Top Ten worst video game controllers
By Craig Harris at IGN
http://ca.askmen.com/top_10/top_10/2_top_10.html
Number 10
5200 Controller
Though Nintendo didn't truly innovate with analog controllers out of the box, at least the company got it right. Atari's attempt two decades prior was just unbelievably weak -- the company created an analog joystick that didn't even center itself when released, and its engineers used material for its buttons that seemed to deteriorate at room temperature.
And the games were challenging, but not in a good sense -- with this thing, trying to get Pitfall Harry to jump over a gap was just as difficult as trying to stop him from running to the right.
Number 9
Turbo Touch 360
Dear Control Engineers:
Please don't remove the D-pad on a controller in favor of a touch-sensitive surface. You may try to con fighting gamers into thinking it'll make smooth circular motions easier, but you may not realize they like to rest their thumb on the pad when idle. Thanks.
Your pal,
Craig
Number 8
U-Force
What looks like a laptop when folded and a Death Star access panel when open? One of the most ridiculous third-party controllers ever conceived, that’s what. Infrared beams shot out of this unit's surface and tried to interpret hand motions as controller movements, but did it work? Know anyone who owned this thing? There you go.
Number 7
Power Glove
One of the history’s stupidest controllers is also considered one of the most classic simply due to the brilliant marketing practice known as "product placement." The Wizard, starring Fred Savage, was a 90-minute Nintendo commercial for Mattel's Power Glove and Super Mario Bros. 3, even going so far as to use both items in the movie trailer. So even if you didn't pay your six bucks for a movie ticket, you were still assaulted with the branding. Oh, and you won't look as cool as an ‘80s Nintendo wizard when you strap it on, so don't bother.
Number 6
TI-99 Joystick
Computers in the ‘80s weren't meant for the gaming market, but let's be realistic: That's all we really used those things for anyway. Texas Instruments' TI-99, a computer with an optional disk drive twice as massive, jumped on the gaming market early on with a bunch of classic games like, uh… M*A*S*H, and, uh… some Pac-Man clone.
Anyway, you had the choice of controlling these games with either: a) the keyboard or; b) one of the crappiest, most unresponsive, piece-of-junk joysticks ever produced. But hey, there were two of them!
Number 5
Philips CDi Game Controller
Philips certainly had its heart in the right place -- it just didn't have any brains. The Philips CDi was a dead-on-arrival, straight-to-infomercial multimedia system with a huge focus on games. But with a really retarded set of remote controller designs, from the sluggish and wildly inaccurate analog unit to a digital pad that looked more like a crack pipe than a controller, these guys really knew how to woo the gaming public. But at least the system had Zelda!
Number 4
Intellivision Disk
Look, we understand that many system designers were shooting in the dark during the early days of video games. As for the Intellivision Disk, I'm sure that a handheld controller that looked like a touch-tone phone seemed like "Space Age Technology," and that offering the “Disk” with more directional points than an 8-way controller seemed like it a gamer's dream, but good luck figuring out if you're pressing left or just slight up and left. And controller overlays? Work of the devil.
Number 3
Sega Activator
Didn't the U-Force teach us that invisible infrared beams are the absolute worst way of controlling your games? This octagon from Sega promised players who stood in the middle a new way of fighting in titles like Eternal Champion. But it just ended up making 8-year-olds look like they were having convulsions.
Number 2
Xbox Fat
I may be able to palm a bowling ball, but even I couldn't comfortably or effectively wrap my mitts around Microsoft's original monstrosity. This gargantuan thing was clearly made for the Rock Biter from The NeverEnding Story. What a shame the Nothing took him away.
Number 1
Jaguar Controller
Maybe Atari was doomed even before the Jaguar was ever conceived, but its idea of a controller definitely didn't help. Not only did the company bring back the unnecessary phone keypad-with-overlays theme of the early ‘80s, Atari also created a three-action button device in a world of Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat -- a genre that the company was trying to woo over to its 64-bit system. On top of this, the company utilized a VGA plug for its controller ports, and the controller plugs simply fell out if a mouse farted somewhere in the house.
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