The controls are a crucial part of any video game. A game's no fun if you can't figure out what to do and when to do it.
That said, the argument over what kind of controllers a game should have has been...ongoing, to say the least. So we thought we'd collect the weirdest controllers we could find and see just how far we've come, or not, in our ideas of what a human being is willing to pick up, strap to themselves, climb into, or otherwise completely humiliate themselves in order to shoot zombies in the face.
Needless to say, we haven't actually come that far.
This was released with "Resident Evil 4." Impossible to use, but hey, it looked neat!
Yes, that is a grown man inside a giant plastic hamster ball. Yes, they actually tried to market this to civilians.
No roundup of weird controllers is complete without "Steel Battalion", the only game that required you to properly boot the controller to actually play.
Somebody discovered Fimo!
We don't know. We don't want to.
And now, to remove any actual benefit from playing DDR, here's the palmtop controller!
This came with an "Onimusha" game. We're sure the form factor helped.
Yep, that's a fishing controller. Sega made it for their bass fishing games. It's one of the few controllers on here that's genuinely effective for the game it's paired with, actually. Still funny-looking, though.
The idea behind this one was to play racing games by twisting the controller. Namco still blames no "Gran Turismo" support for this failing. Yeah, guys, we're not sure that's really the problem here.
Be a PC gamepad, or a console controller, but...don't try to be both
All we know about this beast is that whoever made it wanted $2800 for it.
This is actually sold to people as a way to more easily play Flash games. We guess sacrificing your dignity for a high score at work is worth it.
Remember the Wu-Tang fighting game? This is the controller that came with it. More memorable than the game, really.
Oh, Nintendo...
Yes, that's a Wii bowling ball. Some people take Wii Bowling very seriously.
Finally, a custom controller for all those train simulators. No, this isn't a professional educational aid: it's designed to go with train simulators. That people play for fun. Really.
To be fair to Logitech, they never intended this to be a game controller. That didn't stop people from trying, and failing, to use it as a gamepad.
Because the N64 controller just didn't have a weird enough form factor.
Well, at least you won't miss the buttons.
Hinged. For his pleasure.
![[avatar]](http://p.uproxxcdn.com/photo/569/thumb)
![[image]](http://cdn.uproxx.com/wp-content/thumbnails/130/110/2013/05/gammasquadpikmin3-150x150.jpg)
![[image]](http://cdn.uproxx.com/wp-content/thumbnails/130/110/2013/05/capcoms-new-challenger-tobias-funke-uproxx-150x150.jpg)
![[image]](http://cdn.uproxx.com/wp-content/thumbnails/130/110/2013/05/gammasquadlegobatmanmovie-150x150.jpg)
![[image]](http://cdn.uproxx.com/wp-content/thumbnails/130/110/2013/05/batman-arkham-origins-gets-a-trailer-for-its-trailer-uproxx1-150x150.jpg)
The Super Pad 64 Plus controller was awesome. I had two of them, it made accessing all the buttons at once pretty easy, and was slightly smaller than an official N64 controller. Overall it was much simpler than the official N64 controllers.
#11, the Nostromo, was actually pretty useful for some PC games. Super configurable and a lot easier to use than it looks in the picture.
Number 6 reminds me of the speed control know to my pachinko machine – wouldn’t be surprised if this was a controller for pachinko games.
[www.toysnjoys.com]
Some forgot the ascii gamecube controller
Thought the Samba de Amigo maracas for dreamcast would be on here.
[di1-4.shoppingshadow.com]
how could they forget that damn dreamcast!!???
I had a PC version of the Super Pad 64 Plus it was navy blue and it was the first controller I had that had an analog stick. It was easier to switch between d-pad and analog stick on that than with the three pronged approach the N64 controller had.
Also they still sell pads like that since having a larger grip on the left makes it easier to press the buttons on the right arcade style. Here’s an example: [www.engadget.com]
Also I since my only exposure to the Super Pad 64 Plus was of a PC clone of it I had no idea they made an N64 version of it. I simply believed it was for PC and they designed it that way to be different from the official N64 controller while still offering the same features.
Although the PC version also included a throttle slider on it as an additional feature.
I never liked the Nintendo 64 controller. I hated the fact that it had 3 handlebars despite the face that most of their non-mutant customers had only 2 hands.
A friend of mine had the Wu-Tang game. We tried for weeks and could not beat it. Finally took the disc into his front yard and burned it. Sweet controller tho. Oh yeah, did anyone actually buy Steel Batallion?!?
I registered solely to say that #11, the Nostromo n52, is the best PC controller I have used for the PC across all games genre. I have been using it for over 5 years and would marry the thing if it was legal. D-pad makes a world of a difference for movement, freeing the 4 other fingers to mash fully programmable, macroable (with repeat functions) keys. It beats the ordinary WASD-like gampads and gaming keyboards hands down.