Until we can play games with just our minds (and that day is much closer than most people would like to accept), the controller will play an important role in our gaming lives. It’s how we access and interact with our pixilated second life. If we’re going to spend our waking lives glued to a television screen, the controller needs to be comfortable and functional while not making you look like you’re mentally handicapped when trying to use it. Despite being incredibly obvious, it’s a simple lesson we’ve clearly yet to learn.

7) Intellivision Keypad (Mattel, 1979)

Despite what those Hollywood-types want you to believe, the eighties wasn’t one big Breakfast Club. It was a decade of terrible decisions, from presidencies to controller design. Case in point, the Intellivision controller:

No, that’s not a crappy car phone and yes, they really tried to program games to use as many buttons on the keypad as possible. Games also came with plastic overlays that labeled which buttons did what, which, if you weren’t a sensible adult, you were practically predestined to lose within forty-eight hours. We can only assume playing Donkey Kong with twelve buttons was supposed to be an in-depth, life changing experience, like seeing the face of God. Unfortunately, this was the Intellivision, so the closest thing to seeing the face of God was Magic Carousel.

Footage courtesey of Lucifer.

More buttons does not automatically make for a better game. If it did, Typing Tutor would be bundled with every system ever. Despite its tendency to injure the user’s hands and generally not work, the keypad controller had a brief, horrific legacy, which would help explain the next entry.

6) The Atari Jaguar (Atari, 1993)

The keypad craze had ended with the Video Game Crash in 1984. Or so you thought.

After rising out of the rubble of their own shit storm, Atari decided the best way to break back into the mainstream and compete in the market again was to revive one of the worst ideas of their day (and that’s really saying quite a lot, all things considered) and make it unnecessarily large. By giving the controller more buttons than the average pimp’s suit and even bigger plastic overlays, Atari hoped to blow their competition out of the water with the unparalleled power of “not at all being able to hold and use your controller at the same time.”

“Eight buttons? What are you, gay?”

5) The Dream Machine (Australian Simulation Control Systems, Unreleased)

Let’s face it: you’re never truly playing Gran Turismo unless you’re playing it while in some kind of interactive Australian sex swing.

The Dream Machine: For the family that has everything, except a well furnished room.

The idea behind this Bradbury-esque nightmare is that by constantly thrashing about you’ll lose weight, because nothing says physical fitness like a big fucking chair attached to fake handlebars. The Dream Machine allows you to rotate, swivel and crotch thrust your way to victory, all the while making you look like a complete asshole to your friends who couldn’t shell out $1,700 for a magic game chair. When you feel like you can only be satisfied playing a video game when it costs you more than a used car, you really do have a problem.

4) Mindwire (Mindwire, 2007)

The people behind the Mindwire claim that the device allows you to “feel the game.” This may lead you to believe that those long nights of Tomb Raider just got more interesting, but all those creepy sex fantasies are lost once you learn the Mindwire is just supposed to shock you while you play. At least, we hope those fantasies are lost.

Rather than try to claim any bogus health benefits of mildly irritating electric shock, the Mindwire just wants to put you in the game by simulation the damage your character receieves, a noble concept when you consider that real-world street fighting is an excellent way to get arrested. How gentle pulses equate a Psycho Crusher is beyond me, but the Mindwire does win credibility points for being the only controller on this list you shouldn’t use if you have a heart condition. Take that, keypads!

3) Sega Saturn 3D (Sega, 1996)

Sega has always tried to be about practical design, so it’s no surprise that this Saturn controller was as much about gameplay as it was functioning as a dinner plate.

The 3D combines the best of both worlds, offering both an awkward round shape with questionable rectangular handles. They appear to have ditched the classic keypad in favor of impractical spacing. But on the upside, when you throw it out of frustration, there’s a good chance it will concuss whoever is unlucky enough wander into its path.

2) Trance Vibrator (Sega, 2003)

In an effort to prove that design should be an afterthought, Sega released the Trance Vibrator, a unique peripheral for the rail shooter Rez. The Trance was intended to react to the game's music, being held in hand or pocket while you played the game. What they ended making was the first nerd-specific sex toy.

Hello, ladies.

There’s no other reason for this to exist; it doesn’t help play the game in any way and all it does is vibrate. You may call me a pervert, but damn it people, Wikipedia doesn’t lie.

What the hell is wrong with Japan?

1) Steel Battalion Dashboard (Capcom, 2002)

Words can’t properly prepare you for what you’re about to see, so you might as well just jump in. Stare at this image for the next two minutes or so and try to take it all in:

If you’re reading this, I assume you didn’t pass out from overwhelming fear. That contraption is how you operate Steel Battalion, perhaps the world’s most ridiculously accurate giant robot pilot simulator. Capcom, no longer content with having their robots shoot little yellow bullets and ride a dog motorcycle, decided to throw caution to the wind and slap over forty buttons between two joysticks. Do they make a plastic overlay for this? I think they should.

The dashboard paid off in the end. The bundle cost around $200 at the time of its release and quickly sold-out, playing directly to our habit of buying things we could never possibly hope to master. Despite needing a degree in engineering to fully operate, the control mechanism itself still sells for $100 on eBay. If you’re looking for something to keep you off of drugs and out of a meaningful relationship for several years, pick one of these up.

Post a Comment

User Comments (28)