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Top 10 Worst Game Controllers
Ant writes "IGN has a top ten list that focuses on some of the brilliantly terrible game controllers that shipped for game systems. Many of these were first-party, out-of-the-box concepts, while others were cash-in ideas from engineers that clearly either didn't have a sense in their noggin, or they simply listened too much to their marketing department. Either way, these controllers are a bad bunch."
Anything aside from keyboard/mouse blows.
Have you ever tried playing Mario 3 with a mouse?
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Atari 2600 and NES.
Why?
They are square and painfull!
"The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." ~Plato (427-347 BC)
Is that "Z" in the worst position possible or what?
Have you ever tried playing Mario 3 with a mouse?
I've never played Mario 3. If it's anything like the old NES 8bit Super Mario affair I would play it on a keyboard
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
My nominee was a pseudo-trackball for the Atari 2600, made by Roklan around 1982. Trackballs had been hot for arcade games since Missile Command, but were too expensive for home games. Roklan's 'ball' didn't really roll, though it was designed to look like it did. Instead, it gave the standard 2600 joystick compass-points, via the infinitely non-ergonomic semispherical controller.
The list is on IGN's XBox 360 section. Any bets on wether or not they're going to come out with a "10 Best Controllers" list, with the 360 controller on top?
"So after all this, you make my case for me. To end this stalemate, you must die..."
Well my notebook's touchpad is terrible in quake and RTS games, unless I'm playing against a newbie. Even Minesweeper takes a huge performance hit.
What about joysticks? (GOOD ones, like the origional MS Sidewinder Precision Pro)
:) ) is a mouse with a keyboard that has aligned keys (not the funky home-row based staggering)
Try playing a good flight sim (or space sim) without one. I'm looking in particular at IWar2:EoC and Freespace2.
But gamePADS? nearly worthless. Only thing better than a mouse/keyboard for gaming (except above exception
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
Try playing a good flight sim (or space sim) without one
You may not consider it good but I did play Freelancer with KB/M. I liked it just fine.
If I were to do a real flight sim I'd really be willing to shell out the cash for a proper flight setup. I'm really impressed with how good sims are at this point and I think it would be worth buying the right gear.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
ROB the Family Robot? I think that should have made the cut.
I noticed Xbox was listed there, and I will have to agree. But not just because it is big, but because of the buttons! The button layout is awful, and the shape of the buttons hurts my thumb. That, and I can never remember what each button is because they all feel the same. Meh.
Personally, I like the gamecube controller. The big fat A is easy to find and is the button used most anyway.
-- The doctor said I wouldn't get so many nose bleeds if I just kept my finger out of there!
Both the SNES and the megadrive used to give me blisters on my left thumb.. i suppose it could be cos i played solidly from age 8 to 13
--AlexC
Just because I dont agree with climate change doesnt make me a troll
I'm suprised this even made the list. I find the original XBox controler QUITE comfortable; granted, I do have large hands, but it's also gotten rave reviews from people with small hands. Most of the griping I've heard about it is that they prefer the smaller, newer version instead, but placing the Xbox controler amongst such monstrosities as the Sega Activator seems like an excessive attack on the Xbox or Microsoft in general.
http://www.TheGamerNation.com/Forums
the BEST ever game controller had to be the original large xbox controllers. they are the only controllers that actually fit my hands.
Fascism is the greatest political ideology ever conceived. Sorry.
The controller wasn't bad, actually. Indestructable and not oversensitive. Or maybe it was undersensitive and that's why I always sucked at arcade games. Too much TI-99 time. Alpiner, TI Invaders, great stuff.
Who do you get to be an expert to tell you something's not obvious? The least insightful person you can find? -J Roberts
Reason? The analogue stick died after about 3 weeks and ended up harder to move than rubbing 2 sheets of sandpaper together.
"Anything aside from keyboard/mouse blows."
Generalizations always suck.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
NES and Sega (although I had a better 3rd party controller) we'll have to wait and see on Revolution :-P
I actually bought that flaming piece of garbage power glove back in the day, and it simply DID NOT WORK. The intellivision disk worked, as did the XBox fat controller (although it stank on ice).
