Top 10 unique game controllers

2 - Eye Toy camera

For use with the Eye Toy games
Sony PlayStation 2, 2003 – 2005

While Sony is still, despite its world-spanning size, a very Japanese company in its outlook and approach, the innovations of the PlayStation 2’s late era have come out of Sony’s European offices. Like SingStar, Eye Toy was developed by Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, and was successful in broadening the appeal of the PS2.

The Eye Toy might be primitive and easily fooled by dodgy lighting conditions, but its aim is radical: by erasing any form of tactile control, it stops a game being something distant, passive and taking place inside the TV box, and tries to blend it with reality. The ‘toy’ part of the name and the fact that Eye Toy comes with hordes of mini-games, rather than one or two bigger, more complex games, implies that this is a very young technology, and one with a lot of future potential.

1 - Maracas

For use with Samba de Amigo
Sega Dreamcast, 1999

Video games allow us to live a fantasy life: to be Luke Skywalker or Ronaldinho and a million other heroes and villains. Like dreams, games relate to reality, but are a different way of looking at it, and there, as Hamlet says, is the rub. The obvious and mundane is not what we look for in games and certainly not in games with their own special controllers. The point is to be different and interesting, and as such, Samba de Amigo, and its maracas, is a natural choice for number one. Many people dream of finding fame as a singer, guitar hero, or in front of the camera, but not many people dream of finding fame as a maraca player, especially as the only famous maraca player is the Happy Mondays’ Bez – a man renowned for being a few mariachis short of a carnival.

In Samba de Amigo, a unique concept is combined with simple, solid game mechanics and great graphics. The cast of bizarrely entertaining characters are exactly what you’d expect to get if you asked a bunch of Japanese game developers to draw a mariachi band – stylish and entertaining but with just enough edge to make them compelling, a spirit embodies by the goggle-eyed, perma-grinning central character, Amigo. It’s a completely unique experience, and great fun to play – and one that would only work with a custom controller.