingers on the newly designed Classic Joystick.

A classic game that we would like to play with the added features of the updated Classic Joystick, especially the rumble feature is River Raid. This would also be our pick for a shooter to get updated for the Atari VCS. An updated and released River Raid could be an amazing Shmup experience for Atari's latest console.