I enjoy a good gaming peripheral as much as the next guy; anything that can significantly impact my virtual experience in a positive manner is always welcome. As it just so happens, many companies view the gaming peripheral as a cheap and easy way to exploit us gamers, and therefore we have a market flooded with worthless, awful, and often times ridiculous junk. It's true that if you venture to wade through the shit, you will eventually stumble upon something worthwhile -- a carefully designed, well thought-out, useful addition to your gaming armory; that is not the focus of this article. As I tend not to be a list guy there is no particular order to this chaos, but I'll be damned if the fifth and final isn't one of the worst real gaming products to disgrace our beloved hobby. Read on to see five of the most ridiculous gaming peripherals I've ever witnessed in my tender years of existence.
1. R.O.B. (Robotic Operating Buddy)
R.O.B. may be kind of cute if you're into robots and movies like Short Circuit, but as a gaming peripheral he is utterly and completely useless. Originally born in Japan in 1985 as the Famicom Robot, the little guy immigrated to the land of opportunity later that year in hopes of achieving the American Dream. In the immigration process they botched his name, and somehow Famicom Robot became R.O.B.. Unfortunately the only work he could find was for Gyromite and Stack-Up, two NES games that just couldn't pay the bills. Try as he might, our intrepid little robot wasn't capable of stacking enough blocks or collecting enough dynamite to continue to live in this tough world of ours. In a smart move, R.O.B. retired to the virtual world, where he achieved minor fame in titles such as Mario Kart DS and Super Smash Bros. Brawl.
2. The Konami LaserScope
The Konami manufactured LaserScope was created specifically for their game Laser Invasion, released on the NES in 1991. However, as it is essentially a head-mounted light gun, it could also be used for any NES Zapper compatible title. So where does the difference lie other than in the fact that it goes on your head and screams "mental patient" to the world? Well, in order to shoot, you are instructed to yell "Fire!", effectively making you sound like a mental patient as well. Seeing that in reality you could yell anything you wanted to discharge the weapon, the LaserScope offered the rare opportunity for those with Tourette's to use their neuropsychiatric disorder to their advantage. Around the mid-90's modded LaserScope gangs were formed, each group headed by an elite Tourette's marksman. Gang-on-gang violence transpired on a regular basis, finally leading up to the great Scope-Off of '98. The end of the battle found the previously fragmented gangs unified under one man's rule -- the ungainly extremist Dr. J.K. Herkins. Contrary to popular history, it was under his rule that the syndicate effectively brought about the downfall of the economic boom known as the Dot-Com era, and the crisis that followed.
Ahem...okay so everything following the bit about any voice command firing the LaserScope is more than likely 100% false. Nonetheless, the head-gun's downfall was due to that specific problem -- any background noise would set the gun firing. This alone was (surprisingly) the primary cause for negative reception. Personally I would've thought the fact that you look like an idiot had something to do with it.
3. The SOM (NSFW)
So this thing might not be cheaply-made or poorly designed (we will know for sure when JMZ receives his review copy), but it certainly is ridiculous. Developer Overflow has synchronized this little piece of robo love to be compatible with its erotic game Cross Days, where is will move in real time to correspond with on-screen motions during climax scenes. Call me old fashioned, but I just don't see how it could be better than a regular old visit to Mrs. Palmer and her five daughters, but I leave that decision in JMZs capable hands.
4. The Power Glove
While although quite ridiculous and chock-full of fail, according to some the Power Glove released in 1989 laid the foundation for the Nintendo Wii console and remote. At any rate, this geek glove rocks an original NES controller on the back -- complete with nine programmable buttons -- and the glove itself has finger flex measurement and hand position tracking technology built in. So with all that awesome tech, how did the Power Glove fail? Well overall it was a very imprecise method of input, and considering that is a controllers primary function, you can easily begin to see why it flopped. Combining that with the fact that only two games specifically developed for it were ever released really gives you the entirety of the fail. However, in order to fully appreciate the ridiculousness of it I think this TV ad is a necessity.
