It's that time of year again, a time when Defunct Games celebrates the holidays by posting a daily theme article that should inform and delight gamers all over the world. This year we're taking a look at 29 of the best known video game controls of all time, from the Nintendo Entertainment System to the Nintendo Wii remote. We're going to review each and every one of them, and then give you a short haiku. Join us as we celebrate this joyous season with the 29 Controls of Christmas!
There was a lot of set-up involved with the Power Glove ... none of it was actually worth it, though!
Today we go from the Power Pad to the Power Glove. While neither was a major success, one was definitely a failure. On paper the Power Glove sounded like the coolest thing in the world, you strapped it on and suddenly you were controlling your favorite games by waving your hand, making a fist and twiddling your fingers. Its cool factor was only increased when we saw how easy it was to use in the 1989 advertisement ... er, movie, The Wizard. Unfortunately none of this was true. The Power Glove was nearly impossible to use, even when playing games that were specifically designed for the glove accessory (such as Super Glove Ball). Clearly Galoob realized that the Power Glove was hard to use, because they actually added a D-pad control to the glove just so people could control their games. Not that this helped any, it's even harder to play games using one hand.
The Style:
The Power Glove did succeed in one thing, it looked like a glove. And in the late 1980s it looked like the coolest glove around. It was full of plastic parts, buttons and wires connecting everything together. In other words, it was everything a young boy could ask for. It was impossible not to look at the glove and think of all the cool things you could do with it. Unfortunately, the Power Glove didn't do even one of those cool things you envisioned.
What the 11 Year Old Me Would Say:
OH MY GOD!! Now this is the next level of video games. I'm going to be able to just swing my arm around and have perfect control over my characters. This is going to make my life so much better. And it looks
Yeah, I think I'm going to take child's play!
so cool; I don't think I've ever seen a glove with so many awesome buttons and things. This is the coolest thing of all time. So let me just try this on and check out Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!! ... that seems like the perfect game for video game glove. Wait, you don't control this by punching? I'm supposed to flex my fingers to punch? And I have to dial all this in every time I want to play a game? Oh who came up with this? Mom, I think this thing is broke, can we go back to the store and return it? There's got to be one that works properly, right?
What I Would Say Now:
Sadly, my opinion of the Power Glove hasn't changed much since I was a kid. I couldn't believe how disappointed I was with this "revolutionary" new way to control games. To this day I'm not quite over my disappointment of the Power Glove, every time a company announces something that sounds too good to be true, my first instinct is to believe that it's going to suck. Even if it's a good idea that ultimately impresses the world, there's a part of me that is ready to be disappointed. When Nintendo first announced their motion controls, the first thing I could think of was the Power Glove. I worried that this would be just another utter failure that had me flailing my arms around for no good reason. And while that's true with a lot of Wii software, there's definitely a game or two that proves that Nintendo was better at the whole motion thing than Galoob.
The Power Glove Haiku:
Wave my hands around.
The Wizard made it look cool.
The Wizard was wrong.
