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The 6 Most Ill-Conceived Video Game Accessories Ever

By Jonathan Kimak June 5, 2008 804,488 views
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#3.
The Power Glove for the Nintendo Entertainment System (1989)

The idea:
Wearing this glove will make you a god among 10-year-olds. You would be able to kill those impossible bosses with your pinky finger and go through puberty three years early because of how manly this piece of hardware would make you.

The Reality:
The Power Glove was the most awesome looking accessory Nintendo had ever made. It looked especially awesome in the feature-length commercial/movie The Wizard (starring Fred Savage). Movie villain Lucas Barton had the memorable catchphrase, "I love the Power Glove. It's so bad!"

And it really was bad, horrible even. However, some credit should be given to Nintendo as they were able to make all of the mistakes of the Sega Activator, only they did it four years earlier and localized the douchieness factor to one arm instead of your whole body.

Just like the Activator, the Power Glove had sensors, in this case three clunky sensors that you had to attach to your TV: two on top and one on the side. Once they were in place and stayed there for more than five minutes you could start calibrating the orientation of the glove by pointing your knuckles at the sensors for a prolonged length of time.

The finger controls themselves either didn't work at all, or they worked and never turned off making a game of Super Mario Bros. an experiment in trying to keep a suicidal Mario alive as he constantly jumped in front of goombas or down deep dark holes while you flailed your glove around in frustration.

The Japanese manufacturer of the glove went bankrupt, though Mattel (the US manufacturer) did better thanks to The Wizard convincing kids to buy it (that is, forcing their parents to buy it for them). That year many a child learned a hard lesson that trusting Hollywood product placement when making their buying decisions.

#2.
The Atari Mindlink

The idea:
You can kill pixels with your mind.

The Reality:
The Mindlink was a headband made for the Atari 2600 and other Atari consoles. The Mindlink advertised that it could read your mind. It didn't.

That's probably a good thing, since it was likely you didn't want your parents to see an on screen interpretation of your adolescent mind. What the Mindlink actually did was read the movement that your head made when you shifted your eyebrows. And no, not even in the '80s was it cool to play a video game with your eyebrows.

During testing most gamers got headaches from having to concentrate hard enough to move their eyebrows in just the right way so that the headband's infrared sensors would detect the movement and project it back to the console. Don't believe them? Turn on the radio and try to move your eyebrows in time to the beat for a half hour or so. We'll wait.

The Atari Mindlink was intended to be released in 1984. Yes, "intended." It was so awful it never even made it to production. Another fun note was that this controller was being designed during the great video game crash of 1983-'84. We suspect if this thing had made it to the market, the gaming industry would have died forever.

#1.
R.O.B. (Robotic Operating Buddy)

The idea:
It's a robot.

The Reality:
It's a ingeniously designed marketing ploy to get people to buy the Nintendo Entertainment System. R.O.B. was a cute robot that didn't really do much. By pushing a button on the regular NES controller you could get the R.O.B. to move his arms, turn from side to side or push a button on the base of his frame. During a game, the action that R.O.B. performed would cause something to happen on screen (maybe).

This would be very entertaining for a while until you realized that the R.O.B. was so slow, you could just hit the buttons on the R.O.B. yourself and move his arms and head and save time. He was there more to impede the game than anything else. So what was Nintendo thinking?

Well, the R.O.B. and the NES came out in 1985, in the wake of the North American Video Game Crash of 1983-'84. The market was flooded with at least 14 different consoles, each with their own separate line of games, each of them mostly horrible. Most consumers simply walked away.

The NES came along, bundled with R.O.B., and immediately stood out. What other console came with a robot buddy? Kids imaginations ran wild. By the time they figured out the robot was worthless, they were already addicted to Mario and Legend of Zelda.

Nintendo sold one million consoles in North America in their first year. Having established a foothold in the market, Nintendo quietly stopped selling the R.O.B. bundles and sold the NES on its own.

We're still waiting for somebody else to try this, and 23 years later they could actually include a robot that works--maybe one that talks and can sit on the sofa and play games with us. And is female.


