The vast majority of modern video games are played using a pretty traditional gamepad or mouse and keyboard, as they more often than not they get the job done just fine. But occasionally a traditional controller just won’t do.
As games have evolved, developers have experimented with how we play them, and while innovations like the touch screen and Nintendo’s motion-controlled Wii Remote revolutionised the industry, others were swiftly abandoned. I want to give those contraptions another moment in the spotlight.
Here are three of the wildest game controllers ever invented.
Tony Hawk: Ride skateboard
When Tony Hawk: Ride came out, the iconic skateboarder’s once legendary video game series was having a bit of an identity crisis. And so, in an attempt to hop (or ollie) onto the motion control bandwagon, Activision released a new entry of the game designed to be played by standing on a skateboard peripheral.
While the controller wouldn't have gotten very far in real life, given its total lack of wheels, its built-in motion sensors meant the skater you were playing as in the game would (sort of) replicate your real-life movements.
It was a novel idea at the time, and one you couldn't really blame Activision for having a go at, but unfortunately the Ride controller was comically unreliable and just not much fun to use.
Sega Dreamcast Fishing Controller
In a post Nintendo Wii-world, a fishing rod game controller is fairly unremarkable. But when Sega released one for the Dreamcast in the late ‘90s it turned a lot of heads.
Used with Sega Bass Fishing and a handful of other games that featured fishing on the fondly remembered commercial failure of a console, the Fishing Controller was painstakingly designed to look and behave like a real fishing rod. However, unlike the aforementioned Tony Hawk-endorsed skateboard peripheral, it actually worked pretty well.
The built-in rumble meant that luring in a big fish always felt suitably weighty in your hands, while the motion controls meant that casting and hooking felt responsive. A charming slice of gaming history.
DK Bongos
Thanks to Seth Rogen and an excellent new Switch 2 outing, Donkey Kong is a big deal once again, but tie-wearing ape connoisseurs may argue that DK peaked in the mid-2000s.
That’s because in 2003 we got Donkey Konga, which was at the time the first game designed to be played using a controller shaped like a pair of bongo drums (I did not verify this fact but feel pretty confident about it).
With Guitar Hero arriving a few years later, it was a big decade for rhythm games with plastic instrument peripherals, but the DK Bongos were great because they were so intuitive. All you had to do was slap the pads, while a built-in microphone could detect hand claps.
And Nintendo didn’t stop at Donkey Konga – a year later came Donkey Kong Jungle Beat, a game that asked: “What if you could play a platformer using bongo drums?” The result was one of the company’s strangest experiments, and with Donkey Kong back in the conversation, I hope we see a return for his bongos on Switch 2.
