The Five Most Curseworthy Video Game Controllers Ever

A good controller for a video game can often make or break the game experience. Even the hottest, most highly-reviewed, graphically awesome game can still suck big time if you have a crappy controller. This can be especially frustrating when it comes to online games, as certain games have controllers designed solely for them (fighting games like Super Street Fighter IV come to mind) that give a major advantage to those using them over the standard console controller.

In some cases, though, the accessory designers must have been sniffing glue (or some other intelligence-dampening material) that caused them to imagine that the crappiest idea for a game controller was brilliance. For your perusal then, I submit the five worst video game controllers I have ever had the misfortune of using.

5) Atari 5200 Controller - Atari 5200. This thing was cheaper than ice in Alaska. It looked a bit like an Intellivision controller, as it had a numeric pad, but suffered severely from quality issues. The joystick broke frequently, and despite the fact that the controller had a pause button (a new feature at the time), this controller really doomed the 5200. The controller alone made me wish I had never bought one of these systems.

4) The gun from Bass Pro Shops: The Hunt (Wii version). You'll wish the animals could shoot YOU in this horrid game in large part due to the witlessly designed gun that you have to cram (and I do mean cram) your Wiimote into. Aiming, zooming in, even MOVING become major challenges in this game due to calibration problems and button misplacement. If you want some real fun, get a real rifle and shoot this controller along with the game. If you spent any time at all playing it, you will find it immensely satisfying.

3) The Original Xbox controller - Xbox. Heftier than many boomerangs, this monstrous device was just way too big. Unless you can wrap your hand around a cantaloupe and leave no melon showing, this controller is not your size. Poor button placement and virtually useless expansion ports made this controller a complete failure.

2) Power Glove -NES. This amazingly weak predecessor to the Wiimote suffered from the fact that it only had two games designed for it (1) and the fact that it was far more laborious to use than a standard controller. The expense of the controller (it cost around $100 when originally released (2)) combined with almost non-existent game support make this controller a disaster.

1) Intellivision disc controller - Intellivison. Mattel attempted to devise a controller that would be all things for all people when they unleashed this game controller that looked sort of like a calculator/telephone. It had a numeric pad that you would slip game-specific, thin, plastic covers over that attempted to illustrate the control scheme for the particular game and a disc that you could press for directional movement.

There were many problems with this, including the tendency to lose the small plastic covers (thus rendering the game associated with it almost unplayable), as well as the general fragility of the controller. The worst problem, though, was the disc. Never have I experienced such a thumb-burning, pain-inducing instrument of torture as the directional disc. Playing a game that required even the slightest amount of movement was an exercise in masochism. My thumb would blister, swell, and ache so bad that I felt like the controller must have been made of flaming sandpaper.

Thankfully, aside from the gun in The Hunt video game, all these controllers have already been put out to pasture. Will Sony's Move controller system or Microsoft's Kinect join this dubious club? Only time will tell.

Sources:

1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_glove
2) http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/ivan/pglove/faq-0.1.html