[HEADING=1]Crazy Controllers through the Ages[/HEADING]
Wiimote, Move and Kinect may seem brave and bold, but the gaming industry actually has a long history of alternative controllers. Let's take a look at some of the options we have had through the ages.As you all may, or may not, know; the Move has been released this week, Kinect is just around the corner and the Wii takes one victory round after another. Now this may seem like a giant leap from the usual formula of game-controllers, but the truth is, the gaming industry has never been afraid to experiment with new controllers. Some of them were good - some of them were horrible, but one thing they had in common was: they never really made it that far.
[Img_Inline width="400" Caption="I just hope my head doesn't explode!" Align"Right"]http://www.411mania.com/siteimages/atari%20mindlink_50160.jpg[/Img_Inline][HEADING=2]Atari Mindlink (1984 - Never released)[/HEADING]Controlling consoles with motion? HAH, says Atari and laughs us straight in the face. In 1984 the Mindlink was in developement for the Atari 2600 letting players control games with their minds!. Well, actually, not really. The players were given a headband around their head and told to move their eye-brows and other face-muscles to move around and control, well, whatever it was they were controlling. These movements would be read by infrared sensors and transferred as movement in the game.
So what happened? Well first of all, the concept just did not work out the way Atari had planned it. The games did not respond, or work, and after a while the people playing started to complain about frequent headaches (due to the hard work of their face-muscles!)
Atari scrapped the idea, and it never saw the light of day again.
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[Img_Inline Width="300" Height="390" Caption="Domo Arigato Mr. Roboto!" Align="Left"]http://www.videogamecritic.net/images/nes/rob.jpg[/Img_Inline]
[HEADING=2]Nintendo R.O.B. (1985)[/HEADING]
Enter R.O.B. - Nintendos idea of a gaming companion. This little buddy was released in July, 1985, with two working games. Both the Robot series games include a test feature that sends an optical flash that should make R.O.B.'s LED light up. Gyromite [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gyromite] is a puzzle-platformer in which the character has to collect dynamite before the time runs out, with several red and blue pillars blocking his way. In Gyromite game A, the commands are made by pressing Start and then pushing the direction in which to move R.O.B., and using the A and B buttons to open and close his arms. If R.O.B. places a gyro on the red or blue button, it pushes the A or B button on the second NES controller, moving the pillar of the corresponding color. If both buttons need to be pressed at the same time, the gyros are placed in a spinner so that they will stay balanced on the button without R.O.B. holding it.
R.O.B is one of the weirdest pieces of equipment in gaming history. A small robot that moves around bricks as a part of the game, running on screen. However, R.O.B's gaming functionality was only secondary, and even though it did not sell as many copies as Nintendo would have liked, it managed to serve it's greater purpose; to convince American stores that the NES was a toy, and not a console. Following the big 'game-crash' in 1983 no stores would, understandably, touch the console market, but they willingly accepted R.O.B and the NES as toys, and as you know, the rest is history.
[hr][HEADING=2]Nintendo Power Glove (1989)[/HEADING][Img_Inline Width="350" Height="220" Caption="It looks badass, right?" Align="Right"]http://igargoyle.com/archives/powerglovead.jpg[/Img_Inline]
Forget everything you know about Wii, Move and Kinect. This baby was released in 1989 with full motion-sensing capability! Sure, it didn't work as intended, but we'll leave that for another time! The Nintendo Powerglove was exceptionally clumsy to use because of the traditional gamepad located on the underside of the players' arm. About 100.000 units were sold worldwide, which, even in 1989, weren't a whole lot.
Two games were released with the Powerglove being a controlling option, with two more announced but never hitting the market, however games without specific support could also be played with the glove by inputting codes on the glove's keypad that set a control scheme for the glove. Since no Powerglove-specific games ever retailed in Japan, the Power Glove was sold only as an alternative controller. This decision damaged sales and eventually caused PAX (the developer) to declare bankruptcy.
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[HEADING=2]The Nintendo Scope (1992)[/HEADING]
[Img_Inline Width="450" Height="240" Caption="Kapow!" Align=""]http://www.retroactive.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/Nintendo_scope.jpg[/Img_Inline]The light-gun for the NES was an obvious hit and especially the game 'Duck Hunt' has achieved and maintained almost an iconic status within the gaming industry. Following the big succes, of course the Super Nintendo was bound to have a light-gun as well. However, in this case, the designers went a little crazy and instead of buidling a pistol-shaped gun, they built a bazooka, 2.5 feet long.
Located about midway on top of the barrel are two buttons, the orange "Fire" button and the grey "Pause" button, and a switch used to turn the Super Scope off or select regular or turbo mode. In the middle on either side are two clips for attaching the sight. On the far end of the gun, on the bottom, is a six inch grip with another button labeled "Cursor".
Now this, in itself, wouldn't have been a problem had it not been too big and the weight unevenly distributed, causing tension-pain and sore arms when using it. 12 games supported the Super Scope, and It was taken off the market in 1995, but has since then managed to perform as an in-game weapon in the Super Smash Bros. series.
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[HEADING=2]Steel Battalion Big-Ass-Joystick (2002)[/HEADING]
[Img_Inline Width="350" Height="250" Caption="Now that's massive!" Align="Left"]http://i214.photobucket.com/albums/cc284/saburonoseigi/steel-battalion.jpg[/Img_Inline] Two joysticks, three pedals and just about... forty buttons. The Xbox-game Steel Battalion has, without a doubt, the honour of having the most developed controller, ever to be made. As a part of every mission, there was a startup-procedure involving ignition of your giant robots' many systems, one by one, with the buttons on the controller.
There was also a button for your robots catapult seat, for the situations where you were just about to die. Oh, and if you didn't manage to press the button before the robot exploded, the game would erase your save-game. Ouch. If a corner is turned too fast, the machine will tumble over. If the player's machine overheats, its operating system must be reset. The game even simulates window wipers in case of mud hitting the monitor.
By the way, there's a sequel on the way! Here, though, the massive controller has been scrapped in favor of Kinect. Let's see how that works out, eh?
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[HEADING=2]In Conclusion[/HEADING]
Now as you can see, there's a big leap in the years between the Nintendo Scope and Battalion Wars. This is not because no weird controllers were made during that period, but simply because this post is getting pretty long!So now that we've gotten these examples out of the way, what do you think of them? And how do you think the Move and Kinect will fare, now that the Wii has been out for many years and sold a bucket-load of units?
Will game-developers ever stop making weird and unsuccesfull controllers? Or have they learnt their lesson now?
Lastly;
Should you feel that I have missed out on an obvious item, please feel free to post it in a reply! I might even integrate it into the post, if you're lucky!
Thanks for reading!
