Here's your controller, bro - Post bad controllers, either in design or maintenance

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That last one looks painful.

I can't even tell what this last one is, let alone how to hold it. It looks sort of like a VR controller.

 

[Haramburger]

Two shit NES controllers:

The U-Force

This briefcase was supposed to lay open at a 90 degree angle like a laptop and both plates were sensors that detected hand movements where they intersect. Supposedly programmable, it rarely felt comfortable or useful to anyone who used it. I remember wanted to try it based on magazine ads alone but it was never available in my area, probably as a mercy to me. It also came with a flight stick that jammed into the open hole for realistic flying controls, they probably sucked too.

R.O.B.

The first in a long like of bizarre Nintendo official inventions that look neat but are shit in practice. For the two games R.O.B. was designed for, you assembled all his shit around him and put the Player 2 controller in its cradle. You'd push the select button on P1 followed by directional controls or A/B to make the screen flash in a way R.O.B.'s eyes could pick up and he'd raise or lower his arms, torso turn left or right, and open or close his grip. So for example, in Gyromite if you wanted to move a blue tube out of your way, you Select-Right-Select-Down-Select-A-Select-Up to pick up a top. Select-Left-Select Left-Select-Left-select-Down to hold the top in the spinner and build up speed. Then Select-Up-Select-Right-Select-Right-Select-Down-Select-B to place the spinning top gently on the blue holder that then pushes the lever down to press the 2nd Player's A button, for about 2 minutes before the top loses speed, wobbles, and falls off the blue platform. This then lets the blue pipes in game move back to where they were originally, which might squash you if you were in a bad spot when this happens.

OR. OR OR OR... you could just hold the A button down with your toe, or a friend.

All kidding aside, Gyromite's actually a pretty good puzzle platformer if you just play with 2 controllers. R.O.B. is just so over the top for what you're doing though it's hilarious. I'd argue that game gets harder using him, because some puzzles stagger pipes in such a way that you have to have pinpoint & fast robot commands to climb the pipes a certain way with how the tops spin for a limited time, and you might be standing in the wrong spot when you're issuing robot commands that you die for that reason alone, or tops falling off the rig, or sending bad commands to R.O.B,, like trying to stack tops or dropping them from heights or banging them into each other.

 

[Gravityqueen4life]

Yooo~

Japanese classic yooo. Edo period Toyohara Kunichika painting of an actor.

www.youtube.com

 

[Capsaicin Addict]

Two shit NES controllers:

The U-Force
View attachment 902383
This briefcase was supposed to lay open at a 90 degree angle like a laptop and both plates were sensors that detected hand movements where they intersect. Supposedly programmable, it rarely felt comfortable or useful to anyone who used it. I remember wanted to try it based on magazine ads alone but it was never available in my area, probably as a mercy to me. It also came with a flight stick that jammed into the open hole for realistic flying controls, they probably sucked too.

R.O.B.
View attachment 902388

The first in a long like of bizarre Nintendo official inventions that look neat but are shit in practice. For the two games R.O.B. was designed for, you assembled all his shit around him and put the Player 2 controller in its cradle. You'd push the select button on P1 followed by directional controls or A/B to make the screen flash in a way R.O.B.'s eyes could pick up and he'd raise or lower his arms, torso turn left or right, and open or close his grip. So for example, in Gyromite if you wanted to move a blue tube out of your way, you Select-Right-Select-Down-Select-A-Select-Up to pick up a top. Select-Left-Select Left-Select-Left-select-Down to hold the top in the spinner and build up speed. Then Select-Up-Select-Right-Select-Right-Select-Down-Select-B to place the spinning top gently on the blue holder that then pushes the lever down to press the 2nd Player's A button, for about 2 minutes before the top loses speed, wobbles, and falls off the blue platform. This then lets the blue pipes in game move back to where they were originally, which might squash you if you were in a bad spot when this happens.

OR. OR OR OR... you could just hold the A button down with your toe, or a friend.

All kidding aside, Gyromite's actually a pretty good puzzle platformer if you just play with 2 controllers. R.O.B. is just so over the top for what you're doing though it's hilarious. I'd argue that game gets harder using him, because some puzzles stagger pipes in such a way that you have to have pinpoint & fast robot commands to climb the pipes a certain way with how the tops spin for a limited time, and you might be standing in the wrong spot when you're issuing robot commands that you die for that reason alone, or tops falling off the rig, or sending bad commands to R.O.B,, like trying to stack tops or dropping them from heights or banging them into each other.

