Retro Guide: A Look back at Popular Gaming Accessories

Today's games are just not as tough as they were back in the 1980s. Now you barely hear of a game that you or your friends just can't beat. Sure, now they have achievements, trophies, and online play to extend the games longevity, but when it comes to pure gameplay difficulty, retro games are just hands down more difficult. Just think of some of the games that came out during that time, like Gradius, Contra, Punch Out!, Ghosts and Goblins, Ninja Gaiden, and Battletoads. The list goes on and on. Those games have probably caused millions of dollars in window repairs over the years.

Since games were so hard back then, cheat codes and tip hotlines began springing up to help troubled gamers. It was a huge market.  The most popular items during that time however were special controllers that promised to give players the advantage over the difficult games. Instead of calling a hotline or reading a cheat book, the controllers could actually change how you played the games. No wonder gamers rushed to the store to buy them.  It may not be 1985 any more, but if you’re going to retro game, here’s the rundown on the controllers that were all the rage.



NES Advantage 1987

Made by Nintendo, the NES Advantage was an "arcade style joystick" that allowed gamers to skyrocket to the top of the high score list. It had a slick joystick that gave you more precision, but, more importantly, it featured the first Turbo and the Slow Motion buttons ever.

The turbo controls could be toggled on or off for the A and B buttons, and there was a button that allowed gamers to adjust the rate of the turbo (from "meh" to "wooo!'). Turbo was indispensable. The Slow Motion button, however, was less indispensable, since all it really did was pause the game every other second, allowing the action to slow down to a pace that was easier to manage. If you had a game that used a pause screen or some sort of menu pop-up, it would obstruct your view. We didn't need that feature anyway. We had Turbo.

When we would play using the NES Advantage we felt like gaming gods! Every videogamer wanted that incredible power in their hands, and as word spread among kids the thirst to find new controllers grew. The demand led to hundreds of similar controllers and accessories being released as fast as they could be made.
 
The NES Advantage was just the best out there. Other manufacturers, however, definitely wanted gamers to believe that their products would give a similar ADVANTAGE, but nothing released during the 1980s ever came close.



The Robotic Operating Buddy System (R.O.B) 1985

In 1985 nothing was cooler than robots. So, what could have been better than having a robot play by your side, huh? Everything. When Nintendo released R.O.B. The Robot, gamers thought he looked pretty cool, but soon found out that his help was limited to stacking blocks on top of the second controller. That slowly moved the characters onscreen. Not too much fun. On top of that, Nintendo only made two games designed for him: Stack-Up and Gyromite. They weren’t exactly the type of ass–kicking games anyone expected from a robot pal. R.O.B. turned out to be hardly a robot and, sadly, nothing close to a buddy. I have a feeling R.O.B. was mostly bought to quell the loneliness of latch-key kids.  "Hey Timmy, I bought this little robot to play videogames with you. Now, have fun! Mommy's going out with her new boyfriend." Sorry R.O.B. you were a DISADVANTAGE to families everywhere.



The Power Pad 1986

The Power Pad is one of those classic accessories that was way ahead of its time. The main idea of the Power Pad was for the player to run in place on an approximately 4 feet by 4 feet plastic surface, creating a "virtual-running" experience that moved your character along as fast as you could keep up the pace. Although the track was pretty flimsy and there were only a handful of games that were compatible with it, it was pretty fun and worked really well. More impressive however, is that you can see that Nintendo never let go of this concept and kept improving it with the released of the Wii Balance Board and Wii Fit last year. Back then it was just a fad, but now the same concept is a major portion of the gaming market. The Power Pad ended up giving the ADVANTAGE to Nintendo it terms of ingenuity.



The U-Force 1989
 
Why have to touch anything when you can just wave your hands in the air? Broderbund was another company ahead of it's time. They capitalized on that bold question by releasing The U-Force in 1989. The U-Force employed a pair of "perpendicular infrared sensor panels to translate the user's hand movements" into controller signals. Got it? Pretty great idea. Unfortunately, it wasn't well executed. The controller looked like a crappier version of the board game Battleship. You had to unfold it and input some codes depending on what game you wanted to play, and after all that work, the results were always hit or miss. The sensor fields were way too small. You had to punch and move your hands within an area the size of a small laptop. It didn’t give much of that "freedom of movement" feeling it was touting. In games like Punch-Out! (one you assumed The U-Force was targeted for), the gameplay was way too fast for the U-Force to handle. The precision of a normal controller was clearly the way to go.

After seeing some of the stuff revealed at this past E3 – like Microsoft’s Project Natal and Sony's new motion controller – it  is easy to see that Broderbund had a pretty revolutionary idea with the U-Force, albeit poorly executed. It was a DISADVANTAGE to gamers and to Broderbund for allowing their technology to be used by better companies.



Konami's LaserScope 1990

Even though robots were one of the coolest things ever to youthful gamers, there was only one thing that could make them cooler. Lasers! Yeah, every kid wanted a laser back in the day. So, why not come out with an accessory that incorporated lasers and a robot-like headset into the game!? That is just what Konami attempted in 1990 with The Konami LaserScope, a head-mounted light gun with a microphone and a crosshair that covered one eye. Of course, once you used the thing you realized it was less laser and more, well....lame-zer. HA! BAM!
 With the device firmly affixed to the players head, they merely had to aim at an object via the headset’s crosshair and shout "fire!" into the microphone to fire a shot at the onscreen object. Unfortunately, microphone technology was poor, so you could basically say anything and the controller would react. "Piss! Fart! Ass!" You could shoot down enemy ships saying "butthole" if you wanted. It didn't matter. All games that supported the NES Zapper supported the LaserScope, so no one wanted to use the clunky-looking LaserScope. It was a DISADVANTAGE to good fashion sense and good manners.

Yes, most of the accessories that came out then were pretty horrible. But, if not for the risks that manufacturers took with some of those accessories, gamers probably wouldn't have such cool stuff to play with today, like the Nintendo Wii, Sixaxis and Guitar Hero. Nintendo led the way with the success of the NES Advantage.  Many accessories tried to repeat its success, but few did.  Fortunately, the 1980s taught game manufacturers that glitz and gimmicks aren't what consumers want. They want fun, solid, and reliable games and controllers to play with.  But if we never had to stand on some crappy ball or strap a gun to our faces back then, we wouldn't be where we are now. Because of the lessons learned in the past, we are able to really enjoy some incredible accessories now.