And finally, the future. Here’s a look at some of the peripherals that are yet to come.

Part 3: The Future

The Guitar Grip - I already mentioned this in an earlier post, but Guitar Hero on Tour for the Nintendo DS will ship with the Guitar Grip add-on (and a guitar pick-shaped stylus). To be honest, I’m still trying to figure this one out. I sort of see how it could work, but it looks decidedly awkward to me. I can’t imagine you’d really get the feel of playing guitar with this thing. At all. But who knows? I could always be wrong…

The DualShock 3 - Finally, the rumble returns to Sony’s console. After having at last come to an agreement over patent issues, the DualShock 3 will go on sale April 15. About time, I say. I think I’ve gotten spoiled by force-feedback. I miss it when it’s not there. The thing looks damn near identical to the DualShock 2, as well… which in my opinion is a great thing. DualShock 2 was the best controller ever.

The Wii Wheel - I have a feeling that the Wii Wheel, while endlessly amusing to the kid in all of us, could potentially turn into some sort of deadly frisbee. If you thought the Wii Remote could do damage when you lost your girp, just imagine this thing sailing towards your head… or worse, your plasma screen. This little guy ships with Mario Kart Wii.

The Wii Cord-Free and Wii Wireless Nunchuck - Both currently available for pre-order, these two might actually be useful. After all, who doesn’t get tired of that stupid nunchuck cord? I know I do… my cats go nuts anytime they’re in the room when I’m playing something on Wii. Having a ten pound kitty swatting at your controller while you’re battling moblins gets a little old after awhile. The Cord-Free, available March 25, converts your corded Nunchuck into a cordless peripheral by stashing the cord in its base and slapping a receiver on the base of the Wii Mote. The Wireless is just what it sounds like. A wireless nunchuck (and at $35, it’s an expensive little thing). It’s available May 1. Unfortunately, despite the pictures, these are third party products and neither one of them are actually packaged with a Wii Remote (the Cord-Free doesn’t even come with a Nunchuck… it’s just a shell for your Nunchuck).

Wii Balance Board - Already making the rounds in Japan, the Balance Board (I really wish they’d called it the “Wii Board”) comes bundled with the upcoming Wii Fit, which should be making its way stateside sometime in mid-May. Yet another attempt to prove that the Wii is really a highly advanced workout machine… looks like it might be fun, though. At least until I strain something.

The past, of course is fun to look back on, but you can find just as many interesting peripherals and controllers for more recent consoles.

Part 2: The Present (and not-so-very-distant past)

N64 Rumble Pak - Since the controllers for the N64 don’t have built-in force feedback, Nintendo started selling the Rumble Pak. I love me some rumble… but this thing just added to the already-bulky design of the N64 controller… and it had a slot for the N64’s bulky memory card, as well, which, when added, really made the whole mess look pretty ridiculous.

INTEC Game Screen - The Game Screen is a 5 inch screen that attaches to the top of your GameCube like a little mini-TV. I guess it’s meant to add portability to the GameCube, which seems a little silly to me. Frankly, why anyone in their right mind would want something like this is beyond me, but then again I have an unyielding hatred of tiny screens.

Eye Toy - This is a camera for your PS2. But not just a camera… oh no. It lets you interact with games by placing you image inside the game. Kind of like that show from the 90’s on Nickelodeon… Nick Arcade. Actually, this thing would have been really cool if they’d started selling it back then. Today, though, it’s a little too cheesy for my tastes. Of course, it’s not compatible with the PS3, so if you want to play with a camera on you shiny new console, you’ll have to fork out the cash for the PS3 Eye.

Gaming chairs - I guess this isn’t technically a peripheral… or a controller… but it makes me giggle. There are any number of these so-called “gaming chairs” on the market, all of them supposedly designed to incorporate themselves with the player’s console of choice in order to be the ultimate in comfort for gamers - some of them are even advertised to cater to specific genres. To be honest, I think most of them either look like some sort of torture device, or like something someone jacked from an airliner.

