Category Archives: geekdom

Worst Controller, The Follow Up

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Some of you think I unfairly called the Nintendo 64 the worst controller, and I do confess that there are worse game console controllers out there. It was really more of the biggest controller let down because, let’s face it, the Super Nintendo controller was so on the money, but Nintendo took a sad step back.

Here’s the earlier post in case you missed it.

If you glance down into the annals of console and computer gaming history, you will find far worse controllers. You will find controllers that make the word control a joke. You will see controllers that take the word control completely out so all you’re left with is ler.

And what’s a ler?

So here is the confession and then some of my opinions on some of the other worst controllers… There are a lot out there, especially for the early systems that no one has ever heard of. I’m going to try to cover a few you might have heard of.

 

Power Glove

Nintendo

Wow! So I’m going to be able to punch in Mike Tyson’s Punch Out? No? Well… I’ll be able to make Mario jump with my fingers! No? Well, then wtf is the point of this? We still don’t know. What we do know is that it seemed cooler in The Wizard, which was basically a long Nintendo commercial for it. Even today, you can find the power glove make appearances in episodes at purepwnage.com. It gets points for nostalgia badness.

Wiimote Batarang

Wii

I just said that the Wiimote and Nunchuck made the best controller ever. Now I’m going to say there are some things that the Wiimote just should not be combined with. The two obvious questions are: 1) Why? and 2) What? I honestly don’t have the best answers for either. Apparently it makes the Wiimote more Batmanesque. You put the Wiimote in the piece of plastic and… voi la! It becomes a Wiimote in a Batman-like piece of plastic. I know it sounds like it would give the Wiimote boomerange qualities, but please, don’t throw it (at least not with the Wiimote inside- otherwise, throw it in the trash).

Atari 2600 Joy Stick

Atari 2600

Oh, no you didn’t go there. Oh, yes I did. This was my first gaming system, so I hesitate to bad mouth it, and yet I must. I still have my Atari 2600, but not with original joysticks (bought some from Strange Maine in Portland, ME). That’s my main point. They broke. The sticks would often come off leaving no stick and no joy behind either. Sometimes just the casing on the stick came off leaving this narrow white plastic thing that would be near impossible to use before it snapped off later.

Xbox Original Controller

Xbox

As I admitted in my last controller post, I have small hands. Still, there is no excuse for a controller specifically made for large apes with ninja dexterity only. What about the small apes with ninja dexterity, and more importantly, what about me? Make everything really rounded and spaced far apart so it looks like I’m trying to hold a fish when I’m trying to game. Why are the analog controllers located in different places on each side? I know that symmetry is bad composition, but this is a controller, not a painting class. And why are there a couple of tiny buttons with the big regular buttons? Did they take notes from the N64 controller? While we’re on that thread, expansion packs are bad and pointless. If it needs to exist for the console, put it in the console, or make it in the controller.

Sega Saturn 3d Controller

Sega Saturn

Not that anyone had a Sega Saturn anyways, but OMG. I complained about the big, awkwardness of both “>N64 controllers and Xbox‘s, but really, this is so far beyond either of those. Thank whatever deities that this isn’t what came with the system, especially since it didn’t work with all Saturn games. Yes, I’m serious. You had to have the privilege in have this controller supported for your game.

Gamecube Controller

Gamecube

On one hand, it’s not as bad as the N64. On the other hand, you’d think Nintendo would learn from its mistakes. Be thankful they got rid of the phallic symbol in the middle but, they added some weird, odd shaped buttons of different sizes and colors. How hard can we make it for you to use a button? Try using a controller with elongated, rounded rectangles and you’ll find out.

I’m not saying there aren’t other bad controllers out there. As long as video games exist, there will be poor designs implemented to control them. I also should say that I think that even my favorite controllers could be better. I won’t be completely satisfied until virtual reality anyways! And even then… let’s face it. There’s always room for improvement.