How about the 2nd generation Thrustmaster joysticks? Remember the ones that needed a driver that soaked up so much high memory that even with memory managers you couldn't possibly run any good games in DOS? That definitely should have made the list.
I was also hoping that the mouse would make the list. I've always hated using a mouse for game controls.
So if those are the 10 worst, what are the ten best? The Logitech wireless PS/2 controller? The Microsoft rotating flight stick? Funny enough, I'd say the Intellivision disk...
I'm sorry any device in which to shoot you had to say "FIRE!" into a microphone was just plain lame. I can't imagine playing Contra or Laser Invasion (the only game to support this contraption) this way..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laserscope
I actually like the original version over it's smaller sibling. I found it much more comfortable to play Halo with (which is all I ever really played as it was on a friends system). I found the "handles" on the small weren't long enough to fill out my hands. Similarly, I have the same complaints about the PS/PS2 and N64 controlers.
What? No Roll 'N Rocker? That thing looked like two broken ankles just aching to happen.
http://crummysocks.com
Okay, now there's a lot of things you could have said about the Jaguar, but to dis the controller just seems.. petty.
First off, the Jaguar controller was the first controller I ever used that was comfortable for me (who has larger hands) to hold. I could grab the controller firmly, and actually play Tempest 2000 for a few hours without having hand cramps.
And, what the hell is wrong with them just automatically saying "it has a phone keypad, therefore it sucks?" I thought the phone keypad with overlays thing was at least a good idea on paper, and the Jaguar controller was a good effort. Bad Atari for not giving you a place to store the overlays..
Anyway, they dis this controller, and there's no "hate" for the original Commodore VIC joystick?
>>Have you ever tried playing Mario 3 with a mouse?
I've never played Mario 3. If it's anything like the old NES 8bit Super Mario affair I would play it on a keyboard
First of all, it is an old NES 8bit Super Mario affair.
Second, console games on a keyboard absolutely suck. Absolutely, completely. Slow games like the text-based Radical Dreamers are playable with a keyboard, but platformers? Completely unplayable.
"What is Internet Explorer 7? Are you saying we can't access the normal internet?" - I love tech support. Really.
Finally, I find that someone else feels the pain I felt as a child, trying to play "Parsec" and "The Attack" with that junk heap. It got to the point where I would turn the thing upside down and dig the handle into the carpeting. Then, in order to move, I'd put my weight into the direction opposite the one I wanted to go to make it work. Sad. By comparison, the 2600 controller (another shit heap) was a DiVinci masterpiece.
Slashdot is proof that Sturgeon's Law applies to mankind.
The first product from the the engineers who developed the Amiga was the Joyboard. It had to be more difficult to use than a lot of the things on their list. And it inspired the "Guru Meditation Error" of the early Amiga OS.
"How perfectly Goddamn delightful it all is, to be sure" Charles Crumb
The Wavebird controller for Gamecube would be my vote for best controller if not for the 'z' button. Other than that it kicks PS, xbox, and N64 controller's butts.
If Google made a controller, it would be free, but in China it would have only one (state-approved) button.
All the techniques ever used to make men moral have been themselves thoroughly immoral... (Nietzsche)
Perhaps by you...
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
The stuff about the Jaguar controller just smacks of ignorance. It's like a piece of videogame folklore that, true or not, people repeat over and over.
In particular:
- Nothing wrong with a numeric keypad or overlays. They were actually helpful, for crying out loud, and allowed for truly complex games like Iron Soldier
- As a proud Jaguar owner, I never got the impression that Atari was fishing for the Mortal Kombat krowd. They only had *two* fighting games, for crying out loud, and three if you include the Jaguar CD (which came much later).
- The connectors were not loose. I own one that I stepped on, and even with some of the plastic cuff missing, it still stays in the controller port just fine. I've *never* had one fall out.
It's just idiotic bashing, and it displays the kind of ignorance that passes muster at places like IGN.
