As a huge fan of music/rhythm games, I have shelled out quite a bit of money buying expensive games that come with controllers. Whether it is Guitar Hero "guitars' or Dance Dance Revolution dance mats, my house is becoming littered with these objects like that spoiled kid's room who has just one too many toys. In this post, I want to ask, is it worth paying an extra thirty dollars to get an often poorly made controller specific to the game?



First, let's start with the good. I love playing games with different controllers. As a life long gamer, I have to admit that having a new controller makes me feel like I am playing a game I truly have never played before. I am also a big fan of RPGs, but I do not have as much free time to play RPGs as in my youth, and often when I am playing them now, I feel like I have already played this game, but the castle is cream instead of white, the princess is brunette instead of ginger (shout to my homies across the Atlantic!), and my character still looks like something cool in Japan, but weird and androgynous to my American eyes - but I digress. I think the greatest part of playing games with different controllers is the feeling I get. I feel like I am actually playing guitar. I feel like I am actually dancing. Lord knows, I ain't doing either, but dammit, I feel it, and it is satisfying. I tried playing Guitar Hero on a normal PS2 controller after watching some youtube savant kill Megadeth, and I realized that the whole game is basically the controller. It is well worth the extra cash to experience something new, which is exactly what a new controller provides. I want to see what other kinds of crazy controllers game companies can come up with that push the limits of interaction.



Now, on to some of the bad. First of all, the consumer usually has to spend a significant sum of money on this new controller. So far, I have bought the Guitar Hero I bundle, the Guitar Hero II bundle, Rock Band (and another guitar for bass), and DDR Universe 2 with the mat. All of these games have costs over the usual asking price, some more than others: GH I and II were $80 each, $170 for Rock Band, and $70 for DDR. But as I explained above, I think that the new experiences are worth the extra cash. Still though, in my youth this may have prevented me from getting the game I really wanted, especially something like Rock Band, but now that I am totally yupped out, it isn't as big of a deal.

Ok, so I paid an extra thirty dollars and all I got was this toy guitar: was $30 a fair price? This is a very tough question to answer mostly because the logistics of pricing are more or less foreign to me (like inventory, store shelf-space, returns, etc.), but it is clear that bundling a game with a controller requires the folks releasing the game to deal with a whole host of new problems: my strum bar is broken, my fret button is jammed, my three hundred and fifty pound "friend" broke my kick pedal. In short, they have to take on a whole lot of responsibility. Couple this with the fact that if the purchaser wants to fix the equipment himself, he loses any warranty from the company; self-help is not encouraged.



So enough about the game companies, what about me? I have bought all of these controllers and how have they fared? I have had mixed results. My first GH controller (the black one) still works and is my axe of choice. My second GH controller (the red one) broke within about a week - as soon as I get star power there is no holding back. My whammy broke shortly there after. When I would play two player, I would let my not-as-experienced friends play with the black and I would take the red - gotta give them a chance somehow. I could still play with the red, but it was not as fun when the controller didn't control the way it was supposed to. I have had trouble with most of my Rock Band equipment. My guitar came with a loose strum bar (are they all like this? I think I may send it back), my usb adapter broke into two pieces pretty much right away, and my bass pedal broke after a big friend of mine (not quite 350...) got a bit too excited playing Radiohead. To the credit of EA, they replaced my equipment (the pedal and adapter) with very little hassle. My DDR mat is ok; it seems like I constantly hit arrows that I don't think I should be, but then again, I am not tiny asian teenager, with tiny asian teenager feet.

Finally, it is worth noting that storing these extra controllers can be a real pain. I love keeping my old games (the way a reader would keep the books he has read), but where on my media storage shelf am I going to keep two toyish looking guitars. And, if I don't have the guitars, I am never going to play the game again. This means the guitars are put in storage, virtually guaranteeing that I will not ever play this game again. There is a certain level of gimmickosity that comes with these controller games that I didn't realize until I was trying to find a place to comfortably retire my Guitar Hero instruments.

All-in-all, I love games with special controllers and I often find that paying the extra money is well worth the added experience. However, I wonder if over time the hassle of having all of these controllers will diminish the fun. Already I have had to tell people that I cannot bring Rock Band over because lugging all of the gear around is a pain in the arse (and you can imagine how disappointed my friends were!). It should be noted too that I did not discuss other games types with special controllers, like shooters or Scene It?, but I think the same general discussion applies - new controller, new experience, more stuff, less longevity. While game companies think it is all the rage to have these fun controller bundles, in the future, I can see the industry getting out-of-control and then eventually come full circle with standard controllers becoming the new novelty controllers.

What do you think?