18 Of The Worst Video Game Accessories Ever Released

18 Of The Worst Video Game Accessories Ever Created

R.O.B. was Nintendo’s attempt at putting Johnny 5 inside every NES owners home way back in 1985. R.O.B. attached to your NES and received instructions from your TV in the form of light flashes, with six commands that could be executed.

Unfortunately, R.O.B. was complete failure that never took off for a variety of reasons. Firstly, R.O.B. only worked on certain CRT televisions. Secondly it could only be used with two games, Gyromite and Stack-Up, that’s it. The third and final reason for the failure of R.O.B. is that it is about as fun as watching paint dry.

This octagon-shaped add-on was Sega’s attempt at full-body mapping when the technology simply wasn’t available. Activator was laid on the ground, with the player stood in the centre. The device was supposed to read your actions using infrared lasers. When the lasers were broken with body movement, it would correspond to actions in the game.

The reality is that the movement didn’t really work very well and the Activator failed badly. It made games that requires quick reactions far harder to play than a typical game-pad.

Not only was the Activator a badly designed piece of kit, it was also very expensive, setting you back $80 dollars when it was released in 1993.

The Super Scope was Nintendo’s bazooka-shaped light gun that was released in 1992. At just under two feet long it was a fairly large device and seemed incredibly unnecessary, especially when the handgun-sized NES Zapper worked so well.

However it wasn’t just size that was a problem, the Super Scope would eat through six AA batteries in about four hours and could only be used on CRT TV sets. Not to mention the shoulder ache you would get from using it.

Even with all these issues, it was the paltry list of games supporting the Super Scope that doomed it to obscurity.

The Nintendo Power Glove was released in 1989. While it may have been a huge critical and commercial failure, nostalgia for the device is still strong.

The glove itself featured all the buttons you would find on a NES gamepad as well as a few others. The main draw however was how it uses special speakers and sensors to keep track of the players hand position, though not particularly well.

Only two games were released with the power glove specifically in mind. Super Glove Ball and Bad Street Brawler, both of which could be played with a standard NES controller.

The Power Glove is probably best remembered for its central role in the Nintendo produced movie ‘The Wizard’, where it is pulled from its box like a holy relic. If you haven’t seen it…you’re missing out!

The Atari 2600 used a lightweight joystick that people could easily pick-up and hold comfortably in their hands. However, some bright spark decided that comfortable and lightweight were not what gamers wanted.

They decided that a 1.5 kg slab of wood with your joystick placed inside it was what gamers were truly after. Needless to say the Stick Station was a massive failure, it was also far too expensive for just a piece of wood.

The idea of converting your Game Gear into a TV seems like a fairly sound one, however, it just never really worked on various different levels.

For starters, you simply couldn’t watch TV on your Game Gear unless it was plugged into the wall. If you tried to watch TV using batteries you would be lucky to get to the first commercial break. It simply ate through batteries far too quickly.

Another issue with the Game Gear TV Tuner is that the world has switched from analogue to digital. This makes the system even more useless. While it may have not been a bad idea, the TV Tuner just never really worked as it should have.

The Roll & Rocker is a NES peripheral that should have never even got to the design phase. This plastic board acted as the D-pad. Stand on the left to move left, right to move right….you get the drift.

However, you also had to plugin a controller for the A and B buttons. Therefore you had a D-pad in your hands as well as at your feet.

Whoever signed this idea off should have been fired on the spot. It’s possibly the most useless peripheral you could ever come up with. What’s worse, it didn’t even work very well!

The Game Boy Camera was a digital camera that attached to your Game Boy. If you wanted grainy photos that were massively pixilated then it was the perfect add-on.

However, in 1998 when the Game Boy Camera was released, long before camera phones, this was a pretty cool idea. Unfortunately the technology just wasn’t there at the time.

Strangely it seems as if their were actually some fans of the Game Boy Camera, singer Neil Young being one of them. Neil used the Game Boy Camera for his 2000 album cover, ‘Silver & Gold’.

