Sep 06
And here’s me thinking the was confusing enough. Vintage Computer & Gaming have posted what has to be the most complicated game controller ever created. The controller in question? It has to be the ColecoVision Super Action Controller of course. The controller boasts an over overwhelming 16 buttons, a wheel mouse and a joystick. Aside from having an extensive plethera of buttons and an extremely awkward layout, there seems to be some redundant features going on. What possible use could the “speed roller” wheel have?
Was anyone luckily enough to own of these beauties? Did it control as terrible as it looked?
Loading ...
Totally useless layout. Like the N-Gage! Yay, I got to the joke first.
I had two of these on my Colecovision.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ql-UZv3AS-E
It probably works great if you have five hands like in the poster.
http://rjbs.manxome.org/images/gaming/sbat-controller-done.jpg
This i think is the most complicated controller ever, made exclusively for the game Steel Battalion for the Xbox.
Daemoniorum, but it isen’t complicated. It’s a awesome controller
Yah – I had one of those. It was exciting as a kid, but in retrospect, not so good. It had a very clunky, “garunteed to break soon” feel to it.
I never could figure out a use for that wheel.
I used to love this controller… playing SuperAction BaseBall was great. One use of the wheel was for advancing your baserunners. Hold down the yellow button, spin the wheel and the batter would run to first base, hold down the yellow and red button, spin the wheel and the batter and the guy on first base would advance. You could also spin the wheel in the backwards direction and the runner would go back in the other direction to prevent a pick off.
The learning curve was a little steep, but once you caught on it was a blast to use.
I was just talking about the Super Action Controllers today with a couple of my students (I’m teaching English in Europe). I had two of them and for some games they were awesome—especially Super Action Baseball where, as JC described, the various button/trigger/roller actions and combinations of actions really gave you total control of your players. For other games, the larger joystick was more comfortable than the normal Coleco controllers (or the “true” joystick of the Atari 2600 or the disc of the Intellivision console. Plus, as a kid I always thought the hand guard looked neat! Of course all those dinosaur controllers of yesteryear are classics. I wish I still had my ColecoVision and Super Action Controllers for nostalgia’s sake. Describing these controllers and the competing gaming consoles from the early 80s to my students here in the Czech Republic, who were still Czechoslovakia and living behind the Iron Curtain back then, makes me realize how lucky and priviledged I was to grow up with that stuff.