Now, I’ve never been a fan of all of this console wars talk. As far as I’m concerned, that sort of thing should’ve been left behind in the schoolyards of the nineties. Friendships were won and lost and mothers’ weight problems were mocked, all over your console preferences. I don’t know about you but I kind of think we should have grown out of that sort of thing on hitting high school.
Sadly, very little has changed in that regard. The battlefields have become online forums and YouTube comment sections instead of the playground, but the conflict is ongoing.
As we know, for whatever reason, somebody on the internet having a contrasting opinion to your own in SERIOUS BUSINESS. You’ve got to land on that like a sumo wrestler leaping from a tenth storey window onto a grape.
The culture of fandom can be a dangerous thing. The key to this is, you’ve got to remember to live and let live. Now more than ever, it’s important to work on being united rather than divided. Can you be a fan of PlayStation without dumping on Nintendo and Microsoft? Sure you can. Can you be a PC gamer without dumping on everybody else? Again, totally.
The crucial thing is not to become blinkered. I’ve always been a fan of Nintendo games and systems, but I also spread my gaming time across just about every modern format. I’m also 100% open to admitting that Nintendo are not infallible. Nobody is. Their notorious ‘innovation’ has led to all manner of absurd products. Let’s take a look back at some of the very worst (and best, just to be fair).
30 RIDICULOUS: Worst. Camera. Ever.
If you remember the classic flashback episodes of Friends, you’ll know that the best part was that they were just so relatable. If you try and tell me that you haven’t looked back and cringed at a hairstyle/fashion sense/relationship from your own past, you’re just a filthy liar.
Here’s my own confession: I owned a Game Boy Camera, and I thought it was fantastic. This 1998 peripheral was a frightening, eyeball-shaped abomination that protruded from the top of the Game Boy. It took terrible, monochrome photos that you could print on teeny, teeny paper via the Game Boy Printer.
29 RIDICULOUS: This Thing Isn’t My Dang Buddy
Ah, yes. R.O.B. I mean, sure, this little guy has become a real collector’s piece, and a gaming legend in its own right. He’s even been a playable character in the Mario Kart and Super Smash Bros. franchises, which is how you know you’ve made it in the Nintendo universe. We can’t take that away from R.O.B.
The poor guy was just painfully underutilized. The Robotic Operating Buddy was released for the NES in 1985, compatible with a grand total of two different games: Gyromite and Stack-Up. As is often the case with Nintendo’s more creative ideas, it was an interesting novelty with little practical application.
28 USEFUL: In The Lab(o), Cooking Up A Cardboard Motorcycle
When you think of Nintendo’s more eccentric ideas, you’re often doing so retrospectively. Looking way back through the shameful sands of time to the Virtual Boy, for instance. In a lot of ways, I guess you can say that Nintendo have become a little more conventional and safer (a little) over the years. They’ve never stopped creating, though, for better or worse.
Their most recent deviation from the norm has been Nintendo Labo. This curious cardboard toybox has much more utility than you may have thought. Just recently, a new Mario Kart 8 Deluxe update allowed players to control the game by using the Labo motorcycle.
27 RIDICULOUS: Super? I Hardly Think So
As all my fellow nineties children will agree, that was one heckola of an era to grow up in. The Walkman was still a thing, PCs were the size of the average studio apartment, MC Hammer’s parachute pants were the height of fashion… it was an unbelievable time all around.
Perhaps more than anything else, though, it was an era when cool was king.
That way of thinking leads to the release of products like the Super Scope. This beastly peripheral wasn’t so much a lightgun as it was a lightbazooka. A huge, awkward accessory from 1992 best forgotten.
26 RIDICULOUS: Wii Wheel? Wheel-y?
If the nineties were just an unapologetically wacky time for everything generally, the mid-2000s were a tumultuous time for video games. The Wii was launched in 2006, and its barnstorming success changed the very shape of the industry around it.
This was the system that made so many of us motion control believers. It was also, sadly, the system that brought us some hilariously questionable peripherals to push that idea. My favorite of these was the Wii Wheel, which allowed you to steer your way through Mario Kart 8 by slotting the Wii Remote into the center.
