A device used to control a character in a videogame. Distinguished from the more generic game controller tag by the presence of an obvious stick, e.g. a fightstick, a flightstick, a hand-stick as found on most arcade videogames, or analog thumbsticks as found on the controllers for home consoles such as Nintendo 64, Playstation 2/Playstation 3 or Xbox 360.
A game controller for home console, without sticks as described above, would be a gamepad.
Also used to control actual vehicles such as aircraft, but also occasionally used in pairs for armored land vehicles.