5. The Sega Activator
Conceptually the Sega Activator isn't overly stupid -- I could understand if a company were to explore their options upon hearing the idea pitched in a meeting. However after the creation of the prototype of this octagonal, infrared emitting, motion-reading monstrosity, somebody really should've spoken up. Much like the Power Glove, it just didn't perform well as a method of input, and only a few games were designed be be used with it, hence it's commercial failure. On top of all that, the Activator training video is beyond ridiculous. Here's some free advice to all you companies out there making gaming peripherals: if your training video leaves the viewer feeling so ashamed that their intestines no longer desire to remain on the inside, then you have not created a successful product.
There you have it my friends, the five most ridiculous gaming peripherals I've ever seen created. If you've witnessed something more ridiculous, by all means, please post it up in the comments sections. However I must confess that I can't see how anything could top that god-awful Activator.
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The Power Glow is definitely ridiculous.
I dunno that it was awesome - it was neat when I got it. But the thrill was gone pretty quickly.
I think it's in the attic at my parent's place, along with my Ataris and other such treasures.
Oh, there are so many worthless peripherals out there... How about the Quickshot one-handed controller for the NES? The "Game Glove" for the Playstation and Nintendo 64 (it's hard to find a picture of, but I have one) that mapped analog movement to your wrist? The Victormaxx Stuntmaster, the most horrible VR helmet/controller ever for the SNES and Genesis?
I mean, every "bad peripherals" list has the Power Glove, R.O.B., and the Activator: Games Radar has done it all before. Someone should do a list on the most worthless knockoff controllers ever released (anything by the company Interact -- they once sold me a Playstation flight yoke that was missing an axis!), that would be original.
Super Glove Ball was freaking amazing.
I loved my power glove, but I'll admit it. it definitely sucked to play some game formats with it....side scrolling adventure games were TERRIBLE with that thing.
On another note...way to base an article on wikipedia entries.
Owen, I was actually mocking the two who mentioned the U-Force 15 minutes apart.
i have scars on my left hand from those 64 controllers, they must have made the joysticks out of gravel and broken glass
This reminds me of that summer when I became The Wizard with the help of my brother Fred Savage...Good times!
The Power Glove was freaking awesome! I also liked this pad you'd put on your hand so that when you played Mario Party and had to rotate the joystick in circles, you wouldn't make your hand bleed. Thank gosh they made that, but I guess designing the game so it wasn't necessary would have been smarter.
Thanks for reading everyone! Yeah the U-Force is definitely worthy of this list -- good call LNR, Rayvell, and Dread. As for Steel Battalion, I remember when the news of that first came out, and even THEN I was wondering who the hell would pay that much for a super elaborate controller. Another good call by Bryce -- a ridiculous peripheral at a ridiculous price.
-O
Anybody mention the U-Force yet?
An electronic hand job. Meh...I don't think so.
R.O.B. was actually designed to fail. Nintendo knew they had a hot item, and wanted to get it into the United States, but the US market would have absolutely nothing to do with the famicom after the video game crash of 1982 (Remember this was proposed only 2 years after practically every arcade business went under along with Atari being totally hobbled). Thus, Nintendo of America proposed that the Japanese developers change the image of the Famicom to better suit the US.
Nintendo changed the name from Famicom to the "Nintendo Entertainment System", emphasizing this wasn't a "game computer", but an entertainment dock. They then created ROB to emphasize to toy stores in America, "Hey look, this isn't a video game, it's an entertainment system for kids AND it comes with a robot".
Toy companies cautiously bought into it. ROB was dropped within the first year after the NES caught on and the system was allowed to be sold as a video game system exclusively as sales passed 1 million units. Nintendo continued to bundle a game with it to entice gamers to purchase the NES throughout its lifespan.
Biblio
The Ultimate History of Video Games: From Pong to Pokemon--The Story Behind the Craze That Touched Our Lives and Changed the World
-steven l kent
You forgot to mention the Nintendo U-Force.
You forgot about the NES UForce!
http://www.nesretro.com/hardware/UForceAd.jpg
Steel battailion had a giant 200$ controller, 50+ buttons switches, 2 joysticks and a switch for windshield wipers, cuz it rained in 1 mission probobly awesome game, but a 50lbs controller that costs as much as a wii is a bad idea
Strange how I dont remember any of these items! Anyway, a good read which I will share with the members of my European Video gaming league website.
Very funny, though wildly disrespectful.
-JK 'The Incredible Herk' Herkins
TotalComments: 17
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