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Honestly, this picture is close to accurate if you were trying to input the code for the debug menu in Shadows of The Empire.
The purple version was the best. Mine from 1999 has had the most use and still works the best. I’ve bought new aftermarket controllers but none stand up to the old translucent purple.
Whatever floats your goat
It was designed at a transition point between joysticks and the D-pad. Your right hand goes on the right prong for the A, B, and C buttons. Your left hand should be on the center prong when using a game designed for the joystick, or on the left prong when using a game designed for the D-pad. It’s not the most elegant design, but it’s really not that hard to figure out.
It’s honestly baffling people still riff on this. Anyone that’s held the controller for 2 seconds understands it.
You’re right it’s just the system had very few games where the d pad was the obvious primary control device.
What everyone here is really missing is the ahead of its time Golden eye 2 controller two stick setup. They knew where things were going the controller was just a little too soon.
It’s gotta be Zoomers looking at it with no frame of reference. Anyone who played this at the time would have recognized the layout here; they were taking the SNES controller, adding an extra set of buttons to be more in line with the 6 button layout popularized by Sega, and then sticking a joystick in the middle. Assigning the c-buttons as directional was actually pretty insightful. They work for camera controls on stuff like Mario 64, but they also function as a top-row/bottom-row for strong-attack/light-attack on D-pad fighting games like Mortal Kombat.
This is why hiring the “why not both” girl as lead hardware designer is not always the best strategy
I mean, at the time it was designed, “both,” pretty much was the right choice. Without the D-pad a lot of the titles they could reliably develop, like fighting or puzzle games, would have been incredibly difficult to get working well, but without the joystick, they couldn’t launch with titles like Mario 64. It’s easy to look at the PS1 Duelshock controller and assume they were idiots, but original PS1 controller only had a D-pad. The N64 beat the PS1 to the joystick by two years, and while it was much derpier than the Playstation’s solution, it was integrated from day one.
On today’s standard controller layout, it’s easy to use both D-Pad and left Joystick without a third grip. I don’t see how that wouldn’t have been possible in 1996?
Idk if both was the “right” choice, but given the virtual boy was a ~year prior… there is definitely wisdom in playing things a little more cautious, which is what I would say the N64 controller represents: a justified fear to commit to the analog stick and remove the D-pad.
Honestly, I think, “both,” really was the only choice. No one had developed for a joystick-exclusive console since the Atari days. Most third-party developers would have had a tough time porting and adapting their games over to an exclusively joystick layout. The other consoles of that generation, the Saturn and Playstation, both had D-pad only controllers and D-pad/joystick combination controllers; no one went joystick only. The N64 design was imperfect, but it allowed them to launch Mario 64 and Mortal Kombat Trilogy in the same year (and it was a step up from Sega’s crack at it).
Or you’re like me and you put your hand on the left pron and stretch your thumb onto the joystick anyway. Middle prong be damned.
How the hell did you use the Z-trigger?
Middle finger stretched to it.
I apparently have large hands.
Yup. Middle finger. It’s a large hand person thing.
Same same. Alternatively sitting cross-legged use the ball of your foot to press Z
Username checksout
Still beats flying
Better have a long tongue to reach the “Z” button with.
The Z-spot
Yoshis tongue was based on the lead designers
Regular length tongue is fine. It’s just not inserted all the way in the picture.
Understood. My experience deepthroating N64 controllers is …uh… limited.
The designer of the controller had 3 arms and always wondered why people didn’t like the design.
Should be 3 mouths.
Did any of you change your controls to use the dpad for navigation in 007 golden eye? My friends called me a psycho for it.
No, but I did use the yellow buttons for movement and the joystick for aiming. I guess that’s fairly similar.
I see you played Turok.
Still a better time than whatever nightmare gaming is nowadays.
Rewatched Scott the Woz on live service games. Made me so happy to be OK with single player games.
I just finished Cairn, and even though it’s not perfect, I had fun (I still reccomend it), and was not raging at xXx_pussyslayer_xXx for one shoting me through a wall, or having to get 10 headshots with a side arm in 1 match or something.
In single player games, other randoms don’t dictate your fun. Its just you and the game working together.
What’s wrong with the current standard of two sticks? Also, we have had some absolutely phenomenal releases in the past few years; E33, anything fromsoft (especially AC:VI FoR), cyberpunk,I mean the list goes on for quite a while.
Oh I’m not commenting on controllers or the games themselves. To me it’s all the stuff surrounding gaming the last x years: *game devs get more press for their drama than their games. (Usually some heinous “we treat our employees like shit”. thing if it isn’t a shitty take like Epic tends to push out as of late)
*ai: both it’s implementation and it’s effect on hardware prices.
*season passes, dlc,… this irks me still. Make a complete game already ffs.
*early acces/pre-sale/… and the inevitable first month of patches trying to stop the ship from sinking.
*people losing their shit over gender options or if the female character isn’t enough of a bimbo to their liking.
All that kinda stuff… kinda ruins it for me. People don’t enjoy games anymore it seems, it has become just another opinion rabbit hole for YouTube.
The “people losing their shit over gender options” bit hits hard.
Like homie, it’s an option. AN OPTION!
Same people bitched about bad bunny but still watched him.
Worst controller design of all time.
Objectively false, and it’s not even close
The worst has to go to the Phillips CDI. In fairness, this was designed primarily as a remote control, and there was a much better dedicated gaming controller available, but they believed this layout would be adequate for gaming.
I still don’t get how they ever approved this design.
It was the early days of 3d gaming consoles. And as nobody knew how control schemes will develop they created this controller with three different kinds of input schemes:
- Left on left/ right on right for traditional plattformers
- Left on middle / right on right for 3d games that require that analog stick
- Left on left / right on middle … yeah I don’t know either. Twin stick shooters perhaps?
Is there any game that utilized the d pad though? The d pad and the L button must have gone down in history as the most useless buttons ever put on a controller.
Pretty much every 2D game did.
Some games actually had you holding the middle and left sticks (Wetrix I think?).
Also the D-pad or L button were used to taunt in Smash Bros.
Fighting games, esp if you were old school
Star Soldier: Vanishing Earth
The AKI wrestling games like Wrestlemania 2000 and WWF No Mercy