Oh, my sweet summer child, R.O.B. was never meant to survive. Nintendo used him as a gimmick to get the NES into American toy stores. 'It's not a video game system, it's a toy!'. After Nintendo had their foot in the door, they stopped producing R.O.B.

 

[Antique Rice]

(Don't) DIY rhythm game controllers.

The tennis ball controller seems clever enough. Pop N Music could be hell on your hands if you try to go hard.

Everyone rags on the gamecube chainsaw controller, but at least the thing still resembles a controller in how you hold it and how the buttons are laid out. This monstrosity, on the other hand:

came out with Onimusha 3: Demon Siege. I only ever saw it attempt to be used once, and not very well at that. It does break apart about halfway down its length so you don't have to hold the whole thing, but still, that design is all style and no ergonomics.

 

[Duncan Hills Coffee]

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YOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

I dunno, this one looks pretty cool.

 

[Smaug's Smokey Hole]

The face of this one is concave and just look at that d-pad!

Why are the prongs so long? No one knows. It also has a gyroscopic function similar to the Wii or the Sixaxis, there is also a little wheel to scroll around.
It doesn't work, the controller is a piece of shit, it is the worst thing ever.

When Microsoft announced that they were creating a console it seemed like a doomed project because it meant that Microsoft would also create the controller. Say what you will about the original Xbox controller but it could have been so much worse.


There is a controller that I have been looking for, a kid in the neighborhood bought it for his C64, it was a flesh colored rubber thing with a stick and buttons strewn around it and it was held like an orange in one hand.
This is the closest thing to it visually:

 

[Jean Lafitte 1812]

The face of this one is concave and just look at that d-pad!
View attachment 903851

I grew up paying emulators on one of those. The d-pad does suck, but otherwise it isn't too bad. Also has both 6 face buttons and 2 shoulder buttons for the 16-bit games I was playing at the time.

 

[Watcher]

The face of this one is concave and just look at that d-pad!
View attachment 903851

Why are the prongs so long? No one knows. It also has a gyroscopic function similar to the Wii or the Sixaxis, there is also a little wheel to scroll around.
It doesn't work, the controller is a piece of shit, it is the worst thing ever.
View attachment 903852

When Microsoft announced that they were creating a console it seemed like a doomed project because it meant that Microsoft would also create the controller. Say what you will about the original Xbox controller but it could have been so much worse.


There is a controller that I have been looking for, a kid in the neighborhood bought it for his C64, it was a flesh colored rubber thing with a stick and buttons strewn around it and it was held like an orange in one hand.
This is the closest thing to it visually:
View attachment 903850

Most controllers on PC were pretty terrible in general at this time. This mostly had to do with the low amount of games that actually used gamepads. It was mostly either sidescrollers or racing games. The controller of choice at the time was a joystick which were generally really good at the time. The controller I had on PC was this one

It was pretty good for what games it worked with. (Mostly Motorcross Madness). I still actually have it but I wouldn't use it for anything nowadays.

Fun fact, the original Xbox's devkit originally came with a generic Microsoft gamepad that was used to program the controls with. This was most likely what they based the Duke off of, and why the Duke has 6 face buttons as opposed to 4 shoulder ones like the Dualshock

Gamepads in the 90s up until the 360 controller introduced Xinput were also really annoying to use because you had to configure them and most games didn't natively support them. Or if they did it was only in a limited capacity. Like you could control your character ingame but to use a menu you still needed to use a mouse. I remember the game Revenant out of the box supported gamepads for everything but in-order to use your inventory or cast a spell you had to switch to a mouse.

 

[Smaug's Smokey Hole]

Gamepads in the 90s up until the 360 controller introduced Xinput were also really annoying to use because you had to configure them and most games didn't natively support them. Or if they did it was only in a limited capacity. Like you could control your character ingame but to use a menu you still needed to use a mouse. I remember the game Revenant out of the box supported gamepads for everything but in-order to use your inventory or cast a spell you had to switch to a mouse.

Yeah, configuring old gamepads was a crap shoot because the game couldn't be built around assumptions about how many buttons/toggles/levers/gyroscopes/spinny things/sticks a controller had and build a game around a standard configuration. It just wasn't worth it unless the controller was meant to be used for nothing a couple of games that it matched up well with. Overall usefulness could not be expected and I wonder when I last saw, used or struggled with the Joystick configurator in Windows.

