#10 – Philips CD-i Controller
We are starting this list off with a bang! What you are looking at above isn’t the controller to a Craftmatic Adjustable Bed, but is in fact the main control method for the Philips CD-i system. And before you start thinking that this is some offbeat attempt by a random company to get into the early 90’s gaming market (it sort of was), this controller and system were birthed from a failed partnership with Nintendo. Can you imagine playing a Mario or Zelda game with that thing? Well, you don’t have to because you can actually play a Mario game as well as THREE Zelda titles. Ugh…
10 Worst
Video Game Controllers
Feature
#9 – Atari Jaguar Controller
There is a full number pad on the controller for the Atari Jaguar so that when you realized you just bought an Atari Jaguar, you could dial Atari from your controller to demand a refund. Just look at the thing up there. It doesn’t just look like a missive hunk of plastic, but is in fact a large hunk of worthless plastic. This controller showed that when the SNES and Sega Genesis controllers were the standard, Atari was still thinking back to their failed 5200. There are more buttons on this thing than there are on modern controllers. The only difference is that the few games that came out for the Jaguar hardly ever utilized the number pad. And god be with you if you lost the overlays that clipped onto the pad, because in the days before the internet you’d be shit out of luck in finding a replacement.
Did you know that Nintendo allowed Philips to creater three Zelda games for their CD-i system? Can you fathom trying to play an action siderscroller game with the type of controller shown above. To be fair, there were other controllers available for the CD-i, but they were all pretty terrible.