Barbie and the Masculine Joy of Being Kenough

This post contains spoilers for Barbie The Dream (House) is dead. That’s the revelation that Margot Robbie’s Stereotypical Barbie must face midway through Barbie, when she and her friends from the real world return to Barbie Land and visit her home. In place of the Dream House, a pink paradise that served as the stage […]

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When the Nintendo Entertainment System hit back in the ’80s, we saw this influx in the concept of gaming accessories. The light gun was iconic, allowing you to shoot down ducks and cowboys. The Power Glove and ROB the Robot looked godly, but worked like garbage. The Power Pad was a brilliant novelty of the time. The Game Genie was a literal game-changer. Playing games was one thing, but HOW we played the games was another avenue to be explored.

Not every accessory made such a footprint in video game history. They couldn’t all be shilled by Lucas during a throwaway scene in The Wizard. Some concepts fell into obscurity, like when Atari tried to make a headband controller for the 2600 that would control the game based on your “thoughts.”

I really should include the Atari Mindlink on this list of forgotten video game accessories, but unfortunately, it never got released. And for good reason! Still, I just had to mention it because…what the hell?

Atari 2600 Stick Station (1983)

In the days of the Atari 2600, playing around with its joystick could occasionally do a number on your hands. And so, they released a way to keep the stick stationary…by shoving it into an oversized plank.

While I understand the logic behind it, I can’t help but find the station comedic. It’s just a big hunk of wood with a hole in it and a logo in the corner. They quickly realized it was way easier to just throw some suction cups on the bottom of the controllers instead, making the Stick Station a very short-lived product. The NES had its own version of this called the Speedboard, which simply made controlling the games feel way worse.

Exciting Boxing’s Inflatable Controller (1987)

In 1987, Konami released a game called Exciting Boxing for the Famicom. At first glance, it appears to be a pretty straightforward genre title. Like just about every boxing game, you go through a series of increasingly difficult opponents, which, in this case, included a Clubber Lang knockoff and a boxing luchador (beating Super Punch Out’s Masked Muscle to the…umm…punch by several years). The difference is that you wouldn’t be using a regular controller to dodge, block, and punch.

Instead, your controller is an inflatable punching bag with the image of a boxer on it. By punching this big balloon, your hits would be reflected in the game itself. In a weird way, it’s like an unholy hybrid of Punch-Out! and Duck Hunt. The inflatable controller could only be used for Exciting Boxing specifically, and the whole setup is worth a pretty penny if you’re trying to track down your own copy.

SegaScope 3D Glasses (1987)

The original Sega Master System experimented with the idea of 3D gaming through a special visor called the SegaScope 3D Glasses. This was more than just a regular cardboard pair of 3D glasses, as you had to plug the device into your console and watch the game through two constantly flickering lenses. While it did work as intended, it often cut a game’s frame rate by half.

The glasses can only be used with the first version of the Master System, as the necessary port was done away with in updated versions of the console. It was also only compatible with eight games, including Line of Fire, which came out way later in 1992.

Around this time, the Famicom had its own counterpart in the Famicom 3D System, but it was a complete bust and never left Japan. It was also compatible with Falsion, which is one of the better 8-bit games to never make it to the United States.