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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?
Religion for nerds. Stuff that really matters
Is that "Z" in the worst position possible or what?
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!
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
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.
The NES one really hurt my hands. Not only the corners of the actual controller, but the square d-pad and the buttons would do a number too. yes, I played way too much...
The 2600 controller was a classic though
Well, my current signature (and the guy I quoted) disagree. ..the bottom line is if a game is fun, you will play it well past the point where it's causing you physical pain. -Chris
This means that your hands will adapt to the console you grew up with.. Sometimes artificially. (electric tape on the thumb, anyone?)
And to answer another comment in the same thread.. Yes. The big A. Forcing third parties to use THAT button as primary button is great. Very intuitive and all.
But Nintendo.. practice what you preach. That might be one of the reasons the Zelda:TTP demo wasn't too well received (when I tried it, anyway) because that big green A button had NOTHING assigned to it when you start the demo. Must have been used for a device you acquire later in the game.
Nouvelles de jeux et technologies en français. TC
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?
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.
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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)
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.
They had to have something modern, and the Game Cube would have been a really controversial choice.
The Xbox launching with that thing was pretty controversial. It was like someone had taken a regular controller and stung it repeatedly by bees, and was taken as a sign that Microsoft didn't know what it was doing. It was also symbolic of how generally huge the Xbox was.
The bead buttons were also quite uncomfortable for unaccustomed hands. I tested with that thing for a few weeks, and the divot in my right hand was pronounced and painful. They didn't have the tactile feedback, they were too "slick," and they dug into your fingers in odd ways. Thankfully the Type-S controller fixed these problems.
It also had too much of an inward curve, leading to a slightly ackward arm position, though that could just be from years of practicing on other controllers. Still, it always felt like it was going to slip in towards you.
The thing about a small controller is that anyone can hold it, and more importantly there are a myriad of subtly different ways that you can hold your hand and still have it be comfortable. You can hold it elbows out, elbows at your side. You can ride your hands up so that you're closer to the top buttons, or you can slide down towards the lower sticks. You can rest so low on a PS2 controller that you can hardly reach the top buttons. You can engulf the thing with your entire hand, wrapping your pointer fingers around it like claws.
With a large controller, there is only one way to hold it and still have your hands reach the buttons in a usable fashion. Like the Jaguar, if that happens to be the way you hold the controller, then it will work great for you. And if it isn't, you're not going to be able to come to a compromise with the controller. That's why most successful controllers don't have finger grooves... exactly where the player puts their fingers varies by person. It may feel wonderful to the developer, but put it in the hands of someone with a slightly different bone structure and it is downright torture.
Strangely enough I always found the Jaguar controller just right for my hands, though the buttons needed to be raised from the surface about 2 millimeters and given a smoother activation pressure. But everyone else I've given that thing to was deeply uncomfortable, and could never figure out a way to hold it that was right for them.
The ______ Agenda
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.
This is a sig. There are many others like it, but this one is mine.
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.
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?
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
Heh. So that explains the seizure inducing flashes you always see in Pokemon and Anime stuff.
Well, I have a "flight grip" joystick, one of multitude of the "multisystem" joysticks for 8-bit computers like Atari and Commodore. It has the D-pad too, but damned thing gets diagonals FAR too easily. All you need is to tilt your thumb a bit up while pressing left, and the hero on screen jumps straight onto a landmine instead of walking up to it to climb a near ladder.
Anagram("United States of America") == "Dine out, taste a Mac, fries"
Funny, mine is roughly 10 years old now and still works like a charm.
My guess is that you played a lot of Mario Party. I say that because the spinning motion required for a lot of minigames really wreaks havok on the analog stick. What happens is the light grey plastic that actually makes up the stick and base rubs against the outer housing, causing it to slowly be shaved away. Those shavings then get in the way and the "grit" makes the analog stick tough to use.
IIRC, the common remedy for that used to be some light scrubbing with a dry toothbrush. After a while, the plastic will wear down to the point where it no longer grinds and you won't have that issue anymore. Until then, just scrub it out every once in a while.
I'm not trying to imply that this wasn't a real honest design flaw... but in case you wanted to play your N64 without buying a new controller, the above advice should help.
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I'd rather be flamed than ignored.