I Miss the GameCube WaveHen, the Best Controller Nintendo Ever Made

The online game business has roughly settled on a regular design for controllers with a pair of matching analog joysticks, a directional pad, 4 motion buttons, and shoulder triggers on high. It’s a design that the PlayStation DualShock controller popularized, however one which I genuinely really feel Nintendo completely executed on the GameCube WaveHen—which additionally occurred to be one of many first mainstream wi-fi gamepads.

Like the times earlier than the iPhone when smartphone and PDA makers tried each bizarre {hardware} design they may consider to shrink a transportable pc right into a pocket-sized gadget that was nonetheless useable, there was a time when console makers experimented with the shape and performance of online game controllers in an try to search out the proper strategy to work together with 3D video games.

Video video games on PCs had gone 3D lengthy earlier than consoles did, and whereas it could not have been excellent, a mouse and keyboard was a really efficient strategy to navigate characters or automobiles round a 3D house. The drawback was that whereas a mouse and keyboard have been simple to make use of on a desk the place most PCs lived, they have been a poor resolution for consoles the place gamers usually plunked down on a settee with their controls in hand.

The authentic PlayStation, launched in December of 1994 in Japan, was the primary console to carry 3D graphics to the lounge, however it shipped with a controller that was paying homage to the 16-bit gamepads of the earlier technology that includes only a four-way D-pad. Nintendo, an organization with an extended historical past of each profitable and failed experiments within the online game market, was the primary console maker to incorporate a controller with an analog stick for its N64 that reintroduced iconic video games like Super Mario and The Legend of Zelda with 3D graphics. (The N64’s controller would even be the primary to achieve vibrating power suggestions capabilities in 1997 by using the chunky Rumble Pak attachment.)

Having logged many hours in video games like Microsoft Flight Simulator on the PC utilizing a flight stick, I used to be no stranger to analog controls when the N64 got here out, however I do bear in mind struggling to adapt to creating refined changes with the controller’s tiny analog stick with make the most of with the ability to management the pace of my character’s actions, not simply their course. And I actually wasn’t alone as a result of the N64’s three-pronged controller isn’t precisely seemed again on as a pinnacle of controller design.

A 12 months after the N64 was launched, in 1997, Sony launched the DualShock controller for its PlayStation console which might roughly outline the overall look of console controllers from then on. It included not one, however two analog sticks: one for controlling a personality or a car, and a second for controlling a recreation’s 3D digicam. Given the unique PlayStation offered over 102 million consoles (Nintendo moved slightly below 33 million N64s) the DualShock controller, which was additionally appropriate with later Sony consoles, stays one of the vital in style controllers of all time—however I believe Nintendo improved upon the DualShock with the GameCube.

The GameCube—a literal dice—was Nintendo’s first console to make use of discs as an alternative of cartridges and was launched in North America simply three days after the unique Microsoft Xbox debuted which was bolstered by one of the vital extravagant advertising and marketing pushes in online game historical past. The GameCube wasn’t a nasty console per se, it featured some memorable Nintendo titles like Super Mario Sunshine and The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker and whereas it managed to promote simply over 22 million models in comparison with Microsoft promoting 24 million Xboxes, by Nintendo’s requirements it was removed from a runaway success. It did, nonetheless, include one redeeming function: the proper controller.

After tiring of ready for Nintendo to carry The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker to the Switch, final week I dug out my authentic GameCube {hardware} and was reminded of how a lot I beloved the WaveHen controller, and nonetheless do. Arriving a 12 months after the GameCube itself in 2002, the WaveHen was the primary fashionable controller to function wi-fi connectivity. It seemed roughly like the usual GameCube controller, however with a big protrusion on the again for holding the wi-fi RF {hardware} plus a pair of AA batteries, and it required an included dongle to be linked to the console.

It was sort of clunky and sort of finicky, however lastly with the ability to play a console with no lengthy wire made the WaveHen utterly well worth the improve. (The Xbox wouldn’t get wi-fi controllers till the 360 arrived in 2005, and PlayStation followers needed to wait till 2006 with the arrival of the PS3 and the Sixaxis.) And as handy as wi-fi was, I’ll additionally go to my grave believing the GameCube controller and the WaveHen’s button and joystick format is absolute perfection. The format of the 4 motion buttons is way extra intuitive than what fashionable controllers use, permitting a thumb to simply roll off the central A button to hit the encircling B, X, and Y buttons, and I’m even a fan of the capless second analog stick used for digicam changes. I’ll typically examine the sensation of choosing up the WaveHen and GameCube controllers to the sensation of placing on a comfortable pair of slippers which have completely conformed to your ft after years of use.

One of my favourite video games for the GameCube was the launch title, Wave Race: Blue Storm, was a sequel to the N64’s Wave Race 64. The N64 model by no means did a lot for me, however the GameCube model did a implausible job of recreating the sensation of crashing by waves on a jet ski and I’m assured it’s as a result of the controller lastly felt like an extension of my hand. Where the WaveHen’s distinctive format actually shined was in video games like James Bond 007: Nightfire. It was not the non secular successor to GoldenEye 007 many had hoped it might be, however multiplayer benefitted from some distinctive weapons, together with a grappling gun permitting my siblings and I to zip backwards and forwards throughout buildings with ease by a intelligent use of button combos. But it was Super Smash Bros. Melee that helped cement the GameCube controller as an iconic piece of gaming {hardware}, and with the sport being launched simply days after the console, it’s arduous to think about its builders didn’t have some affect on the controller’s design given how effortlessly your thumb strikes from button to button to tug off combos and different strikes.

After the relative failure of the GameCube, Nintendo’s follow-up in 2006 was arguably one of many firm’s riskiest experiments ever, however the Wii was an plain hit, ultimately promoting nearly 102 million consoles. It was appropriate with each older GameCube video games and controllers, however the Wii ushered in a brand new technology of motion-controlled gaming by its progressive Wiimote and Nunchuck controllers that has remained Nintendo’s focus by the Wii U and even the Switch as we speak.

The GameCube controller and the WaveHen are removed from forgotten, nonetheless. The asymmetrical format of their two analog sticks continues to be utilized by Microsoft for its Xbox controller, and Nintendo for the Switch’s Pro Controller, and it’s arduous to think about ever having to make use of a controller with a wire ever once more. The GameCube controller additionally stays a favourite amongst aggressive Smash Bros. gamers even to this present day, a lot in order that Nintendo even re-released the GameCube controller in 2018 with a USB cable in order that it might be simply used with the Switch and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.

But that additionally helps clarify why even Nintendo has gone with a extra conventional button format for the Switch Pro Controller and even the Joy-Cons. The WaveHen’s format excelled with video games like Super Smash Bros. Melee, however making the A, B, X, and Y buttons all the identical dimension additionally makes them really feel extra impartial and simpler for players to change from system to system. There are actually nonetheless console devotees who keep loyal to Microsoft, Sony, or Nintendo, however there are simply as many who fortunately welcome a number of gaming techniques into their houses, and a controller with a generic button format encourages that method, making it simpler to hop from system to system.

Am I considerably saddened that I discover it arduous to really feel a distinction between the Switch’s Pro Controller and an Xbox Series X|S controller? Just a little. Nintendo is at its finest when it’s being bizarre and attempting do its personal factor, and that’s how the GameCube controller’s was born. The cube-shaped console may not be remembered significantly fondly, however it’s arduous to name the GameCube a failure when it introduced with it the very best controller Nintendo has ever made.