For every groundbreaking video game controller that reaches the market, there are about a dozen really baffling controllers shoved into the world of retail in the pitiful hope that curious players and unaware parents will buy, say, a Power Glove before words spreads too far that said controller is a piece of junk. Cracked has taken a snarky look back at six of the most confusing, pointless, or just plain bizarre controllers that have been drop-kicked to stores over the years. Consider, for instance, the AlphaGrip AG-5 PC Gaming and Text Entry Controller. Note to self: need more fingers.
The AlphaGrip's idea of making things easier is by simplifying the keyboard and mouse that PC gamers are so used to, and cramming it all into one controller. While the average PC game controller has 12 to 15 buttons, the AlphaGrip makes things easier by having only 42. So it's like simplifying Shakespeare by translating it into Klingon. The 42-key design was to allow all 10 fingers to be in use at the same time. Apparently the makers felt that your pinky finger was getting left out of all the fun. The makers also couldn't think of 42 functions for the buttons so 6 of the buttons are SHIFT keys. There is a capital-shift, punctuation-shift and number-shift on both the left and right sides of the controller (don't worry, they didn't forget caps lock).
Other items on the list include the Sega Activator and the Atari Mindlink, a gizmo that allegedly allows players to control Atari 2600 games with the awesome power of the human brain eyebrows. One could consider all of these strange input devices successful in that someone somewhere convinced corporations to develop and produce these things, but maybe I'm just feeling charitable today.