DDR Mats - Actually, I love these things. Oh, how I love them so… Thanks to them, I can Dance Dance to my heart’s content, without having to haul myself out to play on one of the commercial machines (and as I’m not so great at DDR, being able to play away from the public eye is definitly a good thing for all concerned, believe me). I guess someone finally found a use for the Power Pad technology. My only real qualm with them is that the inexpensive ones (i.e. the ones I bought because I’m cheap) have a tendency to slide on certain surfaces. Well, actually on just about every surface. I finally had to resort to velcroing them to my carpet.

Xbox 360 HD DVD Player - Since Microsoft couldn’t possibly give gamers the convinience of a built-in HD-DVD player in the XBox 360, they made them go out and buy this thing instead. Of course with HD-DVD having been dealt a final blow and surrendered to Blue-Ray… well, I guess you could always use your 360 HD-DVD Player as a really expensive doorstop…

The Wii Zapper - This thing looks like the incestuous lovechild of the Zapper and the Super Scope. Honestly, that’s all I have to say on this one.

The Wii Net Connect - The Net Connect is a third party creation that lets you connect your Wii to the internet via a standard ethernet cable rather than wireless… and I’m forced to ask - Why the heck couldn’t Nintendo just build this into the damn console in the first place? Would it really have killed them to stick an ethernet port on the thing?

Coming Up: Peripherals of the Future

I usually find that gimicky peripherals, at best, add very little to the overall gaming experience, and at worst are completely and utterly useless. But they can still be pretty snazzy looking, and every once in awhile you come across something that’s actually entertaining. So today, lets look at some add-ons and alternative-style controllers, past, present, and future.

Part 1: The Past

Power Glove - I suppose this could be considered the precursor to the Wii Remote. The Power Glove was a wearable controller that allowed the player to control the game through a combination of a control pad mounted on the glove and physical movement. The only problem was that it kind of sucked. A lot. The motion-sensing was limited (and occasionally unresponsive), and holding your arm out in front of you for more than 20 minutes at a time did not make for a fun experience. On the bright side, the Power Glove was featured in 1989’s The Wizard. Suckosity aside, to this day I still can’t bear to part with mine.

R.O.B. - Looking an awful lot like Number 5 from Short Circuit (does anyone besides me actually remember that movie?), Nintendo’s “Robotic Operating Buddy” was a cute little guy that reacted to oncreen light flashes and moved around accordingly. Granted, he was only compatible with Gyromite and Stack-Up… but that was enough to earn him a major roll in 2008’s Super Smash Bros Brawl.

Miracle Piano Teaching System - This was a piano keyboard that plugged into your NES and came with a “game” that taught you how to play piano. How effective was it? I actually used to own one of these… I still can’t play anything other than Mary Had a Little Lamb.

The Zapper and the Super Scope - What list would be complete without a nod to the Zapper and it’s bastard child, the Super Scope? Yes, the zapper… so “realistic” that Nintendo decided to change it’s color from shades of grey to a blinding florescent orange. And let’s not forget that it was the weapon of choice for Captain N (again, does anyone else actually remember this?). The Super Scope, on the other hand was a bazooka-shaped battery hog, measuring a whopping 2 feet long (making storage tedious at best).

The Power Pad - Another classic not-so-useful creation, the Power Pad strove to incorporate exercise into the gaming experience. Nearly all of the handful of games developed for it involved running in place (or beating wildly on the pad with your hands, which was far more effective, in my opinion). Probably the most well-remembered game was World Class Track Meet, which was included as part of a bundle with the NES console in the late 80s.

XBAND - I’ve found that very few people remember/have ever heard of this one. XBAND was the infant stage of online gaming. Designed for the SNES and Sega Genesis, it allowed players to go head-to-head on games like Super Mario Kart, Mortal Kombat 2 and 3, and Madden NFL 96. Unfortunately, having been released in 1994, it was limited to the crawling speeds of dial-up, and many compatible games experienced severe lag during online play. It wasn’t exactly cheap, either, operating on a subscription basis, and charging for long distance if you played against someone outside of your local calling area.

Coming up next: Peripherals of the Present

Yeah… maybe not “secret”, per se, but I bet there are a lot of U of I students out there who still don’t know that the Undergraduate Library has a collection of both current and retro video games. Vintage games are only available to faculty for classroom and research use, but current games can be checked out for up to a week and renewed for up to a month. They also accept donations of games, game consoles, and game-related literature, if you are so inclined.

Check out the gaming page on the library’s website.