Page 10 - Old School Gamer Magazine Issue #40 FREE Edition

64, he would have seen Mario 64 with it,” Nintendo programmer Giles Goddard told Mark Green, former European Editorial Coordinator
at Nintendo, in an unabridged interview found on Pixelatron.
com. “It wasn’t so much that controller dictated Mario 64,”
controller with the Dual Analog followed swiftly by the DualShock
- same style, but with two analog sticks positioned where your thumbs would rest. Over the coming years, as 3D games grew more advanced, functionality that would have been mapped on shoulder
buttons made its way to the sticks. For instance, the PS1 port of Doom had you strafe by pressing R1 and L1. In the waves of first- person shooters that followed, aiming with your controller’s right stick, and moving with
the left became
standard. Developers used its vibration feature in games such as Tekken 3 and Spyro the Dragon, adding a type of tactile feedback. Sony still uses the DualShock controller design today, even if its latest iteration as of this writing goes by a different name.
Next up on our list: The
Dreamcast, Sega’s swan song in the console business. The controller felt like a step back
in some ways, going with one stick instead of two and a pair of shoulder buttons instead of four.
in-game information such as your character’s health in Resident Evil CODE: Veronica. (The VMU could even be used separately from the controller to manage your saved data, check the date and time, and play simple games.)
Nintendo, meanwhile, was shaking
Goddard continued, “it was just that was the game he was working on. Mario was the way of testing it out. Probably more the other way around.”
The Z button located on
the bottom of the controller functioned as a trigger, perfect
for targeting or shooting in action games. The four C buttons on the controller’s face played the same role as dual analog sticks would in future controllers. Each button was marked with a direction, meaning Nintendo’s developers, at least, intended for it to be used for camera manipulation, seen in games such as Super Mario 64. However, they could perform any function, such as equipping items in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.
In 1997, Sony iterated on its PS1
The real innovation were the two slots in the controller’s center that could hold peripherals. One such was the VMU, a memory card with a screen that showed
things up with the Gamecube controller. Something of an anomaly, its design placed buttons in odd locations - until you played
a game designed for it and realized the controller fit the game perfectly. The Gamecube’s ‘pad was arguably best showcased in Super Smash Bros. Melee. In fact, Nintendo has continued to release controllers modeled after the Gamecube’s chief peripheral for later systems such
as the Switch. A wireless version called the WaveBird was released in 2002 and is one of the finest controllers ever made, owing in part to its astoundingly long battery life.
Five years later, the Wii remote opened the floodgates to casual gamers who had found traditional games and gamepads confusing. Shaped like a TV remote, the “Wii” mote had buttons, but motion controls were its main selling point. Players less dexterous or familiar with video games could mimic real- life actions such as swinging tennis rackets and dueling Bokoblins in Zelda: Skyward Sword. Pairing it with optional peripherals such as
a joystick or traditional controller meant you could still play more “hardcore” games, too.
The PS5, Xbox Series X, and Nintendo Switch era of consoles
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OLD SCHOOL GAMER MAGAZINE • ISSUE #40