I actually had a no-name gamepad/flightstick hybrid with a lever:ish thing that sat where the right bumper would be, it was analog and had a travel from 0 to 100% that was about 1½ inches/~3.5cm long and it had a nice soft resistance. It didn't snap back either so it stayed where you left it and it was honestly really good for some games. Analog triggers are good but it is finicky and imprecise if you want to go from 43% to 50% of engine output and leave it there for a while(in games like Aces High) or ramp up slowly in games like Grand Prix Legends where a little bit too much throttle too quickly would lead to spinning out into the grass.

 

[Oddjob OTP]

Most controllers on PC were pretty terrible in general at this time. This mostly had to do with the low amount of games that actually used gamepads. It was mostly either sidescrollers or racing games. The controller of choice at the time was a joystick which were generally really good at the time. The controller I had on PC was this one
View attachment 904465
It was pretty good for what games it worked with. (Mostly Motorcross Madness). I still actually have it but I wouldn't use it for anything nowadays.

I used a Sidewinder for emulation mostly. It had enough buttons to map an SNES controller (except for start/select) and while it looks cheap as hell it was actually pretty tough. I don't think I ever managed to break one, I think I still have both of my Sidewinders around here somewhere. Solid 7/10 controller as long as you don't need more buttons then it will provide.

 

[Chocolate Elvis]

The Demon Destroyer Gunn, made to cash in on Doom and all your other favourite mid 90s first person shooters. No, it does not work like a lightgunn. Yes, that extra N is intentional.

 

[0 0]

The Demon Destroyer Gunn, made to cash in on Doom and all your other favourite mid 90s first person shooters. No, it does not work like a lightgunn. Yes, that extra N is intentional.

While not directly comparable, this reminds me of the Nintendo super scope. Most peole identify it as a laser gun from Smash Bros, but it was an SNES accessory. I can't grab a picture at the moment, but what's notable about it is despite having a trigger guard, the mechanism to fire it were two buttons on the top. Its battery life was also abysmal, typical of Nintendo products.

The buttons on top and lack of a trigger is present in Smash, too. I don't know if the following is an intentional reference to its bad design, but all but a few characters in Smash actually hold and fire it correctly with an overhanded grip on the barrel. Its description in one of the games also mocks the terrible battery life.

 

[Chichan]

I have this wireless PS2 controller its way too fucking bulky and the stick is terrible.

 

[tehpope]

I remember getting this controller growing up. Can't remember if it was any good. Its weird though.

View attachment 902161

Apparently, people really dig that controller.

It doesn't look very comfortable...
View attachment 901975

How are you supposed to hold this thing?

By the sides. Its decent. The stick is pretty bad though.

 

[murgatroid]

Page 6 and no one has posted Boonga Boonga? The arcade game where you slap your mother in laws ass/stick a finger in her butt. Thank you Japan.

 

[Duncan Hills Coffee]

Page 6 and no one has posted Boonga Boonga? The arcade game where you slap your mother in laws ass/stick a finger in her butt. Thank you Japan.

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Technically it was developed in South Korea, but it was distributed in Japan (only 5 units were ever made though). The Wikipedia page had this to say.

"The game features eight characters players can punish: "Ex girlfriend", "Ex-boyfriend", "Yakuza|gangster", "Mother in law," "Gold-digger," "Prostitute," "Child molester," and "Con-artist". During gameplay, the facial expression of the chosen character is displayed on a monitor."

I bolded Child molester because what in the holy fuck is this game?

 

[Nuka Dark Rum]

The tennis ball controller seems clever enough. Pop N Music could be hell on your hands if you try to go hard.

Everyone rags on the gamecube chainsaw controller, but at least the thing still resembles a controller in how you hold it and how the buttons are laid out. This monstrosity, on the other hand:
View attachment 902480
View attachment 902481
came out with Onimusha 3: Demon Siege. I only ever saw it attempt to be used once, and not very well at that. It does break apart about halfway down its length so you don't have to hold the whole thing, but still, that design is all style and no ergonomics.

Of course Hori made this piece of shit. Every controller/peripheral they've ever made (Game tie-ins for sure) is just cheaply made, poorly designed, overpriced garbage. They're basically the Madkatz of Japan.

 

[murgatroid]

Technically it was developed in South Korea, but it was distributed in Japan (only 5 units were ever made though). The Wikipedia page had this to say.

"The game features eight characters players can punish: "Ex girlfriend", "Ex-boyfriend", "Yakuza|gangster", "Mother in law," "Gold-digger," "Prostitute," "Child molester," and "Con-artist". During gameplay, the facial expression of the chosen character is displayed on a monitor."

I bolded Child molester because what in the holy fuck is this game?

 

[Recoil]