Curmudgeon Gamer: Not happy
They never even played Mario 3..they wouldn't understand
The prototype for the controller contained a washer in the joystick that was necessary for it to center automatically. However, sometime before mass production, someone removed the washer from the prototype and all of the controllers were mass-produced without it.
I play space sims with mouse, X-Wing/TIE Fighter through Freespace 1/2 to Freelancer and countless less famous ones. Wouldn't switch to joystick except when forced to by Lucas.
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As much as I hate to talk smack about anyone or anything with such an awesome name, I'm going to have to submit ROB.
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At least they didn't require three hands to use! ;)
You played Freelancer with KB/M because you had to play Freelancer with KB/M. It didn't support joysticks (intentionally). I also played Freelancer, and while I did get used to the controls eventually I still yearned for it to support a Joystick. So I went back to Freespace 1/2.
Sadly, nobody's making decent space flight sims anymore. Yeah, X3 shipped recently, but it's covered in nasty copy protection I wouldn't touch with a 10-foot poll. And yes, I know about Freespace 2 SCP, but it's still just Freespace (or user-created mods and games that never get past 10% completion). I'd try EVE Online, but I really don't want to get into the MMOG grind.
You played Freelancer with KB/M because you had to play Freelancer with KB/M.
No, I played it KB/M because even if there would have been other supported controllers I still would have played it KB/M. I simply mentioned it because I was asked about flight/space sims.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
Of course, the series was always a red-headed step-child at SEGA as evidenced by its sad end:
I still miss, SEGA, and wish they had survived to this dark, dreary modern age but it's things like this that makes you realize that the deserved what they got (as horrible as it was for console gaming that it happened). I suppose my relationship with SEGA could be called battered-gamer syndrome. "Sorry about that 32X, here's Nights though, will you buy a Saturn? Remember how good it was in the old days...""MIT betrayed all of its basic principles."
Seriously I have never seen a controller break soooooooo easily. The 5200 controller should be #1 no contest on that grounds alone.
I see that the Atari 5200 controller made #10. And that the Intellivision controller made #4. Where on earth is the original ColecoVision hand controller? Hardware-wise, the things were about as flaky as the 5200's (both wear out far too easily), and in terms of ergonomics, they far surpass the Intellivision's for crapitude.
Recessed keypad: check. Overlays that get mangled on repeated insertion and removal: check. Uncomfortable "flat-top mushroom" joystick: check. The ColecoVision's hand controllers have to rank up there as among the worst, and yet IGN overlooked it somehow.
Not even the firing buttons were properly designed. As Consumer Reports wrote at the time of its release: "You must press the trigger buttons with the same thumb and forefinger that hold the controller, unless you rest the controller on a table top; pressing the buttons can be awkward and fatiguing."
And when the Coleco ADAM came to light, the only change to the controllers made by Coleco Industries was to the color. I think the Connecticut Leather Company deserves special mention for not only a terrible "first gen" design, but the chutzpah to recycle it for there "second gen" system. Gah!
It was just like a PS1 controller... Only it always broke! I went through 3 of them.
Save the Duke This is worth reading.
Women are like electronics: you don't know how damaged they are until you try to turn them on.
Back when the 2600 was still new, a friend of mine ended up with an alternative system called (I think) the Fairchild Game System. It had the worst controller I've ever encountered. Start with a handle (just a handle, no buttons) and place a rounded triangular knobby thing on top. The knob could be pushed forward, back, left, right, pulled up, and pushed down, plus it could be twisted clockwise or counterclockwise a little ways to trigger two more switches. That's eight toggles on one joystick, while the other hand just held it in place. This wasn't just a gimmick that didn't work; someone thought consolidating all the controls into single point of failure was a good thing (oh, and they also thought that it would last for more than ten minutes of energetic gameplay). The system never caught on, mostly because the 2600 was pretty well established by the time it was rolled out, but that controller would have killed it just as effectively...
