We all love joysticks, buttons, Steering wheels, pedals, spinners and trackballs. And we probably disagree on which joystick or button style or size trackball is the best.
But the arcade industry has also given us some really unique and innovative controllers over the decades. And many of them required some very specific physical behavior and muscle memory to be good at their games.
So what controllers really stand out to you, either for the industrial design and feel of the device, and/or for the physical movements you had to do to use.
A few of my favorites are:
Lunar Lander throttle - beautiful, amazing feel, totally unique
Basketball Champ's hand grip - simple mechanical lever that you had to squeeze at just the right pace and in the right time window to make a basket.
Open The Safe's combination lock dial - This game's being talked about in another thread these days, and it's the grandparent of so many other activities that are not at all obvious games (like Tapper)
Tapper's tapper - This could have been a button, but the controller made the game (and made it more accurate to the job of bar tending).
All of the music games - Anything that plays a guitar or drums or where you do record scratching... Totally different coordination and attracted so many people who don't like most video games. I'm mostly thinking of Rock Band on consoles, but I know there were some arcade games like this, too.
I think honorable mentions can go to things like force feedback for steering wheels or mounting the Q*bert joystick diagonally, but they don't get my vote for this Controller Hall of Fame.
What else should be in it?
But the arcade industry has also given us some really unique and innovative controllers over the decades. And many of them required some very specific physical behavior and muscle memory to be good at their games.
So what controllers really stand out to you, either for the industrial design and feel of the device, and/or for the physical movements you had to do to use.
A few of my favorites are:
Lunar Lander throttle - beautiful, amazing feel, totally unique
Basketball Champ's hand grip - simple mechanical lever that you had to squeeze at just the right pace and in the right time window to make a basket.
Open The Safe's combination lock dial - This game's being talked about in another thread these days, and it's the grandparent of so many other activities that are not at all obvious games (like Tapper)
Tapper's tapper - This could have been a button, but the controller made the game (and made it more accurate to the job of bar tending).
All of the music games - Anything that plays a guitar or drums or where you do record scratching... Totally different coordination and attracted so many people who don't like most video games. I'm mostly thinking of Rock Band on consoles, but I know there were some arcade games like this, too.
I think honorable mentions can go to things like force feedback for steering wheels or mounting the Q*bert joystick diagonally, but they don't get my vote for this Controller Hall of Fame.
What else should be in it?



