Power Glove
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Power Glove (1989) is a controller accessory for the Nintendo Entertainment System designed by the team of Grant Goddard and Sam Davis for Abrams/Gentile Entertainment, made by Mattel in the United States and PAX in Japan. Though it was an officially licensed product, Nintendo was not involved in the design or release of this accessory. It was the first peripheral interface controller to recreate human hand movements on a television or computer screen, and was commercially successful as almost 100,000 were made and sold in the U.S. alone.[1] However, it is often derided by gamers due to its imprecise nature of controls, and the fact that basic actions such as jumping or using an item may be very difficult or impossible to pull off reliably. [2]
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[edit] Layout
The glove had traditional NES controller buttons on the forearm as well as a program button and buttons labeled 0-9. A person would hit the program button and a numbered button to do various things (such as increase or decrease the firing rate of the A and B buttons). Along with the controller, a gamer could move their hand in various movements to control a character on-screen.
[edit] How it worked
It was based on the patented technology of the VPL Dataglove, but with many modifications that allowed it to be used with slow hardware and sold at an affordable price. Whereas the Dataglove could detect yaw, pitch and roll, used fiber optic sensors to detect finger flexure and had a resolution of 256 positions (8 bits) per five fingers, the Power Glove could only detect roll, and used sensors coated with conductive ink yielding a resolution of four positions (2 bits) per four fingers. [3] This allowed the Power Glove to store all the finger flexure information in a single byte. [4] However, it appears that the fingers actually feed an analog signal to the microprocessor on the Power Glove. The microprocessor converts the analog signal into two bits per finger.
[edit] Functionality
In a November 22nd, 2006, video, the Angry Video Game Nerd tested dozens of Nintendo games with the Power Glove to demonstrate its functionality and compatability. The Nerd's experiments with the Glove found a number of flaws, with the glove proving to be either too sensitive or not sensitive enough depending on the game: In Castlevania, it is almost impossible to execute a jump, whereas in Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, using the glove causes the player to randomly jump, duck, swing weapons, and enter buildings. The Nerd also demonstrated that, due to their weight distribution, the sensors which needed to be attached to a teleivision set would constantly fall off during gameplay; in order to even perform the Power Glove tests, the Nerd had to use duct tape to secure the sensors to his television set.
Ultimately, the Nerd determined via his experiments that the Power Glove was simply incompatible with the majority of NES games; the only games that it seemed to function well with were RC Pro Am and Rad Racer. The only game which saw an improvement in gameplay was Top Gun; to the Nerd's surprise, the Glove actually allows the player to perform feats which previous demonstrations had shown were nearly impossible. After his experiments, The Nerd finally concluded: If you want to bring a totally new element of challenge to your Nintendo games, try the Power Glove, because it sure makes everything a lot harder. It's just a barely functional contraption designed to rip off little kids.
[edit] Games
Only two games were released with specific features for use with the Power Glove, Super Glove Ball, and Bad Street Brawler, a beat 'em up, playable with the standard NES controller, but allowing exclusive moves with the glove. These two games were branded as part of the "Power Glove Gaming Series". Two more games, Glove Pilot and Manipulator Glove Adventure, were announced but never released. Super Glove Ball was never released in Japan. Since no games ever retailed in Japan, the Power Glove was sold only as an alternative controller. This decision damaged sales and eventually caused PAX to declare bankruptcy. Many other games including: Super Mario Bros, Metroid, Castlevania, Contra, Rad Racer and many other titles used the glove's abilities to play the game.
[edit] The Wizard
The Power Glove was prominently shown off in Nintendo's product placement film The Wizard, memorably wielded by antagonist Lucas Barton (Jackey Vinson), whose smug boast, "I love the Power Glove. It's so bad!" became an internet meme years later.[5][6] Mutant Reviewers from Hell noted, "... the Power Glove was an odd controller for the NES that required you to wear a huge glove that really did very little, but the movie treats it with such awe, such holy reverence that all of the witnesses to its mighty power are left speechless. That is, until Lucas gives us one of the film's most memorable lines: 'I love the Power Glove. It's so bad!'"[7]
[edit] Cancelled game for the Power Glove
- Tech Town or Tektown was a virtual puzzle solving game in which the player moved a robotic hand around a deserted space station type of setting, using the glove to open doors and to pick up and use tools. It could be seen in a sneak peek in the Official Power Glove Game Player's Gametape (Vol. 1 No. 9), as "New Game Available Spring 1991".
[edit] Similarities with the Wii Remote
The Power Glove has been compared to the later Wii Remote, a similar controller for Nintendo's more recent home console, the Wii, while they have obvious differences, they have a similar function, which is using motions for controlling a game.[8]
[edit] References
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