"I'm a scientist! I don't think, I observe!" - Dr. Clayton Forrester
When I had a Tandy 1000HX, you couldn't use standard IBM/Apple 2 controllers. So, you had the Tandy analog + 2 button joystick. It had 2 modes, one was full-travel among all directions, the other restricted the movement, moreso for just directional.
I broke it twice playing some 3/4 perspective ninja game. But some cement and it was good again.
Yes, the TI-994/A controllers sucked. There wasn't even an indicator on the stick which one was player 1 or 2. I just put a green sticker underneath #2. It required more effort to hit the mushy button or directions. Why? A piece of foam rubber on the inside. That, and it looked ugly. No doubt it helped sales of atari 2600 stick adapters.
My only controller annoyance as of recently were non-Sony PS2 controllers not recognized by certain games. So, it's back to the dualshock.
Revolution's controller.
you're hands would be done after a marathon Zaxxon session. The IntelliVision that did make the list was even worse though.
Slightly of TFA, but for some reason Logitech gave the Rumblepad 2 for the PC square moldings around the analog stick which makes pulling off circular motions a pain in the ass. Oddly, their controller for the PS2 does not have this.
I strongly disagree with two of the controllers: The Intellivion controller was just brilliant. The atari joystick had 8 contacts. The Intellivision had 16. That made the feel of many of the games more realistic. In Football (or Super Pro Football), for example (oh crap am I dating myself here), "rolling out" the QB was just that - as you rolled your thumb around the wheel, the QB rolled, in something that resembled a circle. In addition, there was much less of a need to do combination "wiggles" like you had to do on the Atari to get into a particular position, since the motion was smooth, and the extra contacts made the motion finer. The overlays were great. You could call pass routes for receivers, and literally draw them on the keypad. In games like Sea Battle, Space Battle, B-52 Bomber, etc., the keypad (and side buttons) allowed the games to be more complicated than they could be on Atari with its single button. The overlays simply gave you a visual representation on the keypad of the functions of the various buttons. Not all games required them, but the ones that did were much more interesting.
/., I REALLY like the Duke controller for the original XBox. It is much, much more comfortable in my hands (and my wife's tiny hands) for hours upon hours of gameplay. The day I opened my XBox I played Halo for eight hours straight - I never got up. I didn't take a potty break, I didn't get food, I just sat and played. At the end of that time, my hands were not the least bit tired or crampy. The fact that your hand is mostly open when holding the Duke is part of the reason why. Your fingers are in the near-ideal resting position when holding it. In addition, the Duke featured buttons that were arranged so that their orientation was relative to the motion of the thumb, not relative to the bottom of the controller. When you grab a controller, your thumb isn't pointing straight up. It's pointing at about a 50 degree angle. The ABXY diamond was lined up in-line and perpendicular to the extended-line of the thumb - so if my thumb is on the "A", if I extend my thumb I will be on the "Y", and if I move my thumb to the left I'm on the "X", and to the right the "Y". On every other controller I'm aware of, the buttons are not arranged relative to the motion of the thumb, they are arranged relative to the bottom of the controller, so moving between buttons is a more complicated maneuver, which means more strain on your hand.
I've said it before on
While I can say that I have never experienced severe strain with a current-generation controller, the comfort level of the Duke is definitely much better than any of the others. I would only put the 360 wireless controller somewhere in the same ballpark (I haven't played with any 3rd party wireless controllers for PS2 or GC) because the weight and lack of cord (which means I can get the rest of me in a more comfortable position) are noticible improvements...but I'd still take the Duke if it was available for other consoles.
Friends help you move. Real friends help you move bodies.
Never forget: 2 + 2 = 5 for extremely large values of 2.
Me: Nobody gives a crap about the Dreamcast.
You: What do you mean?!
Me: Did you know that in 2002, Sega landfilled six-million Dreamcast controllers, and one penguin?
You: A PENGUIN?!?!
Me: I told you nobody gives a crap about the Dreamcast...
There's a Starman, waiting in the sky / He'd like to come and meet us, but he hasn't got the time.