NDS Shout Out

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“Something is not right.”

“What? That ROM isn’t working? The emulator?”

I got a CycloDS Evolution for a friend for her birthday (and general holiday gift). Since she visited only recently, it wasn’t until now that I got to play with it. Of course, I said “Yea- I get to play with it,” while she actually had the idea in mind that I would spend a couple hours making it bend to her will. Since I’m the resident ‘knows-how-to-do-technical-stuff” person, being the actual day of her birthday, I complied. If scouring the web is what she wants, it’s what I’ll do.

“You did something. It’s not right. When it boots up it’s not supposed to make that noise,” she turned the Nintendo DS off again and on again.

“What noise?” I asked not really understanding what she meant, and of course annoyed at the accusation. The only worse thing than being the, “Can you fix my computer?” recipient is being the, “I asked you to fix it and you broke it!” recipient.

She turned it off and on again, and the chimes rang. I don’t own a Nintendo DS, so I have no idea what the chimes normally sound like when it turns on, so I say, “Okay, is there any other sound that’s messed up? When you open a ROM or use a game, is the sound different?”

“No, just when I turn it on.”

“Maybe you or I accidentally changed a setting so it has different music on boot up?”

“No, I checked that.”

Now I’m giving her the ‘you’re crazy’ look as she’s obsessively booting it, and turning it off, and booting again, and becomingly increasingly upset. Finally she has to go to the bathroom, so I figure I’ll search the internet and come up with the setting that must’ve been changed, or I can tell her she’s nuts with confidence.

I search Google and am surprised to find the issue is not a setting.

A similarly upset and worried fellow posted about this on a forum who had the exact same issue. Actually there were several hits as it is a common issue. I read further and find out the big problem, what was broken:

The Nintendo DS gives you a special chime on your birthday. It also gives you a rainbow “Happy Birthday” message in PictoChat.

I laughed my ass off. As she came out of the bathroom I continued to laugh. I wanted to look grim when I gave her the news, play it up, and tell her something was seriously wrong with her game system. I couldn’t do it, though.

And after all, it was her birthday.

Nintendo- making people everywhere think that their DS has broken on their birthday. Happy Birthday indeed.

Worst Controller, Best Controller

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I can still remember when the Nintendo64 came out after so many Nintendo Power magazines of anticipation. What was once code named the “Ultra 64”, which I though was a cooler title at the time, was finally released. Sure, it was supposed to be a CD system, and turns out it was cartridges instead. Being a steadfast Nintendo loyalist I didn’t question this.

I didn’t question this until I played the system.

Worst controller ever.

I felt so completely let down. All of my willpower tried to enjoy the Nintendo 64 the way I did my Nintendos before it. Alas, I found myself wanting to go home to play some Super Nintendo or a PC game.

I have small hands, so I rationalized several minutes of trying to figure out the best way to get my hands around the damned thing to control Mario by blaming myself at first. How many buttons are on this thing? Do most of these even do anything?

Controllers should be comfortable. I did end up playing 007 and Super Smash Brothers with people who had the system and my fingers and palms ached more than the blisters from playing Street Fighter II with the Sega Genesis controllers (Why did they put a ridge around the buttons? No, I don’t know either.). The controller was too wide, had too many buttons, for no reason had some like phallic symbol in the middle. Don’t get me started on the d-pad and analogue. Making characters move has been effortless since the invention of the joystick. It’s pretty hard to screw that one up and, yeah, they managed it.

Controllers should be intuitive. There are buttons on that thing that I never bothered to reach and I’m not sure what were for. I don’t think the game designers knew either.

I know I’m not the only one who was left feeling unsatisfied with this system. Many people put them on the shelf or tried to sell in to get a Playstation.

Me? I got a Playstation. Their controllers were essentially a next generation version of the Super Nintendo controllers. Also it sported the disc media that Nintendo had promised and then backed out on. Nintendo so completely dropped the ball, I never thought to look back to see if they were throwing it again.

