Pelican Arcade stick...any good?

I know, I know...this is a tight ass thing for me to do...but I really don't have much money to burn. I saw the Pelican Arcade Stick, fighter thingy at my local Babbages, and gasped at it's price. Only $19.99! But then I thought...what was that saying..."You get what you pay for." So...does anyone know if that saying is true for this stick...or if it's not all that bad?

Thanks.

 

I briefly tried the Pelican "Arcade" stick yesterday.... if I recall, it's a remake of the Dreamcast "Top Max" stick (I think).

Here's my impression of the stick after playing it a bit (thus, I did not spend more than 5 minutes on the thing)

Overall Impression: The Pelican Stick Sucks

Visual-Design: I'm just gonna comment on one aspect that bugged the hell out of me. I guess because this was based on a DC stick trying to immitate a DC look, there's a triangle start button on the bottom of the base of the stick. What's wrong with this? Put the words "Start Button" and "Palm Rest" together and you probably get a good idea. Literal Translation: Don't be surprised if people hit start on accident with their palm.

Control--Stick: The stick, though made of a soft sort of plastic, seems to be designed with "typical" Americans in mind... Too much imo. In general, the area of movement is rather large on this stick, it's a semi-tall stick, but with an unnatural shape. Let's assume the shape doesn't matter... Well, then how did it control? I had more trouble getting precise direction taps and the stick back to neutral between (required for VF and generally in 3d fighters) inputs than any other stick I've used.
Take it or leave it, but my view of the stick is that it's VERY INADEQUATE for a game like VF. Heck, it would probably be inadequate for doing Dragon Punch motions on your typical fighter.

Control--Buttons: My impression of the buttons is that they are the worst part about the stick. The buttons had a lag time before they would pop out of the button registration zone for me. Call it a store copy, or maybe the natural setting of the buttons.... but the buttons seemed like they "naturally" refused to get back up immediately so rapid button pressing would practically require the turbo feature on the stick if the stick I used represented the product. While the buttons look like they weren't meant for fighting games... well.... they really weren't meant for fighting games as far as I could tell.

Translation: THIS STICK SUCKS, at least according to Chanchai's Impressions.

-Chanchai