The common joystick has fallen out of fashion over the past few years but with the resurgence of space sims some gamers might be out looking to purchase one.  The mainstays are quite expensive but also high quality and perfect for sim games which are very unforgiving to sloppy stick handling.  Speedlink is offering the Phantom Hawk which is available for under $100 and certainly has an interesting look.  The joystick has some weight to it and there are suction cups underneath the body to keep it in place during hectic dogfights and there are enough buttons and both an 8-way hat and 4-way d-pad so you should be able to map most of your needed commands to the joystick.  If you play games which require exacting accuracy then eTeknix found that the dead zone and stiffness interfered with their accuracy but did enjoy playing Microsoft's Flight Sim with it.  Check out the full review to see what you think.

"It doesn’t take long to realise that if you want to get to grips with a realistic flight stick, you need to spend a fair amount of money. This is why I’ve chosen to put a budget friendly model through its paces, the Speedlink Phantom Hawk. It’s relatively cheap, with prices around £25 from most retailers, so I’m not expecting industry leading performance here. I am however eager to find out just how good it really is, despite its low price tag."

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