To this day, there is a reason why I shy away from some third-party peripherals. Like a girl stood up on her prom night, I’ve been burned. Luckily I bought them at an age where I didn’t know any better and those experiences set me on the straight path for the rest of my life. Here are some of the worst third-party peripherals I have ever encountered. 
1. Nintendo NES Quick Shot Controller Want to know what’s worse than owning a badly designed NES controller; having a badly designed NES controller that doesn’t work. I was 7 years-old when I picked up this piece of scrap plastic and boy how disappointed I was when I couldn’t play The Simpsons: Bartman meets Radioactive Man. I don’t know what possessed me to want it. Probably the first thing I noticed was the NES controller tip at the end of the cord. I must have thought “Cool, SOMETHING DIFFERENT I can put in my NES controller port!” When I got home my face was painted with disgust, not only was it awkward to hold and painful to look at but it never ever worked. It could have been the controller was defective but I would never defend a peripheral as lame as the Quick Shot. 
2. High Frequency SNES controller (essentially a later model of the Mad Catz) I bought this controller only because of one reason; it was transparent. Yeah, it’s superficial but it was the first time I’ve seen a clear-case controller and on top of that it was bigger than the average SNES controller. It was also the first turbo controller I’ve ever owned, and thanks to the patented-selectable turbo fire technology of Mad Catz, I was able to perfect my spamming attack skills in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tournament Fighters. Eventually, standard use of the controller led to its demise and I was unable to use the controller forever. 
3. Mad Catz N64 Controller Pad Accessory Turbo Here’s the setup: It’s Christmas, I’m looking for a third controller so I can play Diddy Kong Racing with my friends. Nintendo’s original N64 controllers were fine but magically the thing that catches my eye is a diarrhea green Mad Catz Turbo Controller. I’m going to be upfront and honest; it looked cool to me, like a N64 controller for big boys. The controller was a tad bigger than average and it had this cool faux-leather-but-really-rubber handle on the back it and some turbo buttons on top. Hate to admit it, but it felt comfortable and became my default controller till the day the thing stopped working. To be fair I don’t remember what actually happened to it, all I know is it stopped working. But I didn’t learn my lesson from buying third-party N64 hardware. 
4. Performance Controller Pak Essentially Nintendo’s memory card, incongruously called a controller pak. By the time I got this I already had an official Nintendo controller pak, problem was the thing never had enough memory for at least TWO of my games! Granted, every game takes up a different size but if you were to save a ghost for Mario Kart 64, you might as well have the controller pak just for that game. If you love sports games, forget about it. With the limited space on the original, I ended up buying this cheap memory card. It got the job done but after while (a month) I tried to load a game save: it was gone. The memory card was wiped clean. Like a 99 year-old’s bladder, the Performance Controller pak couldn’t hold crap. And just to harp on it, the controller pak protruded from the slot ever so slightly…yeah man, that’s terrible. 
5. SuperPad Nintendo 64 Controller The last third-party controller I ever bought. To keep it nice and simple: It had no handles , it felt cheap and it broke down sooner than I hope. Only good thing: it was red. Before I wrap up, growing up I’ve always heard about Mad Catz reputation for shoddy hardware but sometime between now and a couple of years ago, they started building high-quality dedicated products such fighting sticks, pads and Rock Band instruments. I’m not writing this for the sake of Mad Catz but just to show current gamers how much they have it better now!
1. Nintendo NES Quick Shot Controller Want to know what’s worse than owning a badly designed NES controller; having a badly designed NES controller that doesn’t work. I was 7 years-old when I picked up this piece of scrap plastic and boy how disappointed I was when I couldn’t play The Simpsons: Bartman meets Radioactive Man. I don’t know what possessed me to want it. Probably the first thing I noticed was the NES controller tip at the end of the cord. I must have thought “Cool, SOMETHING DIFFERENT I can put in my NES controller port!” When I got home my face was painted with disgust, not only was it awkward to hold and painful to look at but it never ever worked. It could have been the controller was defective but I would never defend a peripheral as lame as the Quick Shot. 2. High Frequency SNES controller (essentially a later model of the Mad Catz) I bought this controller only because of one reason; it was transparent. Yeah, it’s superficial but it was the first time I’ve seen a clear-case controller and on top of that it was bigger than the average SNES controller. It was also the first turbo controller I’ve ever owned, and thanks to the patented-selectable turbo fire technology of Mad Catz, I was able to perfect my spamming attack skills in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tournament Fighters. Eventually, standard use of the controller led to its demise and I was unable to use the controller forever. 3. Mad Catz N64 Controller Pad Accessory Turbo Here’s the setup: It’s Christmas, I’m looking for a third controller so I can play Diddy Kong Racing with my friends. Nintendo’s original N64 controllers were fine but magically the thing that catches my eye is a diarrhea green Mad Catz Turbo Controller. I’m going to be upfront and honest; it looked cool to me, like a N64 controller for big boys. The controller was a tad bigger than average and it had this cool faux-leather-but-really-rubber handle on the back it and some turbo buttons on top. Hate to admit it, but it felt comfortable and became my default controller till the day the thing stopped working. To be fair I don’t remember what actually happened to it, all I know is it stopped working. But I didn’t learn my lesson from buying third-party N64 hardware. 4. Performance Controller Pak Essentially Nintendo’s memory card, incongruously called a controller pak. By the time I got this I already had an official Nintendo controller pak, problem was the thing never had enough memory for at least TWO of my games! Granted, every game takes up a different size but if you were to save a ghost for Mario Kart 64, you might as well have the controller pak just for that game. If you love sports games, forget about it. With the limited space on the original, I ended up buying this cheap memory card. It got the job done but after while (a month) I tried to load a game save: it was gone. The memory card was wiped clean. Like a 99 year-old’s bladder, the Performance Controller pak couldn’t hold crap. And just to harp on it, the controller pak protruded from the slot ever so slightly…yeah man, that’s terrible. 5. SuperPad Nintendo 64 Controller The last third-party controller I ever bought. To keep it nice and simple: It had no handles , it felt cheap and it broke down sooner than I hope. Only good thing: it was red. Before I wrap up, growing up I’ve always heard about Mad Catz reputation for shoddy hardware but sometime between now and a couple of years ago, they started building high-quality dedicated products such fighting sticks, pads and Rock Band instruments. I’m not writing this for the sake of Mad Catz but just to show current gamers how much they have it better now!
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