You know, games aren’t the only things that are lost in the Nintendo Wasteland. Think I’m joking? No dice. There are tons of game controllers that went by the wayside, too, and not just because the systems they belonged to went out of style. No, I’m talking about controllers that wasted away before their time. The ones that were simply too rad to last. Let’s take a look, shall we?
U-Force: The U-Force was an attempt to make a motion-based controller for the Nintendo Entertainment System. Literally decades ahead of its time, its main problem was that it kind of… sucked. The motion control literally was not responsive in any way possible, and since most NES games were not designed to take advantage of motion control, was nearly completely useless.
Super Scope 6: This light gun was cool as all get out, and had some good software, but aside from Battle Clash, Yoshi’s Safari, and the pack-in game, there wasn’t a whole lot of software that took advantage of the actual peripheral and all. It took a lot of batteries and was pretty bulky, but it was the coolest-looking gun peripheral of all time.
NES Max: This controller was way ahead of its time. Not a failure, but the NES Max (pronounced “Ness Max”) also presented some ideas that we as a gaming public were not quite ready for. The “cyclone” pad was a forerunner to the analog thumbstick and the 3DS’ slide pad, but without actual analog control, mattered a bit less. The four face buttons were also seemingly vital, although since two of them were merely turbo copies of the other two, this was again less vital than it might have been. However, the controller also sported wings, the first one to do so out of any two-handed controllers.
Virtual Boy Controller: The Virtual Boy controller is really not the part of the system that we usually think of, is it? I mean, it’s technically a “portable” game system, and we usually don’t think of controllers when we are thinking of handhelds — after all, the system itself IS the controller, in most cases. But the Virtual Boy controller was actually heavily inspired by the last controller on this list, and if you hold it tight without really looking at it, it kind of feels like the GameCube controller, too.
Superpad 64: In my mind, this is the only N64 controller that made sense, as it seems as thought it was meant to be held by two hands. This was as opposed to the regular controller, which seemed as though only the “Motie” aliens from The Gripping Hand were intended to use it. This one put the analog stick on the left side, and was actually closer to the Saturn controller than anything else, what with the six buttons on the right side.
Power Glove: The most incredible forgotten controller ever. It doesn’t matter that flicking your finger to press the A Button is somewhat overtaxing as opposed to randomly pressing it. You looked like such a badass playing a game with this that it didn’t matter if Luigi fell off the edge of the first bottomless pit or not. Ever see The Wizard? Yeah, that’s what I thought. Or maybe you didn’t, since it’s an old movie and all. Check out Nester64x’s take if you don’t believe me.
I always thought the 2 d-pads made the VBoy confusing.
Now that I look at it, I see a d-pad, and “C-buttons’.
I had a Very comfortable N64 controller. It was like a normal one, just thicker (alternatively I had a very uncomfortable controller, with crusty-movable handles).
That Super64 pad just looked gross, to me, so I never bought one.
I remember bits and pieces of the Super Scope’s commercial.
I wanted one so bad.
Oh man, I thought that Super64 pad was a messed-up GameCube pad at first glance. Looks awfully uncomfortable to hold, too.
I had a Superpad 64, and it was quite uncomfortable to hold.
And here I was thinking someone just held it over a fireplace for that particular picture.