My Design for a Video Game Controller

My first console was the Sega Genesis and I always wondered why games never used the X, Y, Z buttons. Bullshit, right? Actually, no! Look at this thing, it's actually pretty cool.

Note: This is actually the Saturn controller, but little difference from the Genesis.

6 Buttons on the front. What are you going to do with them all? I don't know! You know what it looks like, right? The same controller Nintendo used in it's next gen controller.

What do you guys think? Appropriation or coincidence? Were all these yellow buttons used that much anyway? I remember they were used in Zelda 64 for different things you could program yourself and it was actually handy. In Smash Bros however, they all did the same thing and were actually excessive. Nintendo also got rid of the Select button. I think I want it back. Oh, and lose the middle handle. That's bullshit.

Now, here's something peculiar.

My poor fucking right thumb!

People at Microsoft must have mutant thumbs. Pretend you're holding a controller right now and move your right thumb across imaginary buttons in a horizontal arrangement like the Genesis or the N64.

It works, doesn't it! Now, try moving your thumb up and down across an imaginary controller shaped like the original XBOX controller. What the fuck! When I was a teenager playing XBOX for the first time, I could not get over this! I feel vindicated that they have since changed it! Their d-pad sucks too. What else? If you try to press start or select with your right thumb, the right toggle is in the way! Can those buttons be any lower on this controller! It's a stretch to get your right thumb to that start button! I still hate everyone who ever defended this thing, argh!

Microsoft redeemed themselves though. I've been told that the new XBOX controllers were ergonomically designed. Here's the XBOX One contoller.

I like this! It looks sleek and comfortable. The Start and Select buttons are in good places, the D-Pad is perfect, but wait, where did the shoulder buttons go? I've never held one of these, so I don't know what it's like. An earlier incarnation of this controller had a shoulder and a trigger button on each side, but I guess that was excessive. If you're going to pick one over the other, I guess the trigger will do.

What's odd about this too me is the X,Y, A, B buttons. Only four? Well, in some ways the right toggle can be another set of 4 buttons. That means this controller technically has not lost any buttons from the PS controller or N64 buttons. Same number, and I guess the Sega controller with 6 buttons means your thumbs have to move around a lot if you have a function for every button. This is conservative and efficient.

So, what kind of controller would I design? This one.

Are Rape Jokes Ok?

So.... Is this a funny rape joke or should I start picketing Rolfe's municipal power plant to deny electricity to his home for his dreadful, dreadful misandry?

 Here are 3 screenshots from James Rolfe's Angry Video Game Nerd Episode 53 Batman (Part 2). There's James Rolfe as Batman and one of his friends, Mike Matei, as the Joker. After a fight scene, Batman subdues Joker and forces 5 video game cartridges up his ass. Each time, it looks like the above, where we see a hand or a pair of hands pretending to push or pound a game into a presented posterior end and then we see the Joker's face twist with pain and he cries "Ooooh!" Also, in that contextual shot 9:06 where the joker is bent over on the couch and Batman declares "I'm going to shove these games up your ass," the Joker is shaking his head very convincingly like he doesn't want to be in this position. If you weren't paying attention, you could miss it.

According to feminist rhetoric, rape jokes are never funny. I haven't been keeping score, but there's a lot of physical humor in AVGN that borderlines sexual slapstick. For instance, how many times has someone been shat on in one of AVGN videos? I'm feeling certain there are more jokes about characters having large cumbersome objects inserted into a body cavity than this. "Up your ass/asshole" is a repeated line in AVGN videos. Also, I'm pretty damn sure the AVGN says the word cunt a lot. Pretty damn sure no one used James Rolfe or AVGN as an example of misogyny or promoting sexism prior to Rolfe's relatively benign and respectful critique of the new Ghost Busters movie trailer. He's been doing this for almost 10 years, guys! I also see no evidence for sexism from AVGN or Rolfe, nor do I see evidence that anyone is walking away from his videos with less respect for people's bodily orifices or gender. Rock on AVGN! Rock on James Rolfe!

I'm going to weigh in on this topic and say humor is subjective and that absolute statements like what's never funny or always funny are incorrect statements and you shouldn't make them. I got a kick out of watching two heterosexual men (as far as I know, not that it matters right?) make light out of punishing evildoers with fudge packing. It's funny because it's absurd, over the top, and impractical even though I don't believe that's how a justice system should work, get it? I do believe comedy that is based on pain is valid and it does make people laugh. I also believe there's nothing wrong with dirty words. We're all adults right? Yeah, and if we're all adults, then why can't we be allowed to determine for ourselves what is funny or not?