Gaming's best ever accessories

February 26th, 2011, 00:09 Posted By: wraggster

Remember when we were just happy with a simple controller, a sofa and a gold slice o' gaming? No, of course you don't - interactive accessories have been around longer than most of us care to remember, and have played a key role in nearly every console lifecycle.

Next week sees the European release of the newest kid on the block THQ'suDraw tablet.




With uDraw Studiothe virtual pad and pen promises a whole new angle on 'creative' gaming.

It goes up against the duo of current must-have accessories, PlayStation Move and Xbox Kinect - but how do all three stack up to the finest peripherals in history?

Here are some of our favourite gaming accessories of all time. Don't forget to search the archives of your mind and give us your list at the bottom. There are plenty of quirky offerings out there to choose from...

THE LIGHT GUN
This is a fairly broad one. There have been so many models of light gun that we're sure every gun-happy gamer has their favourite and, just like in real life (we assume), it all comes down to a feeling, the way the piece sits in your hand.

We have to give a round of applause to the NES Zapper, which was the first widely popular light gun to hit home gaming (although by no means the first light gun). It made Duck Hunt into a game worth playing.

It was, however, a piddly little device that looked like something out of Star Trek: The Camp Generation. That's why our favourite light gun is Namco's GunCon for the PlayStation.

It was a solid model with a big "don't mess", Judge Dredd-style block of a barrel, complete with buttons on either side for auxiliary controls like pausing the game, or chucking a grenade if they featured.

Perhaps part of our love for the original G-Con, however, comes down to the fact that it arrived on the PlayStation alongside one of the most iconic arcade shooters ever, Time Crisis.

The classic, on-rails shooter reminds us of a simpler time, when you let your legs do the walking so that you could concentrate on the shooting (and the ducking). Who did you shoot? Just about absolutely everyone in the room. Don't think, just kill and do it with the badass GunCon.

It didn't have the kick-back like the guns in the arcades and technology moved on since right up to today where the PlayStation Move can be combined with something like the Sharpshooter attachment for impressive accuracy. But the GunCon was highly accurate for its time and a real favourite.




THE 'GUITAR'
The Guitar Hero franchise may have been thrown off the tour bus recently but it's the reason the music based, rhythm action genre has been so popular since 2005.

Of course, the old system of tapping away to blobs scrolling down a screen began with the flashing pink and blue squares of Dance Dance Revolution in the late nineties.

It was the now iconic Guitar Hero axe of 2005, however, that made the brand a household name and the rhythm action genre a real force.

The series was originally developed by Harmonix, a studio that has since gone on to create Guitar Hero rival Rock Band, which features an ever expanding ensemble of increasingly sophisticated rhythm action instruments including drums, keyboards and microphones for the singers.

THE RUMBLE PACK
Such a small box may look insignificant, but that little tremble you get you get between the palms every time you crash your virtual car, get shot in your virtual chest or take a punch in your virtual head - That's all thanks to the N64 Rumble Pack.

The ever innovative Nintendo put out the rumble attachment with Star Fox 64 in 1997 and since then we've taken the tactile feedback as standard. And it's not just the rumbling, either, having a little motor in our controllers adds some extra weight too.

Try holding your original PlayStation controller now, for example; light as a feather and vibration-free, it's little more than a shell to its modern-day Dualshock successor.

Controller has now become a necessity and is being used in smarter ways than simply to signal an impact. It's another output that makes gaming more intuitive and it's thanks to the original N64 gadget.




THE WII BALANCE BOARD
Stop laughing at the back. It might not appeal to those entrenched at camp COD or the Battlefield bastion - they don't seem to be into Yoga for some reason - but the Wii Balance Board has been a resounding success.

That's mainly because of Nintendo's targeting of the family with its little console and no peripheral has grabbed such a large audience so successfully as this one.

By making the whole Wii Fit set-up easy to use, friendly to look at, fun (it's not all about blowing heads off, okay?) and packing a bit of a healthy kick, Nintendo captured almost every member of the family and dragged a whole new demographic into gaming. For that we have to tip our hats to the little white slab.




THE ARCADE STICK
As good as the current generation of controllers are with their fancy analogue sticks, their shoulder buttons and their ergonomic design, for many bringing the arcade experience into the home is a thrilling experience.

Heck, if you're looking to play something like Street Fighter IV, many more would call it sacrilegious to play with anything other than an arcade stick.

It's basically the retro set-up we all grew up with; the joystick on the left and a crescent of big buttons to hammer on the right.

One of the most popular arcade sticks on the market today is the MadCatz Street Fighter IV FightStick Tournament Edition. Why? Because the top end model features genuine Sanwa arcade parts for an authentic experience and a design that allows for modders to easily replace bits and bobs to customise their experience.

THE MULTI-TAP
On the surface it was little more than a boring, grey boomerang - and on the inside it was nothing more than a plug adapter. But for PlayStation fans, the Multi-Tap was a god-send.

Sure, this is one of the more mundane devices on our list, thanks to it playing a functional role rather than creating a new method of gaming input - but with both the N64 and Dreamcast supporting four players, it allowed the PlayStation to compete for multiplayer mayhem.

Slotting into the first controller port on Sony's first, it provided the four ports desired and left the second port available as a fifth (take that, competition!), if the game allowed it, that is.

The Multi-Tap made the difference when playing things like WWF Warzone on the PlayStation and it could have been the device that ensured the PlayStation's staving off of the competition.

Who knows what might have been if Sony had only been able to offer half the player compatibility of the competition?

http://www.computerandvideogames.com...VG-General-RSS

There are 1 comments - Join In and Discuss Here