Best Controller Ever

Years later, there is a Nintendo product sitting next to my old, old SNES. This next generation of consoles has a lot to offer. Not one of the systems sucks… well, the PS3 is too expensive for anyone’s tastes, but people would probably say it was a good system if that weren’t the case (likely doomed to be clumped with the Atari Jagar, 3D0, and Dream Cast before it- all good systems, but overpriced- but since it’s a blue ray player too, maybe not). The Xbox360 is probably the first true online gaming console to even take a chip off of what PCs have been doing for years, and its hardware is nothing short of sweet (with the exception of a very noisy fan and lower end version).

And the Wii is just something else.

The original Nintendo was revolutionary not because of its hardware. Few people realize this, but it was actually a step back for its time. Look at any game that was a port to the system (and most of them were) and you’d see what I mean. It was graphically inferior to an Atari or Commodore of the times. And yet, it stole the heart of the average household.

The Wii is in that category, but it’s more than that. The Wii came out at a time when it seemed like the only place for console technology left to go was to become more similar to a mini, cheap, gaming PC.

Nintendo proved us wrong.

The Wii reminds me of another console that Nintendo tried and bombed. Did anyone else have a Virtual Boy? I think my parents threw ours away (after buying it for us for $30 with several games). It was awkward, clunky, very red (no color), and kind of dangerous to the eyes and body. Video games do not make me dizzy the slightest, but this thing made me light headed and wobbly after playing. The warning in the manual said not to play for more than fifteen minutes at a time. I think that’s why it mysteriously disappeared into the closet and then from the closet to video game heaven. By then, we had kind of stopped using it anyways. It was like a novelty item, extremely cool for a limited time only.

The reason why the Wii reminds me of this is because that’s the attitude I cautiously approached the system with. I played it over people’s houses many times before I was convinced it was more than a novelty item. I’m still a bit worried that game developers will fail to step up and make games for it that take advantage of the power of rethinking video games it’s put in my hand and head.

I admit, I gawked at the price of the Wiimote and Nunchuck as much as I gawked at their names. Since then, I keep finding out what else this controller can do.

It’s just a controller… or maybe it’s a ball of potential masked as a controller.

Look at me, I’m a Nintendo controller. I’m a laser pointer. I’m a sword. Woah, it just talked, is there a speaker in there? Pull my trigger. Punch me out like I’m brass knuckles. Put me up to your ear, twist me to control this, bump into you, and perform the most fluid fighting moves ever.

This controller is the most intuitive yet complex thing of it’s class I’ve ever seen, a true marvel of design. The intuitiveness carries over to the point where one game and another have very different controls and uses for it, yet I can pick them up in a few minutes. And the ways I’m controlling and number of controls are learning I’m realizing are more than for any other console I have in the past. Without thinking I’m switching the thing around, and using all of the buttons. There are 9 buttons (including the home button) and 2 d-pads. It doesn’t feel like it when I use them all. I was surprised when I counted.

This is what they were maybe thinking about when they made the Nintendo 64 controller, arguably the worst controller of all time.

And here it is my beam katana, my master sword, my light saber, my platforming controller, my boxing gloves, my steering wheel, my phone, and whatever else the game designers will think up.

The phone was the latest ‘woah didn’t see that coming’. But, with the built in speaker, makes sense. Way to add that much more game flavor.

You taste that? That’s a win.

Uber Microbes

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I asked the little brother to help me vacuum my apartment, as I helped him clean his room earlier this weekend. He was a little reluctant,

“The floor isn’t even that dirty.”

I wasn’t going to let him off the hook, “Oh, it’s dirty. I have an indoor cat. You see bits of his cat littler in places, right? That means every bit of this floor could potentially have microbes of cat poo on it.”

Whining conquered with dramatics, he decided if he had to do it, he’d at least enjoy it.

