If you have played video games long enough you have had the distinct pleasure of wrapping your hands around a crappy controller. More often than not these are aftermarket”player-two” controllers that you keep around for your little brother/sister to use, or when you have friends come over for some local multiplayer fun. But what happens when that terrible controller is an official product? What happens when the controller bundles with the system is so bad that you are forced to find a cheap aftermarket unit (if a company even decides to make one) just to be able to play the game?
This list is going to cover ten of the worst controllers in video game history. While there will be aftermarket controllers on this list, we are going to try to stick with official controllers from the company that made the system. Exceptions will have to be made when a special controller is required to take advantage of a specific game or series, or is just so mind-boggling that it can’t be ignored. This list is in no particular order, so just read it and enjoy ten of the worst video game controllers in history.
#10 – Philips CD-i Controller
We are starting this list off with a bang! What you are looking at above isn’t the controller to a Craftmatic Adjustable Bed, but is in fact the main control method for the Philips CD-i system. And before you start thinking that this is some offbeat attempt by a random company to get into the early 90’s gaming market (it sort of was), this controller and system were birthed from a failed partnership with Nintendo. Can you imagine playing a Mario or Zelda game with that thing? Well, you don’t have to because you can actually play a Mario game as well as THREE Zelda titles. Ugh…
#9 – Atari Jaguar Controller
There is a full number pad on the controller for the Atari Jaguar so that when you realized you just bought an Atari Jaguar, you could dial Atari from your controller to demand a refund. Just look at the thing up there. It doesn’t just look like a missive hunk of plastic, but is in fact a large hunk of worthless plastic. This controller showed that when the SNES and Sega Genesis controllers were the standard, Atari was still thinking back to their failed 5200. There are more buttons on this thing than there are on modern controllers. The only difference is that the few games that came out for the Jaguar hardly ever utilized the number pad. And god be with you if you lost the overlays that clipped onto the pad, because in the days before the internet you’d be shit out of luck in finding a replacement.
#8 – The Sega Activator
Before the Kinect was the unmitigated failure that it is on two separate Microsoft systems, Sega was showing how terrible the idea of motion controls were back in the early 90’s. It was like the wild west of the video games back in the 90’s, a time where even console manufactures were making insanely stupid products for their already great systems. The activator didn’t do anything new, instead it used infrared technology (an already terrible form of communication) to mimic the inputs of the Genesis controller. The idea was that you would move your arm or leg over a part of the Activator and break the invisible beam. That break would then translate to a button press and the game would react. The only problem was that it almost never worked and instead of looking like the guy in the cool martial arts poses above, you looked like an octopus that was constantly being stabbed with a cattle prod.
#7 – Intellivision Disk Controller
The early days of video games were a much different time. Companies didn’t quite yet know what to make of this new market and didn’t have a defined layout for how controllers should be. The Atari 2600 nailed it thanks to building a controller that mimicked the controls of an arcade machine, but was limited with only one button. Enter Intellivision and their Intellivision disk controller. I’m not really sure why so many companies went with the numeric keypad approach, I can only guess that telephone touch pads were easy for people to understand, but that’s not what really makes this a bad controller. You see, the most important thing about playing a video game is being able to control a video game and the Intellivision disk controller was terrible at doing just that. The disk itself is slightly recessed into the controller limiting your range of freedom and motion, but the damn thing would also pinch your thumb something fierce on a regular basis. You also had to hold the thing in a vertical position so it felt less like playing a video game and more like climbing up a rope.
#6 – Turbo Touch 360
Remember a when I said that the disk controller on the Intellivision was a terrible idea? Well, it looks like a company came about years down the line, multiple generations later, that took that design idea and updated it for the on the go, radically inclined, the future is now, world of the early 90’s. What we got was the terrible Turbo Touch 360 controller that saw a release on the SNES and Genesis. It’s not that this thing didn’t work (it did), but the design was so dumb that gamers hated the thing; yet almost everyone I knew and met had at least one of these things in there bundle of secondary controllers. The magic of the directional pad was in the precision that you could get when pressing down on the pad. With the Turbo Touch 360 you had nothing to press and so your character would sort of go in the general direction of where you slid you thumb. Oh, and good luck trying to play a fighting game on this thing.
#5 – Nokia N-Gage
Just look at that thing and tell me you’d be happy playing a game with it for anything longer than thirty-seconds. The N-Gage was mess from every aspect, but for this list we are going to talk about the terrible built-in controller that more resembles a phone (because it is) than a video game controller. The directional pad was mushy and made tight controls all but a pipe dream, but the bigger problem was the physical buttons. The buttons on the N-Gage have no space between them so you can expect to hit multiple buttons at once and like the directional pad, the had a penchant for sticking making playing video games a chore. Side note: The N-Gage also sucked as a phone too.
#4 The iGrip
When a controller requires you earn a Maters Degree just to begin to understand how to use it, you know you have a problem. Controllers should be easy to use and make the experience of playing games a fun adventure. The iGrip is just a PC keyboard smashed into a console type controller and intended to get you away from the keyboard and onto the couch. Look, as a PC gamer I’m already a lazy bastard, but never have I thought that something like the iGrip would be a good idea. Just plug in a wireless gamepad and call it a day, becuase nobody wants that monstrous controller sitting on their desk.
#3 The Playstation Move
The following is what I imagine was said during a corporate meeting at Sony regarding the Wii.
Lackey 1: “The Wii controller is cute, but it’s nothing more than a kids toy.”
Lackey 2: “Hear, hear! We are about hardcore games and Nintendo poses no threat to our dominance in the market.”
Lackey 1″ “We will never get into the motion control racket.”
(Phone call comes in with console sales numbers)
Lackey 1: “Selling gangbusters you say… Printing money you say… Losing market share you say…”
Lackey 1:” Boys, we are now in the motion control business! Throw in that camera thing we make just for the hell of it too. Also, lets make the think look like a child’s lollipop!”
#2 Atari 5200 Controller
A forgotten controller that went along with a forgotten video game console. The Atari 5200 controller was simply overkill on a fronts. You have to remember that games had barely advanced beyond the Atari 2600 (it was still selling when the 5200 dropped) and that console only had a single button. The 5200 controller has 12 number buttons, 4 side buttons, and 3 top buttons. That’s 19 buttons all so you could play Pole Position or Ms. Pacman! On top of that the controller was known to fail by the dozens and the joystick wouldn’t align itself so playing games was a nightmare.
Honorable Mention: Spider-Man Plug-and-Play Game
That’s just a dick; A spider-dick. You play all the games that are built into this things by throttling around a spider-shaft. Gross.
#1 The Xbox Duke Controller
The original Xbox was a major player int he video game market the second it launched in the United States. While the Xbox was basically a computer with some controller inputs, it did manage to pave the way for some impressive games and future consoles. Unfortunately, as with any first time outing, Microsoft dropped the ball with regards of who they were marketing their console for. I’m sure they figured the Xbox would be an adult system so they created the Duke controller to hit that adult hand size market. The problem was that the controller was ungodly in size and near everyone hated it. It also featured the classic black and white buttons at the top of the pad where you wouldn’t be able to reach them. It was a monster and kids just couldn’t get their small hands around the thing, let alone most adults. Microsoft quickly realized their mistake and releases the standard controller to much applause and the rest is history.
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