When I saw that the DS was getting a "paddle" controller -- as seen on Destructoid -- I was so excited that if I'd had the foresight to fill my pockets full of glitter, at that moment I'd have done a quick little dance and thrown two handfuls of the stuff into the sky above me. As nice as the touch screen is, it's never really impressed me all that much. I've always found the idea of the dual-screen much more important than the addition of touch. The ability to display multiple views and pass information to the player without obscuring the field of view, especially when screen real estate is so limited, is vital. Perhaps that's so because there are so few games that have really taken advantage of what can be done with the touch screen, or because the ones that do are lousy at it. Either way, for some games, it just doesn't quite compare to more traditional control interfaces. For example, although the game being featured with that new paddle controller is "Arkanoid", I've played "Breakout" on the DS before, which is fairly similar to "Arkanoid", and the touch screen makes for a pretty good interface, but it's not the most accurate way of controlling the paddle when executing quick maneuvers. Not only that, but sometimes the stylus gets in the way, making it hard to see. A paddle wouldn't just make the game more "retro" but more enjoyable, too.

Recently, Sony announced that the latest iteration of the PlayStation 3 controller, the DualShock 3, will feature built-in vibrating motors that give the player tactile feedback -- a feature more commonly known as "rumble". Rumble is hardly a new feature, having been around for more than a decade; however, Sony had to forego its inclusion in the PlayStation 3 controllers due to legal reasons. Now that it's back, though, PlayStation 3 owners couldn't be more excited. Rumble, it would seem, had been taken for granted by Sony. Rather than bite the bullet and just pay Immersion Technologies the licensing fee required to include the feature, they called it "last-gen" and sought to play it down as much as possible. It would seem that, like the new paddle controller for the DS, old school, last-generation features are new school, current-gen hotness.

Enter "Lair", an intensely hyped game for the PlayStation 3 which was widely panned by critics who claimed the motion-sensing capabilities of the Sixaxis controller were rather poor. "Rather poor" is a nice way of saying, "the reviewers hated it". Many of them actually wished they could use the analog sticks on the controller, instead. Factor 5's director, Julian Eggebrecht, appeared on an episode of EGM Live (here's the episode in question - mp3 get!) defending the motion controls and insisting that the reviewers were "too hard core" to properly play the game with a new control scheme. If a $599 console isn't meant for hard core players, then I'm not sure who it is for. Nor am I sure of whom, exactly, Eggebrecht had in mind when he said that. Perhaps the millions of casual players who already bought a Wii? Whether Factor 5 felt that motion controls were that much more important than the traditional analog sticks, or whether there was pressure from Sony to show off the Sixaxis controllers, I can only speculate. But if there is a lesson to be learned here it's that people need options and alternatives. If you can't provide that, then you really need to do your best to make sure your decision is handled properly. Otherwise, you're going to end up with a game that scores very low because the reviewers can't play it right.

The future of gaming peripherals seems mired in hypocrisy. Everyone wants to play a game the way they feel the most comfortable. PC gamers want a mouse and keyboard for every first-person shooter while some fighting game fans will prefer an arcade stick to the d-pad. I'm sure you can even find a group of people who would argue that the analog stick is better than a wheel for racing games, followed by the group who prefers a d-pad over an analog stick. Then you've got flight-sim buffs who can't seem to get enough peripherals, including multiple displays and motion activated seating that make you feel like you're actually flying -- these people will spare no expense. I'm not saying any one is better than the other, nor will I insist that any of this is wrong; I'm simply pointing out that it's hard to please everyone. I'm sure more than a few people will find objection with my thoughts on the touch screen, and that's ok. What I'm finding, however, is that we don't really appreciate something until it's long gone -- like paddles, trackballs, joysticks, analog sticks, and maybe even motion controls, someday, in the mysterious future. Years from now, will we wonder what ever happened to the good ol' days, when all we had were a pair of analog sticks to play Halo, or will we wonder how gamers of yore ever got along without motion control? It's hard to say what will emerge as the most popular way to play, but one thing is certain: there will always be some old jerk, like me, wishing he could use a paddle to play the re-remixed version of Breakout on his DS 2.