“Okay. I’ll pwn those microbes with my uber micro,” a few weeks ago he watched all the Pure Pwnage episodes.

“Um, okay,” I went to pick up my laundry in the other room.

“I’m at the next level,” he called to me after a few minutes.

“Oh-kay,”

I walked by him in the living room.

“Boss fight!” he pushed the vacuumn towards me until I gave him a stern eye, and he though better of it.

When the vacuum whirred down and I heard “PWNED!” yelled from the other room.

I don’t know if I was as cool as my little brother when I was eleven, but I sure hope so.

Phlirting

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Working tech support as a woman I think is mostly the same as for guys with a few very, very obnoxious, notable differences, one of the biggest being:

I get hit on. Yeah, over the phone. Ya, rly.

“So, where are you located? Oh. Really?”
I wish I made it up, cuz you’ve been kinda creepy this whole call.
“Oh, hey, my ex is from New England. I used to go on up in there all the time.”
Orly.
“Ever come down here?”
TWSS.
“No? You should come down here some time.”
Hah… yah… for crying out loud, I’m a voice on the phone!

I’ve been getting this since I started on the phones.

Yesterday I got a super long pause after my customary call ending question, “Is there anything else I can help you with today?” The laughter following the pause wasn’t any more of a comfort. “Well, uh… you COULD but it’s not related to this stuff.” Oh. No. You. Didn’t.

The other day one of the guys got told,

“So you like to hike? You ever hike up here? Oh, yeah, maybe I’ll run into some time.”

For a moment I thought, how sexist of me to assume that the guys didn’t get the creepy flirting stuff.

Then I was told that she had started the call with a thinly veiled threat about how he better help her, and knowing where we were located, and how she could come down here and ask for him if she didn’t get helped.

Yowza. That’s a bit scary. I can’t say that I get yelled at or threatened much. I guess I kind of prefer the awkwardness of phone flirting.

This post’s screen shot is from the Gameboy Advance release of Final Fantasy 6. “I’m tech support, not some 900 number phone operator!”

I’m No BOFH

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Like many tech support people (and geeks in general), I regret that I am not the BOFH (Bastard Operator From Hell). I have to resort to internal sarcasm, the mute button, and jabber to keep all of the crap at bay. The truth is that every one of us have a BOFH living inside of us that just wants to be let out, but we like to eat, so we keep it to ourselves or put it on our blog. We do this while changing the names and events enough to keep us from becoming hungry later on.

The results are funny. The results help us when we are in the midst of those stressful moments. “The website is down.” someone says. And besides going, “Aw, fuck.” we can post the link and quasi-quote, “Dude, I can’t arrange the icons by penis”.

The rest of you can laugh… pause… and wonder if you are the type of person to say the funny, yet dumb thing.

Over these months I’ve heard a lot and it’s time to share some with the rest of you. Things have been changed to protect people, namely myself.

7:01 P.M. – beep
“This won’t even install.”
“What version of the software do you have?”
Names a version from the late ninties.
“And what operating system are you running on your computer?”
“Vista.”
“That, unfortunately, isn’t going to run even if we can get it to install.”
“It’s not even supported on Vista?”
Well, Vista kinda didn’t exist when the software was written, buddy. It’s hard to support something when it doesn’t exist.
“If you’d like I can send you a link to the system requirements for that version.”
“Well, is there a newer version that is supported?”
“Yes there is.”
“Can you send that to me?”
Oh, yeah, we give out software for free here. It’s what we do, make newer versions so people with the old one can get it for free. Winning business model right there…
“Unfortunately, no. You’d need to buy it.”
“But I paid for this!!”
“I’d be more than happy to help you install that on a computer running a compatible operating system.”
“This is wrong! I bought this and now I can’t even use it! I upgraded to Vista. I don’t have a computer running anything else.”
Can I get a FAIL?

