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9. PokéWalker – Nintendo DS – 2010
The Pokémon series has always been about carrying hundreds of critters in your pocket, but the PokéWalker accessory took it to the next level. This device was bundled with every new copy of Pokémon HeartGold & SoulSilver for Nintendo DS, and only interfaced with those games. A trainer could send any Pokémon over to the PokéWalker to play minigames, train, and even catch wild creatures! Each step you took while having the small device on your person also contributed to your Pokémon’s experience, so you could level up just by walking around.
I used to take this thing with me everywhere, and use it to kill short bursts of time when I couldn’t get the DS out. It’s pretty nifty, having any Pokémon you want to in the palm of your hand on such an interesting device. Sadly, my PokéWalker batteries have long since run out; it’s a good thing your guys can’t get trapped on there.
What you may not know is that the PokéWalker is a spiritual successor to Pokémon Pikachu, a line of two standalone Tamagotchi-like machines that housed a small Pikachu for you to care for. The pedometer remains intact from this earlier line as well. However, despite Nintendo’s best intent in encouraging trainers to actually walk more, some people have devised some brilliantly lazy methods of fooling the PokéWalker step counter:
Technical nitpick: The NES Zapper doesn’t need a curved CRT, just a sufficiently bright and fast (fast being the sticking point with modern TVs) display. Pull the trigger and the screen goes black, with a bright box covering one “hit” zone, for one 60th of a second per on-screen target. Some games let you aim at a light bulb and win, if it wasn’t checking for dark during the surrounding frames.
The Super Scope was even crazier; its hit or miss mechanism was actually based on the timing of when individual pixels were being lit on the screen within that 1/60th of a second timeslice. (Notice how no Super Scope game ever used very dark colors?)
We might someday build a plasma or LCD bright and fast enough to work with the Zapper, but the Super Scope has almost no chance. :^)
I’m kind of sad that the power pad for NES didn’t make the list even as an honorable mention. I remember hours spent playing World Class Track Meet with that thing and trying to figure out how long I could jump off the mat before jumping back on to get insane scores. Of course, it always ended up being me and my sister kneeling next to the mat slapping the run buttons as fast as we could… Good times.
Also, where were the good peripherals for SNES. I honestly can’t think of any besides the Super Game Boy.
The rumble pak was great for one reason… The video tape that Nintendo Power sent in the mail advertising Star Fox 64 and the rumble pak.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgEZJt911Qw