Man, what happened to the joystick? One minute, it’s the only way to play (or at least fly), the next, they’re gathering dust up the back of your local games store, under the shelf where they keep LCD screen cleaners and novelty disc trays. Where’d it all go wrong? A cute piece on MSN UK asks that very question, taking the view that, like Sam Neil argues in Jurassic Park, the joystick never really went away. It just evolved, in this case not into birds, but into the thumbsticks featuring across all of today’s consoles. Which is a nice thought, but when I look at my dear old friend pictured above, and then at a control pad, it’s just not the same. Excuse me….*sniff* Whatever happened to the joystick [MSN, via Slashdot]