I remember reading that Nolan Bushnell (Atari Founder) once had a discussion on the "phallic" nature of a joystick. The result was this amusing setup. I'm still undecided on whether it was an act of stupidity or genius.
The TI controllers actually work pretty well, and they're really reliable too. Maybe a little awkward to hold, but not nearly as bad as the Colecovision controllers! How did those not make the list?
And for the record - no it did not work.
I am saddened by how many of those I owned. Turbo Touch 360 I got for free. Atari 5200 the `rents paid for. U-Force I bought of my own free will -_-, Sega Activator I ended up having, not sure why.
I was young and inexperienced, I thought "Hey, they're just controllers that are a little different, how bad can they be?" How wrong I was.
For the record I also had the NeGCon, an NES controller that looked like motorcycle handle bars (that one was actually pretty comfy), a PSX one that looked like a Battarang (best controller ever), the Super Scope (which kind of rocked). Hell, I even had the Odyssey (but not until like 1986 because my uncle was one of the designers and they found a bunch in a closet somewhere). Its controllers were barely classifiable as controllers. I felt like I was sharpening pencils.
Ahh the memories. I definately learned to stay clear of those oddball controllers. So, anybody heard any news on the Revolution or PS3 o.O?
1 (short ton / firkin) = 89.1432354 slugs / keg
The latest cordless gaming mice from Logitech are horrible too...a catcher's mitt has better ergonomics.
The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -Chomsky
Is the "X-Box Fat" the original controller the X-Box came with when they first came out? If so, let me comment.
I usually don't like controllers with the directional buttons on the left side (like the N64 controller, I had to hold it in a weird way), but I seemed to enjoy the comfort of the X-Box controller. Then again, I think my hands are pretty big anyways.
Apparently Microsoft liked the Dreamcast controller so much, they stole it. Sure, there's no an X logo where the VMU port used to be, but that's meaningless.
The VMU, now there's something nobody cared about!
I owned one of these ....
...
What looks like a laptop when folded and a Death Star access panel when open is one of the most ridiculous third-party controllers ever conceived. Infra-red beams shot out of this unit's surface and tried to interpret hand motions as controller movements, but did it work? Know anyone who owned this thing? There you go.
and it sorta worked. If you used the included aircraft controller thingy and didn't move it too quickly then it would respond decently fast. Of course, if you tried to "punch" the sensor areas when playing Mike Tyson's Punch Out then it usually just went berzerk and did a bunch of crazy moves.
Incidentally, are there any Nintendo fans that want to buy one slightly used U-Force (emphasis on the slightly)? Ebay beckons
Favorite
OK big handed freaks. We know you love the giant Xbox controller that fits comfortably in your boulder spawning hands. Unfortunately for normal men, women and kids it really sucks. It's too big and heavy. The basketball sized xbox logo in the center also makes it look ridiculous.
Nice comment, I didn't think about small vs large like that but it makes sense.
Large is less versatile.
My favourite modern controller is the GC, but I can play on any. Least favourite (even than the large xbox) is the PS 1/2 controller, but I'm guessing it's because I haven't had much experiance with it and haven't found my optimal grip for it yet. I find the handles too short and that the "face" slopes away/down too much.
(I'm used to playing with my thumbs in more of a "thumbs up" position, wheras the PS controller's buttons require you to bend the thumb down more, does that make any sense to anyone? - like the angle the face of the controller makes with the line of the handles is too much... but yeah I think it's just I'm not used to it.)
Nintendo's original controller design did not include a Z-button. Developers didn't very well like this change, so it was included as a last-minute addition (and it shows).
In my opinion...
:(
Best:
-Gamecube: Love the layout and the shape is a joy to hold. The shoulder buttons are a dream to use they feel so good and they are easy to reach while still using the other buttons. The controller also feels solid and comfortable enough for hours upon hours of gaming.
-SNES: This just wins for simplicity. It was really my first experience with a videogame controller and it just works and I still like the feel. It is just so natural, especially for when it was made.
