@mrbouncyballs you might be having the common problem of using an 8-way joystick on a 4-way game. Take a look at your joystick when you are hitting the four cardinal directions. Are you also accidentally hitting two directions at once (effectively a diagonal?). For example, if you push up, it should only actuate the up switch. Does it also sometimes actuate a left or right at the same time? If so, it will be hard to play 4-way games like Dig Dug and Mr. Do because every time you are inadvertently hitting a diagonal (two switches at once) the game does not know what to do. It is impossible for the game to know your intentions, so it often sticks, or misses a turn.
Your joystick, depending on what it is, may have an adjustment, or allow you to flip the actuator around making it harder to hit the diagonals. The actual arcade games use restrictor plates making it impossible to hit a diagonal. That works great on a single game, but isn't very flexible for us who want to play Pac Man (4-way) and then play Gauntlet (8-way). Programmable joystick can help, or a switching restrictor plate, or a separate joystick for each type. The compromise I came to on my system which isn't perfect is setting up my joysticks such that they are 8-way, but that it is hard to get them perfectly in the corner to trigger two switches.
