Wingman Warrior

The Wingman Warrior premiered with a testimonial from John Romero: "When I created Doom I never imagined there'd be such a killer way to play it. Wingman Warrior is it."

And yet, shortly thereafter, the Wingman Warrior was abandoned, its drivers never updated to NT-based operating systems like Windows 2000 or XP. (It still works using the gameport as a 3-axis flight stick, but the spinner isn't functional this way.) The Warrior did one thing well, but unfortunately, that one thing was only broadly useful for a short period of time.

Wingman Warrior
Type	Joystick
Brand	Logitech
Launch	1996
Connectivity
Compatibility	PC

Manufacturer's Description

• 4-way hat and multiple buttons eliminate most keyboard commands
• Two-handed digital control lets you move around in 3-D games like you're actually there
• Weighted steel base makes sure this baby stays put when you're busy dodging incoming explosive projectiles
• Analog and digital interfaces provide digital serial control in supported DOS games and Windows 95
• SpinControl™ Technology gives you precise 360-degree spin control for faster turning. Just think where you want to be, and you're there

Description

The Wingman Warrior combines two controllers: a 3-axis flight stick with throttle, 4 buttons, and a POV hat, plus a spinner controller. The intended usage was for games like Doom that had no 3d targeting, just 2d - with the spinner you could precisely aim horizontally. However, with Quake and other full-3d shooters hitting the market, suddenly the ability to aim both horizontally and vertically became important, and mouselook/WASD claimed the day.

Second-hand Wingman Warriors are sought out by emulation users, as the Wingman Warrior is (if you can get it working) one of the easiest ways to get a spinner controller to play games like Tempest, Arkanoid, and Tron. Drivers are available for Windows 95, 98, and ME, and also for Linux. In DOS, a switch on the rear of the device sets whether the hat switch or throttle dial is active; it cannot support both at once in DOS.

Technical specs

• 4-button analog flight stick plus POV hat, with trim dials.
• Throttle dial.
• Spinner controller.
• Dual connectivity: DE-9 RS232C serial for full functionality, or DA-15 joystick port for all controls except the spinner.

Gallery

• 
• 
• 

Advertisements

• 
• 

Reviews

This article needs Contemporary Reviews. This notice can be removed if the article already has this. Review Template:{{Review|review=|author=|pub=|issue=|score=}}

Credits

The description of this controller was provided by Brad Jones (@kazrak on Twitter)