Worst:
-Xbox: What can I say? Big, Awkward grips, bad button placement.
-PS2: I know Ill get flamed for this one because there are so many fan boys but to me it feels flimsy and tacky... I don't know how to explain it, it feels so plasticy, almost hollow and the plastic is shiny and not good to touch... It doesn't entice me to play for hours like other controllers do.
-Commie64 joystick: It was ok except you needed to arm wrestle the stick to get the character to move
I know I havent used that many controllers but these are the best and worst from my experience.
The worst controller ever was (and still is) the Playstation controller.
I'm not entirely sure why, but every single time I play on one of them, my hands end up cramping from the awful shape. I refuse to even pick the damn things up anymore because they're so uncomfortable.
The second sin was the f**king d-pad. I've always had this thing with the + shaped d-pads -- it makes it somewhat harder to do diagonal movements then the nice big ones you got on the original Saturn controllers. But making each of the directions a seperate button? Aaarrggh!
And finally, the naming convention used for the buttons on the right. I am yet, to this very day, work out where the hell the square is without looking. As far as I'm concerned, the PS controllers are a total botch job.
(OTOH, the best controllers I've ever use were the original Saturn controllers which had lovely big buttons, and big chunky "wings" that rested in your hands, and the Dreamcast controller which was far more comfortable than it looked (even if it did have that awful + d-pad)).
We're geeks... We're the sorcerers of the modern-day world. --
Back when I was bratty and beat my controllers when I died in a game. My NES Advantage took it all.
n es_advantage.php
Now THAT was a controller.
http://www.8bitjoystick.com/archives/jake_review_
And of course you have Descent and Forsaken, games you can't play with a joystick.
Realistically the joystick isn't that great for dogfighting, it's not precise enough and doesn't allow really good control over rotation and accelleration.
Gotta give props for keyboards, won me a lot of Descent 1 and Forsaken matches.
Our first computer was a TRS-80 Color Computer (first-gen gray box, D-board, 16K upgraded to 64K Extended BASIC) and Radio Shack had some simply awful jotsticks for them. The base was about 3" square and 1-1/2" thick. You held these things with a cupped hand; if you tried to hold it along the edges it'd drop out of your hand. The stick part of the controller was about 1-1/2" high, and about as big around as a pencil. They had a bad habit of unscrewing off the base. The joysticks did not self center, which made for interesting moments in a lot of games. And the fire button was on the back of the controller, past the top of the controller. So you had to cup this thing, hang onto the tiny stick, and fight hand cramps every time you hit the fire button.
We ran across plans in a magazine on how to build your own, so we did. They were half the price of the RS joysticks and a hell of a lot better. Not to mention it was the first time I got to use a soldering iron... ah, good times. Now get off my lawn, you damn kids.
X3 is worth it. People rant and snarl about the copy protection, works fine for me. If it's a big deal, buy it and crack it, or keep it on a seperate partition. Or there's always X2, but no factory complexes! Also, balanced economy, you wouldn't believe what an SPP costs nowadays.
I am one of many. My idea is not unique, nor do I expect my voice alone to sway you. I speak in a chorus of opinion.
Personally I have never had a problem with the z-button. As has already been said, in the games that I have for Gamecube it isn't really used for anything critical (for example checking the map in Metroid Prime) so its not all bad.
However, if anyone has played Soul Caliber 2 on the Cube, surely they would have had the same problems as me with button combinations that are very difficult due to the button position. Like, throwing moves that require a B+Y combination. Even harder being a B+X combination which is almost impossible for me to perform without hitting the A button or using two fingers!
Just for the record ergonomically, I think the Cube controller is the most comfortable by a long shot if it weren't for those button positions it would be flawless IMHO.
I never apologise, I'm sorry but that's just the way I am - Homer
Commodore didn't make really good joysticks. My friend bought one of those C64G bundles and by the end of the week, the stick was busted.
I remember one of their "popular" sticks. Triangular handle. Triangular.