If you liked that you'll probably enjoy our look at The 7 Commandments All Video Games Should Obey. And don't forget to check out our point by point demonstration of why the new Mike Myers movie is going to be awful.



Bad news for mankind: The Mindlink is back.

11/8/2009 5:42:27 PM
Socran

Is it just me or does anyone else get the slightly creepy feeling that Nintendo's "Everything else is just child's play" slogan is uncomfortably close to "Everything else is just a toy" from Small Soldiers? Also, notice how the writing on the buttons of the power glove will be upside down for whoever is playing...

It was a clever idea that didn't have a hope of working back in '89. Only now is technology reaching the point where this could be good...

5/20/2009 7:08:23 AM
DHeadshot

I ah…I have that Klingon version of Hamlet >.>

.__.

3/29/2009 11:29:38 PM
bloodyneptune

The Wizard was awesome
I'm surprised Cracked hasn't written more about it

3/20/2009 6:01:04 PM
PalinIsNotAMILF

The AlphaGrip reminds me of a sex toy I bought my wife once.

3/14/2009 6:33:40 AM
thunderguppy

Playing NES games with the PowerGlove was kind of similar to attempting to play MarioBros with the Duck Hunt gun ... and we'd already discovered that playing MarioBros with the Duck Hunt gun was hilarious, so why did we need to buy something else to provide the same entertainment?

1/4/2009 7:14:58 PM
Childe

I'm guessing when the kids got bored of the R.O.B. in the game, they were just learning to masturbate and er......

12/17/2008 6:23:03 PM
imnotthatstupid

Some of those are just crazy. I'm surprised 'Virtual Boy' didn't make the list. A friend of still has one, but hasn't played since he was a kid because it gave him seizures!

12/12/2008 4:34:50 PM
Allicat

The lost of a professional, talented & prolific man. you will be missed by millions of fans.
Rest in peace! I just find you on the celeb and millionaire dating site @@@@@@http://www.wealthysoulmate.com@@@@@@and wanna have a chat with you there.

12/7/2008 4:34:49 AM
alicehuang002

HA! Check it out!! www.shortershelflife.com

12/6/2008 8:25:19 PM
ryankitson

All I had was the gun For Nintendo's Duck Hunt : (

12/6/2008 12:15:29 PM
carolinagirl

If the next microsoft console comes bundled with Summer Glau's Terminator "Cameron", I will most definitly pick it up. Think about it, if she has the red rings of death, she will REALLY do anything! except the laundry.

12/5/2008 2:54:35 PM
exranger275

Sweet YouthCounsler....and by NPC, i have to assume you mean completely playable. Because he is. Good job on the research.

12/5/2008 2:34:24 PM
DScolpini

My commodore 64 had no cool accessories.

12/5/2008 11:20:56 AM
tomasie

Such a cuttie. His photos were seen at milllionaire persoanals site ... W e a l t h y s o u l M a t e .C O M ... last week. It is said he is already in relationship with a young beautiful woman on that site now. ?

12/5/2008 5:26:49 AM
alicehuang002

R.O.B shows up as a NPC in Super Smash Bros: Brawl

12/4/2008 5:52:12 AM
YouthCounselor

I am such a big fan of you since last year. Wish everything goes well for you. Can you do me one favor? just tell me is it you on****** W e a l t h y s o u l M a t e .C O M ********** ?

12/4/2008 5:02:04 AM
alicehuang002

They've actually made a PowerGlove for the Wii.
This should be interesting.

12/3/2008 4:42:33 PM
Stonian

Haha...oh wow. Mindlink and Computer controller ftw! Seriously I laughed out loud by myself over the Mindlink for a solid 5 minutes of pure laughter.

12/3/2008 3:47:49 PM
kemperature

Yes, Da_Nuke is right.
One problem:
The Wii is a sexy console, the Wiimote a sexy controller.
The Powerglove is a piece of s**t.

12/3/2008 9:22:38 AM
BillyZRay
Cracked stuff on