The 11 Most Groundbreaking Controllers of All Time
- June 15, 2006 23:45 PM PST
- Email this!
Game controllers. They're crucial to the success of a game console, representing the union between man and machine. When they fail, they tend to fail disastrously. But when they succeed, they can revolutionize the way we interact with computers. GamePro.com presents this elite selection of the most influential, revolutionary, and just downright groundbreaking video game controllers ever released. Does your favorite make the list?
Comment on this story in the GamePro community forum.
The Zapper
If only Time Crisis was around during the Duck Hunt days.
The Zapper shipped with the original Nintendo Entertainment System, bundled with seminal light-gun game Duck Hunt as its early companion. But it was games such as Hogan's Alley, Gumshoe, and Operation Wolf that helped to make it a success. Though the Zapper wasn't the only light gun to hit console systems, it was without a doubt the most successful, both commercially and culturally. And besides, had Nintendo never released the Zapper, we may never have seen the greatest light gun game of all time -- the classic arcade shooter Terminator 2: Judgment Day.
Dreamcast
YAEDXS (Yet Another Eerie Dreamcast/Xbox Similarity)
The Dreamcast, released in 1999, is almost as notable for its failures as its successes. Its Virtual Memory Unit, for instance, combined the functions of a memory card with a tiny LCD screen for mobile gaming. A neat idea in theory, the VMU proved to be problematic for Sega as shortages kept the device out of the hands of many players. Such is the legacy of the Dreamcast, a system with forward-thinking ideas that were squandered by sloppy execution.
One key Dreamcast feature, however, still lives on: its analog trigger buttons. The Dreamcast's pioneering triggers, which give the user a more tactile sense of control in genres like racing or shooting, were a distinctive innovation that other game manufacturers rushed to copy. Though the Dreamcast was discontinued in 2001, its ground-breaking analog triggers have since become an industry standard, with the Xbox, Xbox 360, GameCube, and now PlayStation 3 all using some variation on this control scheme.
