I tried a demo of Kaboom!, because it's one of the greatest games of all time.  Not so much without the Atari 2600 paddle, though.  Then I remembered, the Mad Catz Arcade Gamestick has a spinner on it.  Does anybody have one of these controllers still and have they tried it on the 2600 Paddle-controlled games?  If so, what's the verdict?

Yes, that's it exactly. Please let me know how it works out.  If it's an authentic Kaboom! experience I know what my next hardware purchase is going to be after the RB3 keyboards!

Yeah, I've always wondered about that product, too. I've looked up some stuff on it, and the reviews I saw of it were pretty lukewarm. I didn't delve too deep, though, looking up only a handful of not-very-well-known sources. Plus it seems like the kind of item I'd buy, even if I knew it was only of average quality; sometimes I just get a bee in my bonnet with such things.

Garbage. The only thing that controller is good for is taking apart and salvaging the PCB for a custom joystick.

One thing I've been trying to keep in mind is that all the reviews predate Game Room.  There weren't many 2600 games available on XBOX 360 at the time and the spinner was pretty unnecessary.  I'd just really like to hear some first-hand experience from playing either arkanoid/breakout or Kaboom, where the spinner really would make a difference.

I didn't have much time to play before work this morning but I was able to play a few minutes of  Kaboom! and my experience was immediately very poor. 

The spinner itself is very imprecise as it would constantly jerk to the left or right and cause me to miss. There were even occasions when I would be moving left and it would jerk back to the right and vice versa. In the end I actually found myself performing better using the d-pad on the regular 360 controller (which isn't of very high quality either.)

As it is relatively old, I will try cleaning it when I get home and attempt to play some more but it doesn't look good unfortunately. 

Poop.  :(