25 USEFUL: Donkey Konga (Doo Doo Doo Doo) Donkey Konga!
Now, I know what you’re thinking. Of all of Nintendo’s wide and wacky range of peripherals, surely the Donkey Konga bongos are right up there with the most niche? The magnificent DK Bongos were created to be compatible with rhythm games Donkey Konga and its sequels, along with platformer Donkey Kong Jungle Beat.
That was about the extent of their (official) use, because proposed bongo-controlled racer DK Bongo Blast was canceled (eventually becoming Donkey Kong Barrel Blast). As niche as the bongos were, though, resourceful gamers have managed to play through all kinds of games using them, including Bloodborne.
24 RIDICULOUS: Hey You, Pikachu! HEY! PIKACHU!
If you thought the DK Bongos were obscure (you were totally right, because they were), you haven’t seen anything yet. Before these beautiful musical specimens arrived for the GameCube, the N64 dropped one of the most criminally underused peripherals in Nintendo history: the VRU.
It sounds like something super-clinical and boring from eighties sci-fi, but the VRU (Voice Recognition Unit) was actually supposed to be fun. It was supposed to be way ahead of its time, too, allowing gamers to directly communicate with Pikachu in Hey You, Pikachu! Sadly, the device was hilariously inaccurate, and only worked with this one game in the west.
23 RIDICULOUS: Here, Fishy Fishy Fishy!
The trouble with these sorts of peripherals is that they tend to be quite expensive. As such, if you’re going to hop on board, you want to know that you’re going to be getting some use out of this thing. That it’s going to be supported by a range of games. Which is exactly the problem.
Next up, we’ve got the super obscure Game Boy Pocket Sonar.
This peculiar product was released by Bandai in 1998, exclusively for the Japanese market. As the name suggests, it used sonar to detect fish in the water, and included a fishing minigame.
22 USEFUL: Fitness Fanatics Rejoice!
In recent console generations, Nintendo have been trying to push gamers into getting their cheeks off their sofas and being more active. When Pokémon Go was first released, it kicked off a new era of people actually getting outside and walking, and it still has a dedicated fanbase that does so.
Before that, we had the likes of Wii Fit, with its spangly Wii Balance Board. There was some impressive technology packaged inside this unassuming little set of weighing scales, and it actually contributed to our fitness in some small way.
21 RIDICULOUS: When Pokémon Go Met The Poké Walker
So, as we know, November’s upcoming Pokémon: Let’s Go Pikachu/Eevee isn’t the mainline series entry that fans are anticipating. Instead, it’s more of a placeholder for generation eight, a remake of Pokémon Yellow with elements of Go.
It’s an experimental title, then, and one that provides the perfect opportunity to drop a new accessory. In this case, we’re talking about the Poké Ball Plus, a sort of Joy Con alternative that allows you to ‘store’ a Pokémon and take it out with you, a la Pokémon HeartGold and SoulSilver’s Pokéwalker.
20 RIDICULOUS: It’s Kid Icarus, Jim, But Not As We Know It
When it comes to the 3DS library, Kid Icarus Uprising was one of the highlights of the earlier lineup. Not only was it a new entry in a much-loved and underappreciated franchise, but it looked fantastic. A real technical tour de force for the 3DS.
As a lefty, though, I have to admit that this stunning TPS was dang tough to control. The system’s lack of a true second analogue stick really let it down, and the bundled 3DS Stand really didn’t do much to alleviate that issue. It was poor quality all around.
19 USEFUL: Now You’re Playing With Power!
I know what you’re thinking, friends. I really, really do. How can I, in good conscience, include the Power Glove in the useful rather than ridiculous side of this rundown?
Here’s the thing about that… it’s mostly for the joke’s sake. People have snarked about this 1989 Mattel product until they could snark no more, but that’s the crux of its legend.
When it comes to so-bad-it’s-good, nothing has ever achieved the level of greatness that the Power Glove has.
Did you see The Wizard? Of course, you did.
18 RIDICULOUS: What Am I Zapping Again?
Over the course of the Wii’s lifetime, as I say, the popular little console saw a whole array of cash-in accessories. This isn’t always the way forward, though. As Jeff Goldblum once famously said in Jurassic Park, “Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.”