(But I hope everyone knows what's the best C64 stick. =)
(cross-posted to Joystiq)
God, I wish I still had the images and info for this one. Ah well.
Back in the 2600 days, companies were coming up with joystiqs made for specific best-selling games (to a greater extent than they do now at least). Suncom was one of these companies... and Track and Field was their target game.
Sadly, their product would end up making it all the way through design and development only to come to halt when marketing told them they couldn't sell it. Why, you may ask...
Now, some would say that the controller design was truly ingenious. You see, in TnF, the point was to move left and right very quickly, then sometimes hit the button. Suncom's design was simple and effective, a cylinder with a contact at the top and bottom (as left and right, respectively), a ball bearing inside the cylinder, and a button on the top. Simple.
It shouldn't be too difficult to imagine yourself using this innovative contraption. More specifically, imagine mom walking in on 10-year-old you using it.
Of course, maybe the controller was truly meant for Custer's Revenge instead?
Off the top of my head, not counting anything CD based (since I don't have one):
Kasumi Ninja
Ultra Vortek
Fight for Life
Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story
Double Dragon V
When it comes to playing a FPS on any console it doesn't matter what machine you're running or their controllers as they all suck. Sometimes it's the game and not the controller that's the problem.
The Intellivision controller, for example, was included amongst the top ten worst, but there are several Intellivision games that really wouldn't play very well on a joystick or gamepad (yeah, the games were designed for the control disc, I know). I've always hated joysticks but I loved the Intellivison controller disc; it just worked for me. Maybe that's why I loved the Nintendo so much as the directional pad seemed like an improvement on the Intellivision control disc.
The NES Maxx, A horrible POS, should have been on the list. I have never had a controller I disliked more than Maxx. My personal "#1 most hated" Lac
They need the Sega Master System Controller. Square edges = owww after sustained gaming, and the one-piece D-pad made controlling extra challenging.
Oh, X3 will play just fine, its just that they dont want to load a security hole onto their system. But if they use the proper protection and take the usual precautions in the first place, it wont ever be an issue. But that still doesnt excuse the copyright protection from providing the security hole.
I love to slaughter the english language.
They are designing a new controller to be purchased with Halo 3 to combat the Nintendo Rev's controller. Think about it... if Microsoft releases Halo 3 bundled with a "gun" of some kind (so you don't use the current controller), would you really be buying a Nintendo Rev or more "gun" controllers to play with friends?
:P
They can charge an exhorbitant amount for it so they can turn a profit quicker, because we know how crazy the even slightly Xbox fans will go bonkers over a "gun" for Halo 3.
Of course the gun will probably suck and make it to the number one spot of this list
You heard it here first.
Causing Chaos Everywhere,
Nik J.
The strange world of a loner, in a populous city, drowning in society
We were playing something on it, and my dad just snapped the stick off. So he turned around and broke the other one.
He then created a patch cable so we could use our Atari 2600 joysticks with the TI. Because they were THAT MUCH BETTER. (And eventually, as I mentioned in another comment, we eventually replaced them with third party steelpost joysticks.)
I bought a joystick for Freespace 2. The mouse just is slow since you have to pick it up and bring it back to keep control. I beat it and Freelancer with KB/M but I think the joystick will be better. Obviously, it's personal opinion and some people don't want to spend extra money for another controller.
Not that you don't have a point about how much good joysticks help flight sims... but the article was about the "worst" controllers, not very good ones.
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I'd rather be flamed than ignored.
Needless to say, I used the thing for about 10 minutes before I unplugged it and sat it in the corner where it sat for several years. It may still be in my garage somewhere.
I hated the TAC-2. There was absolutely no tactile feedback. The buttons were crap and the stick was stiff and had very little movement. Sure, build quality was great. Unfortunately, this led to me going: "why the hell won't this crap joystick ever brake so I could buy a new one goddamit!!!!"
It also made my hand sore when using it.
