Controllers are our gateway to the games we love, but not every idea has been… conventional. Over the years, developers and hardware makers have experimented with bizarre designs that made us raise an eyebrow, laugh out loud, or occasionally fall in love. Let’s celebrate the weird, the wacky, and the surprisingly wonderful oddballs of gaming hardware.
5 of the strangest controllers ever built
The Power Glove: Ahead of its time (sort of)
A cultural icon more than a functional controller, the Power Glove promised motion control in the NES era but delivered clunky inputs and disappointment. Yet it became legendary because it looked futuristic. We didn’t love using it, but we loved what it represented: ambition and style over substance.
DK Bongos: Rhythm meets bananas
Nintendo’s Donkey Konga brought us the DK Bongos, a controller so silly it actually worked. Simple plastic drums with clap detection, they were surprisingly sturdy and fun. Later, Nintendo doubled down by letting you play Donkey Kong Jungle Beat entirely on bongos, turning a rhythm gimmick into a whole platforming experience.
The Resident Evil 4 Chainsaw Controller: Terrifyingly impractical
Leave it to Capcom to design a controller shaped like a bloody chainsaw. Released for Resident Evil 4 on GameCube and PS2, it was more collector’s item than practical hardware. Oversized, awkward, and unwieldy, it captured the tone of the game perfectly. It was terrible to use, but brilliant to own.
The Sega Fishing Rod: Hook, line, and sinker
The Dreamcast was home to some fantastic oddball peripherals, and the fishing rod is a gem. Designed for Sega Bass Fishing, it had motion detection and rumble that mimicked casting and reeling. It was niche, yes, but shockingly immersive. When you used it, you couldn’t help but smile.
The PlayStation EyeToy: Making players the controllers
Okay, so it’s not technically a controller, but that’s kind of the point. Instead of handing you a hunk of plastic, Sony handed you a camera and told you to wave your arms around like a lunatic. Suddenly, you were the controller, smacking ninjas out of the air or cleaning virtual windows by flailing at your TV.
Long before Kinect and VR body-tracking, the EyeToy turned living rooms into play spaces and got entire families off the sofa. It was daft, glitchy, and ahead of its time in a way that made you wonder what games might look like in ten years.
Why we love the weird ones
Sure, these controllers weren’t always ergonomic, practical, or useful outside their one or two compatible titles, but that’s never really been the point. What they carried was something far rarer in gaming hardware: personality.
They broke the uniformity of black plastic pads with twin sticks and shoulder buttons, daring you to try something different. Sometimes that meant frustration, yes, the Power Glove was famously “so bad”. But it also meant laughter, shared stories, and a kind of tactile novelty that made gaming feel alive.
Think about it: you might not remember every mission in Resident Evil 4, but you’ll never forget chainsawing through waves of Ganados with an actual chainsaw controller. You might have forgotten half the songs you played on Donkey Konga, but those bongo slaps stick in the memory. Even the clunky EyeToy minigames felt special because they turned gaming into something communal and absurd in the best way.
In short, the strangest controllers reminded us that games aren’t just about efficiency or precision; they’re about joy, experimentation, and sometimes looking completely ridiculous while you play. And honestly? We kinda love them for it.
We may mock them now, but gaming’s strangest controllers deserve appreciation. They were experiments, cultural quirks, and sometimes outright failures, but they added colour to gaming history. And who knows? With VR, haptics, and AI on the rise, the next “weird” controller might be just around the corner.
A couple of links in this article are affiliate links. If you click and buy, we might earn a tiny cut; think of it like giving us a bonus life. It costs you nothing extra, and it helps us keep writing about the wonderfully weird side of gaming. However, you by no means have to use them. For more opinion pieces like this, click right here.