The DK Bongos are a controller for the Nintendo GameCube that was designed by Namco Bandai.

The controller was designed with Donkey Kong in mind and only compatible with four Donkey Kong games. Other games were planned to embrace the DK Bongos, however for one reason or another no other games ever came and the DK Bongos were left collecting dust.

The monstorous Steel Battalion Controller was made for the original Xbox game, Steel Battalion. The game saw the user take control of a massive mech using the Steel Battalion Controller equipped with over 40 buttons.

What made the Steel Batallion Controller a trully awful purchase wasn’t the the build or design (which is fairly decent). It was the astronomical price and the fact it worked with only two games!

That’s right, it couldn’t be used across all games. The device could only be used with Steel Battalion and its poor selling sequel.

The Komani LaserScope was released on the NES in 1990, it is essentially a head-mounted light-gun with built-in microphone and cross-hair that covers one eye.

Shouting ‘fire’ while pointing the cross-hair at the TV was supposed to allow you to shoot at enemies on screen. However it soon transpired that you could literally say anything and the gun would go off.

The Namco NeGcon is a third-party controller for the original PlayStation. The controller was designed with driving games in mind. It was supposed to revolutionise the genre, however, it actually did the opposite.

The NeGcon worked by the user twisting the controller to steer, with the central swivel joint recreating the feel of turning a steering wheel. This was supposed to give the user a more life-like driving experience than simply pressing a button.

Unfortunately though, the swivel joint was badly engineered and the fact that it had less buttons that the official PlayStation controller meant many games couldn’t be played properly while using it.

Long before teenage girls were playing Dance Dance Revolution, the Nintendo Power Pad was the floor-based control pad of choice.

The Nintendo Power Pad worked by applying pressure to sensors placed between two layers of plastic. When pressure was applied to a button it would action a movement in the game.

Unfortunately the Nintendo Power Pad only worked with one game, World Class Track Meet. What’s worse, people soon found out that the mat could be exploited by using your hands.

The e-Reader is a card reading device for the Game Boy Advance that allowed you to add content to specific games with cards that had special digital codes. It also allowed you to play a handful of NES games, using the cards code to upload them.

While this may seem like a great idea, it failed due to the technology available at the time. The e-Reader had difficulty reading the cards and uploading a NES game like Excitebike required scanning the five cards for just one game a total of ten times.

Unsurprisingly the Nintendo e-Reader was soon discontinued in the USA. However, it did a little better in Japan where it lasted 6 years.

So you spent your time taking awful quality photos on your Game Boy Camera and now you want a way to print them off?

Well what better way to make those awful quality photos permanent than using a Game Boy Printer.

The Game Boy Printer took six AA batteries to work as well as requiring reams of thermal paper to print anything off. If you wanted to throw money away, then the Game Boy Printer was a great way of doing it.

In 1982, decades before the Wii Balance Board was released, Amiga released the Joyboard for the Atari 2600. The Joyboard came a ski slalom game called Mogul Magic and it allowed you to move in four different directions.

Unfortunately, the Joyboard was so buggy it became nothing more than an expensive piece of plastic, much like the NES Roll & Rocker.

Released in 2006, so technically not very retro, you couldn’t possibly leave out the AlphaGrip AG-5. The AlphaGrip AG-5 is a PC control pad that tries to do the job of a game pad, mouse and keyboard all at the same time.

With more than 40 buttons (yes there are more on the back), it’s hard to think what was going through the heads of those who designed this monstrosity. Despite the poor design and ridiculous amount of buttons, their are people who use it….and love it!

The Atari Mindlink may just have been one of the stupidest ideas ever thought up. Atari always liked to position themselves as being on the cutting edge of technology, but the Mindlink was simply one step too far.

The Mindlink was worn as a headband and claimed to read your mind. The reality is it just responded to your forehead movements.

Intended for release in 1984, it’s no surprise that despite advertising and commercials being created, Atari pulled the plug on the Mindlink before it was due to be released. The three games in development for the Mindlink were also cancelled and so no Mindlink hardware or software ever saw the light of day.