Some say he is made with ascii, others that he is eyeballed daily by millions. All we know is, he is known as the Sig
The old X-Box controller (aka Hamburger) is the best joystick I've ever used. My only change would be to add small triggers where my middle fingers curl underneath. If these triggers were programmable to duplicate the X,Y,A,B button of my choice, that would be so sweet. I could then use them as Punch and Action/Jump in Halo 2. My right thumb would only have to move to Switch Weapons and Switch Grenade Types.
"Love heals scars love left." -- Henry Rollins
Maybe I'm the only one who owned a U-Force for the NES but I can honestly say that it took the cake for bad controllers. It looked like a laptop and supposedly read your hand movements. Except that it never worked properly, was expensive, made games impossible to play, and was so horrible that passing level 1 of Super Mario Bros. or even knocking out Glass Joe was laughable at best.
Thank Jeebus I was able to return it back in the day. The commercial for it was quite possibly the biggest example of outright fraud ever. The kid in the commercial is "playing" the cinematic from Top Gun!?! What a load of crap. Here's a site with some pics: http://www.atarihq.com/tsr/ad/2/uforce.html
http://teasphere.wordpress.com - A little spot of tea
1) I have vowed to never buy any game that's not from Bungie and so I only play Halo and Halo 2 on my Häxbox, and Bungie are the kings and queens of control scheme design. I believe that they could design a functioning control scheme for any controller, no matter how stupidly designed it was.
2) My hands are enormous. Every controller I've ever used has been really difficult for me to hold because they're all too small. I can't use modern cell phones, either.
Frog blast the vent core.
I spent many hours with these things. They are so stiff that you develop an iron grip in your off hand so you can hold the base still while trying to move the zarking thing. The button (singular) was also pretty stiff. Maybe it just seemed that way.
Definitely not oversensitive. They moved when and where expected, and had (if I remember correctly) two speeds in each direction.
They were indestructible. Ours were run over by the cart the computer was on, stepped on (ouch), struck against solid objects, wrenched hard in frustration, and always worked about the same.
Could have been much worse, but could have been better by making it less exercise to use.
I have nothing witty to fill this space with yet.
"Can anyone link a photo of this stick? I'd like to meet the tool who came up with it, the design really rubbed me the wrong way. Someone should take a rod to him."
Well I don't have any problems with MY "joystick". Ergonomically perfect, and loads of fun. Although repeated pushing on those "buttons" at the base get painful after awhile.
The Philips CD-i used a very generic Gravis gamepad, but only two of the four buttons were mapped. Interfacing with the game wouldn't have been pleasant even if the CD-i had a better controller. Magnavox Odyssey 2 had an ugly brick-like single button joystick controller like the Atari, but it was a pain to hold.
I also hated the rectangular Sega Master System and classic NES controllers. Tubo Grafx 16 didn't thrill me either, but it wasn't quite as bad as the NES controller which game me blisters.
I play VegaStrike using a keyboard and trackball. I have a joystick and found using it in a flight/space sim to be virtually useless. My trusty trackball is a thousand times more accurate than any joystick style controller I've ever used.
An Atari 2600 stick. No base... just a stick you tilted in space. It used Mercury switches. Mercury is a liquid, so it sloshed. You didn't want to make any sudden movements with this thing. Since Mercury is a brain damaging element, you didn't want to have one of these suckers break open and spill its contents. Having a Hazmat team come to your home because of a broken game controller would be embarrassing.
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D-pads that are some funky floating hat, coolie hat, or generally anything _but_ a goddamn cross.
Blame Nintendo's patent, which only recently expired, and the PC gamepad makers haven't yet had a chance to retool production.
Most of them can't even take a corner right ... Or if they can, they have a problem with round motions.
Which do you want? A square active area, or a round active area?
Except for the black and white buttons, which are no better in the S-controller.
The diamond layout enabled me to hit practically any button combination just by rocking my thumb. It was great for Ninja Gaiden and SSX.
Additionally, I occasionally have RSI problems with my wrists, but I could use the original controller for hours without any problems. My hands aren't especially big, either. (for an adult male) By contrast, I can only use an S-controller, or worse, a PS2 DualShock controller for limited periods.
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