Back when I was a kid (yeah, a long time ago... shut up) there was a "known" fact no game could be successful if it required a specific peripheral to play it. This phallusy (ha ha) lasted for a surprisingly long time.

We knew for a fact that NO ONE was going to buy a controller just for one or two games. Everything had to be on the standard controller/joystick, or it wasn't gonna fly. There was a little bit of range in terms of "standard controllers" though. I remember being wealthy enough to buy not one but TWO Namco Arcade Sticks. You can't be a grand Tekken Master without those bad boys. It's funny, though, that style of controller seems to be lost in the mists of time, a useless relic of a bygone era, like Lindsay Lohan's hymen.

Another non-standard controller that I had and remain proud of to this day was a Sega Control Stick for the Sega Master System. Man, to my mind now the thing looks like a controller specifically made to help retarded kids who can't grip prop...

Back when I was a kid (yeah, a long time ago... shut up) there was a "known" fact no game could be successful if it required a specific peripheral to play it. This phallusy (ha ha) lasted for a surprisingly long time.

We knew for a fact that NO ONE was going to buy a controller just for one or two games. Everything had to be on the standard controller/joystick, or it wasn't gonna fly. There was a little bit of range in terms of "standard controllers" though. I remember being wealthy enough to buy not one but TWO Namco Arcade Sticks. You can't be a grand Tekken Master without those bad boys. It's funny, though, that style of controller seems to be lost in the mists of time, a useless relic of a bygone era, like Lindsay Lohan's hymen.

Another non-standard controller that I had and remain proud of to this day was a Sega Control Stick for the Sega Master System. Man, to my mind now the thing looks like a controller specifically made to help retarded kids who can't grip properly. But in its day… let's just say that bad boy has seen some unbelievably repetitive Wonderboy terrain pass under my skateboard wheels.

Wonderboy. Man, now there's a game you don't see much these days. The original was awesome, despite being just the same thing over and over, but Wonderboy III: The Dragon's Trap. Wonderboy In Monsterland. Man, I'm playing with my Sega Control Stick right now just thinking of those games.

Especially the dude whose head kept getting knocked off and he'd fly away with a new head. What's with that?

Where was I? Oh, non standard controllers. There were two non-standard controller we accepted and embraced, despite shoddy support. Steering wheels, because... good for driving. And guns. We love guns. We love shooting at the screen. From Duck Hunt to Virtua Cop, House of the Dead (the game, not the excremental movie), Point Blank (the game Point Blank, not the excremental movie Point Break, not to be confused with the excellent movie Gross Point Blank). We love them. And they're one of the few controllers to really be accepted as a possibility, despite hideous incompatibilities from one shooty game to another. Guncon anyone?

What's with Namco and weird controllers? Anyone remember the Negcon? It was a Playstation controller you could twist like you were giving the game a Chinese burn. Take that, Tekken 2! It was as pointless and disappointing as a Kiera Knightly nude scene. Of course, it allowed analogue control at a time when we still giggled at the word anal in analogue.

He he… anal-og.

Other "interesting" controllers were tried at various times. Nintendo made the Power Glove, a controller suited only to punching Fred Savage in the face. A lot of people will undoubtedly tell me that it was ahead of its time and only now is the Wii finally making good the potential offered by the Power Glove. A lot of people can have a bit of what Fred Savage is getting. There's plenty of Power Glove Justice to go around.

The Dreamcast brought us the rather odd Fishing Rod controller. This controller was very well suited to the wide range of fishing games available on the platform. Like… Sega Bass Fishing. Gayer than the audience at a kd lang/Sophie B Hawkins double billing.

All of these controllers have one thing in common. They all failed fairly spectacularly. Rather than giving us new ways to play games they just were weird and confusing. Apart from the guns, few bought any of these kooky things, and certainly no one used them for any length of time.

But something changed. Somewhere, probably in the late nineties, something went all weird.

It started in the arcade. Dance Dance Revolution became massively popular in arcades at a time when arcade revenue was going down faster than Paris Hilton when she gets into a prison. Seriously, that girl is going to be forced to take more unwanted pussy than the RSPCA at Christmas.

Anyway, Dance Dance Revolution was a hit in the Arcade, especially in Japan, and made Konami much yen. It didn't take long for a happy happy home port to occur, but without the controller the game was pretty much Bust-A-Groove. I will never ever run away, I'll be here to fight another day, I will make you realize… AHHH! GET OUT OF MY HEAD!

DDR pretty much needed crazy controllers, and while the metal arcade ones were obviously impractical the squishy ones they shipped with the game were… good enough.

From there things kind of snowballed, and not in a porn sort of way. Sony started it, what with the SingStar thing being both heavily promoted and actually… good. SingStar did something no other game had yet done - it made girls into gamers. Following that up with EyeToy, Sony have made non-controllers the new controllers. More recently, Sony brought us Buzz, which allowed gamers to play trivia games with a simple buzzer, and as a pleasant side effect gave Jason Donovan the ability to buy more cocaine while still retaining the obscurity he's so carefully built up over the last decade.

Nintendo, apparently bored with making uninspired rip-offs of their own dying franchises (what?!) decided to pretty much make weird games. You can't really go past Donkey Konga for odd choice of peripherals. There's not going to be a whole lot of third party Bongo games happening. Course, then there's Samba De Amigo, Spanish for What The Fuck.

Some of the biggest games of the last few years have been sans-controller, or at least had some sort of weird custom controller. But as far as non-standard controllers go, whether you count on its range of appeal, commercial success, one game stands supreme, as untouchable as Hermione's breasts. What? You were thinking it.

Guitar Hero.

It's interesting to note that of all the strange and crazy controllers available on recent/current platforms, from Bongos to Maracas, Microphones, Dance Mats, and Guitars, the one thing you will not see is guns. In a Jack Thompson ruled industry, a world after Columbine and Virginia realistic shooting games are about as welcome as Mel Gibson with bacon at a jewish barbeque.

Obviously there's a place for the "standard" games. The mainstream "gamers game", where you use the controller to pilot your plane, or drive your car, or make your character move around, or... dig for gold. I don't know what, but you get what I mean. Those games will always form the core of gaming.

But the Wii shows us clearly that the games can do more when the controller can do more. SingStar has shown us clearly how many more people will play games when they don't have to learn the buttons. Dance Dance Revolution has shown us that a game doesn't have to be sedentary. Guitar Hero has shown us how to rock.