7:15 P.M. – beep
“Thank you for calling.”
“Hi, uh, I can’t get my student software to work.”
“Are you getting an error message?”
“I fill out the form with my information: my name, uh, my school, my address-”
I let this continue for awhile.
“…and it’s telling me I need to enter my year of graduation and no where do I see a year box, I see: my name, um, my school-”
I feel like I’ve let him go on long enough.
“Are you on a Mac?”
“Uh, yeah. How’d you-”
“Try using the scroll bar or resizing the window.”
“Oh- hey, there it is. Thanks.”
“No problem. Is there anything else I can help you with today?”
“Uh, no. Wow, I feel stupid.”
You and the half a dozen people who call with the exact same issue every week.
“Oh, no, don’t. It’s what we’re here for. You have a great evening.”
“Um, yah, you too. Thanks!”

7:23 P.M.
“What operating system are you on?
“Um, I’m on Windows.”
“Is that XP?”
“No, Vista.”
“Okay, could you please go to your start menu-”
“I don’t have a start menu.”
Riiight
“Okay, sure. Please go to the start bubble on the bottom left hand side of the screen. In the search box there type c-m-d. That’s charlie, mary, delta. Hit enter.”
“…”
“Just let me know when you’ve done that. A command prompt window should come up.”
“.. …okay.”
“Now could you please type the command for me i-p-c-o-n-f-i-g, ipconfig, slash, a-l-l, all… and hit enter.”
“It’s not working.”
“Did you type cmd first and hit enter.”
“Yeah, it didn’t do anything.”
“Try it again.”
“Oh. Ooooh. I must not have hit enter.”
“Sure. Could you please type the command i-p-c-o-n-f-i-g, slash, a-l-l?”
“…”
“Just let me know when you’ve done that.”

7:44 P. M.
“This doesn’t work.”
“Have you installed and activated? Is there a particular error message you are getting.”
“I click on it and it goes away.”
“What operating system are you on?”
“Mac.”
“What version of Mac OSX do you have?”
“…”
“Panther,Tiger, Leopard…?”
“Um, how do I find out?”
“Go to the apple icon in the top left and click on it. Click on ‘about this Mac’.”
“Okay. I have 10.4.-”
“Alright. Then can you please get your Tiger DVD?”
“I don’t have it with me. It’s at my other house.”
“Okay, then I can send you some instructions on what to do when you do have your DVD to get this to work.”
“Um, that’s going to be like, not for a very long time and I need this now. Can’t I download it?”
“The Apple website only has updates, it does not have the actual program that you need installed.”
“What if I don’t have that dvd anymore.”
“Then you should probably go to the Apple store and get a new one. It’s pretty important to have your operating system disk.”
…even when you’re pirating it, you should probably have a copy.
“Oh. Okay. Thanks.”

7:55 P.M.
“So, I’m getting a message about a missing lib or something.”
“It sounds like you’re missing that library.”
“How do I get it?”
“Well, if you have the yum installer, you can use that.”
“Um, I don’t know.”
“Well, let’s try it. Type yum install..”
…the missing library. Making sure he’s typing it in with the correct case. How to spell yum.
“It didn’t work. How do I get a yum install thing?”
“Well, you can download the yum installer for your distribution of Linux.”
“How do I do that?”
“Just Google it by what distro you have.”
“…okay..?”

7:59 P.M.
“So, I got that thing you told me to install from the Tiger disk.”
“Great.”
“It’s still not working.”
“Okay, well let’s walk through together and install the package.”
“Um, I don’t have the DVD here with me.”
A few minutes to make sure he doesn’t have the right thing installed
“It sounds like you have the Leopard version of this installed.”
“…”
“You need to install this from a Tiger dvd.”
“Oh. Well, okay. I downloaded the right thing.”
“You need to install this from a Tiger dvd.”

…and time to go home.

Yuvi: “Tech Support work is harder than Superman’s. Usually.”
Me: “Superman saves people from villains. In tech support we have to save people from their own ignorance and stupidity. That’s damn near impossible.”