Don’t just do things for the sake of it. Did the Wii wii-ly need a lightgun peripheral? It did not. How many games was it compatible with? Not enough. The best one, Link’s Crossbow Training, was packaged right in there.
17 RIDICULOUS: The Game Boy Advance Could Do WHAT?
With this next product, I just do not know what to think. I’m all kinds of conflicted here.
Nintendo frequently tread that fine line between being ahead of their time and releasing something odd just for the sake of it. That’s rarely been more apparent than with the Nintendo e-Reader, which released in Japan in 2001 (and the West the following year).
This odd little device slotted into the top of the Game Boy Advance. It read specific e-Reader cards, barcode style, allowing the unlocking of new levels and other bonuses in specific games. It received a decent amount of support in its native Japan but was dismissed as a bit of a novelty elsewhere.
16 USEFUL: Solar-Powered Vampire Hunting Amundo!
Ah, yes. Here’s a fantastic blast from the past. If you were only a casual Game Boy Advance player, you may never have heard of Boktai: The Sun Is In Your Hand, but dedicated fans of the system and its library will know what a gem this was.
This 2003 Konami action RPG cast players as Django, a vampire hunter armed with a very unique weapon: the Gun Del Sol (solar gun). They meant this literally, because the GBA cartridge came equipped with a solar sensor. As such, you’d have to take your system into the sun to charge your gun. Incredibly niche, of course, but super neat.
15 RIDICULOUS: I’m A Huge Fan Of ‘Roll N’ Rock’ Music
Crossing back over to the incredible world of NES accessories, we have the Roll N’ Rocker. This odd device was created by LJN Toys.
The box proudly proclaimed, “YOU become the directional control pad,” as though everyone’s ultimate life goal was to become a d-pad.
Users stood on this odd contraption and turned their bodies to tilt it. I don’t quite know what this achieved, or how it made gaming any better in any type of way, but there it is. The Roll N’ Rocker was totally unresponsive and just refused to work a lot of the time.
14 RIDICULOUS: The Magical Transforming Wii Remote
As we’ve already seen several times over the course of this rundown, the Wii Remote really was hugely influential. The Wii was a system that many derided when it was first announced, only to completely change their tunes when it proved to be a runaway success.
Naturally, this success saw everybody wanting a piece of the action. This led to a whole array of awful accessories. Most notorious, as far as I’m concerned, were those old tennis racket and baseball bat attachments. Wii Sports required only the slightest movement to perform the action, but people all over the world were going full Rafael Nadal in their living rooms regardless.
13 USEFUL: Never Smash Without It
As long-time Nintendo fans will know, the release of a new Super Smash Bros. title is nothing less than an event. Just look at Nintendo’s big showcase at this year’s E3, which was almost just one big Super Smash Bros. Ultimate love-in.
It’s interesting that they took the time during this presentation to demonstrate those fancy new GameCube controllers. These particular pads have always been central to the Smash experience, though, which is why the controller adapter for the Wii U was such a big deal. This thing was very sought after.
12 RIDICULOUS: It Stands For ‘Disk Drive,’ You Know
As we know, when Nintendo introduced the N64, they eschewed those newfangled disks in favour of Ye Olde chunky cartridges. By so doing, they missed out on a lot of the storage space that disks had in abundance over their cartridge cousins.
To try and give the console a performance boost, Nintendo dropped their ill-fated Nintendo 64DD. This magnetic disk drive peripheral attached itself to the bottom of the N64, like an ugly Voldemort-in-the-turban parasite, allowing the use of 64mb magnetic disks and a rudimentary online service. Sadly, it wasn’t compatible with many titles, and bombed horribly.
11 RIDICULOUS: So Close (To Being A Switch) Yet So Far
With Nintendo Switch, Nintendo are successfully righting a lot of the wrongs from the Wii U. There’s actually some third party support, the system’s selling dang well… things are looking quite good just now.
Most importantly, they’re doing the whole hybrid handheld thing right.
You can see how they were experimenting with this idea with Wii U, but that chunky pad was hardly portable at all. Mainly because you couldn’t stray very far from the unit itself, leaving you tethered to it like an excitable dog on the end of an extending lead.
