Living in a weird cave in tibet with a team of pro gamers. Check.
Found The Iron Controller. Check.
Now what do we do with the damn thing?
Now the training begins…
Welcome to Chapter 3 of… The Iron Controller.
Kotaku’s Iron Controller series is brought to you by Netflix and Marvel’s Iron Fist. Danny Rand is an orphan, Monk, billionaire and living weapon. After a 15 year absence he returns to NYC to reclaim his family legacy. Marvel’s Iron Fist premieres March 17th only on Netflix.
(Also don’t forget that we’re giving away $1000)
But first, The Iron Controller…
Here’s where you can check out episodes one and two.
The Competition
The competition is simple. For the chance to win $1000 I want to hear your weirdest video game controller stories. Like the time you got so frustrated you launched one through a window. I once beat a friend so comprehensively on Street Fighter 2 he literally bit my SNES controller so hard it left teeth marks.
I still don’t know how he generated enough force to do that.
So, in 500 words or less, please tell me your strangest, weirdest, funniest video game controller stories. The best one wins $1000.
Terms and conditions can be found here.
Want to jump to the next chapters? Here you go!
[referenced url=”https://www.kotaku.com.au/2017/04/chapter-4-of-the-iron-controller-and-win-1000/” thumb=”https://www.kotaku.com.au/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2017/04/ironc_4d-410×231.jpg” title=”Chapter 4 Of The Iron Controller (And Win $1000!)” excerpt=”When we last left The Iron Controller things were getting complicated. Mark was deep in training, while Alex was scheming, bending Kotaku Australia to his own, insane will.
Today, in chapter 4, Mark will finally unlock the true secrets of The Iron Controller. And prepare for the ULTIMATE BATTLE.”]
[referenced url=”https://www.kotaku.com.au/2017/04/win-1000-in-the-final-chapter-of-the-iron-controller/” thumb=”https://www.kotaku.com.au/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2017/04/ironc_5e-410×231.jpg” title=”Win $1000 In The Final Chapter Of… The Iron Controller” excerpt=”It has finally come to this. The ultimate showdown. Mark versus Alex.
Who will prevail?
(It’s also your last chance to win cash-money to upgrade your home entertainment. There’s also that.)”]
Comments
26 responses to “Win $1000 With Chapter 3 Of… The Iron Controller”
Back in the 90’s I had an N64 I’d bought with winnings from the MS Read-a-thon. My younger brother had an obnoxious friend who we’ll call Rogan Josh. They were in grade 6 so in that pretty annoying but thought they were hot stuff stage. RJosh brought over Mario Party. It had a game where you had to rotate the controllers super quick to reel in fishing lines or something.
He put his palm on the joystick and started to absolutely destroy it. I watched in horror as it snapped and he jammed the wretched broken plastic stump into his palm like a lukewarm canteen sausage into mouldy bread rolls. Blood and screaming ensued and in the end I was left with a disgusting bloody controller 🙁
Ended up not feeling bad at all because we realised a few random things including 1 game disappeared after a subsequent visit.
I let me nephew and nieces borrow the Wii. They proceeded to put the Wiimote through a window, but on the brightside. That meant they weren’t allowed to borrow my Wii for a while..
Not sure now strange/funny/weird it is, but it was almost Superhero Origin-esque in its aligning-of-planets level of chance and coincidence (and it’s the only controller story I’ve got, I’m sure at least someone here would have heard it before), so here goes.
Back in my incomeless uni days, my train trips there and back would take up to two hours each way if I had to do all the walking at each end instead of scoring a lift. So naturally I spent a lot of time napping through the trip to make it go faster. One morning though, I stirred from my sleep at a station around two thirds through the trip and as I did, the little old asian man in front of me turned around for some reason and gestured out the window, saying “look!” There lying in the long grass beside the tracks, amongst the green was some other green that should not be there. A $100 note. I thought briefly about the idea of jumping off the train, but I was still fairly out of it, the doors were about to close, and I didn’t really want to be late to uni. That afternoon though, I figured why the hell not and jumped off at the station on the way home. Sure enough, it was still down there. It took a little to build up the gall, but eventually (after checking the coast was clear) I hopped down and retrieved it, then caught the next train coming through. Totally got away with it.
The next day, I went with Mum to go visit Nanna, and we took her out to the shops at a centre we normally wouldn’t go to. As would be the habit at any shopping centre but particularly none of my regular haunts, I’d check out what was in the games section of the various stores there. When I get into JB, I find something amazing – there, lying underneath the Nintendo shelf, a whole bunch of the fabled RE4 chainsaw controller for GameCube. I’d seen the PS2 one around in a few EBs, but had never managed to find one for GCN – didn’t even know they got released, let alone released here. And they were just (“just”) $90. I excitedly told Nanna about what had happened, happily surrendered yesterday’s find at the counter and went home with my prize find. It was meant to be.
Haha, those things were apparently total rubbish for playing the game. Cool collectors item though. You could probably make a pretty penny on ebay with that.
Oh yeah, can barely play anything with it. Plus one of the buttons actually requires you to push your finger upwards, instead of squeeze downwards.
Great shelf piece though.
One of my favourite, most strange memories playing games as a pre-teen involved the original Halo: Combat Evolved on the original Xbox.
After days of summer holiday split-screen mayhem, we were getting a little tired of the same maps, the rocket launcher battles, the Warthog races. We first started to spice things up when we realised my mate Geoff was far too good to be playing with us – we decided he needed to try and beat us using only one hand. As expected, Geoff didn’t win any games using only one of his hands. As most things do with pre-teens, things escalated quickly. We all downgraded to one hand, primary and then secondary hands only, and then onto elbows. Before long, we were playing with feet only – keep in mind, four 12 year-old boys’ feet are not the feet you want handling those original, huge, hard-plastic nightmare controllers. The line was crossed when Geoff, intent on earning our respect back, decided he was going to try and play with his facial features only. I’ll never forget the picture of a 12 year-old friend slamming his face into a warm, dirty, smelly Xbox controller, while his three mates piss themselves on the couch next to him.
Suffice it to say, my older sister was not happy to find her favourite controller in the state it was in when she sat down to play Jet Set Radio Future that night.
I have no funny stories of controllers 🙁 But I have fond memories of the Sega Master System controllers. So sharp. Such an awful D-pad. So many ruined fingers.
I would not trade those memories for anything.
Except $1000.
I’m pretty sure the prize was only $1000. Not $1000 and blunt force trauma to the head. I think you get to keep the memories too.
Nah, I’m at my limit for memories.
So what do we win? T&C state the prize cannot be taken as cash.
When I first got my Wii, I took it to my parents house to show them Wii Sports.
My dad was playing Tennis, and got frustrated, and threw the controller at the couch when he lost. The controller bounced off the back of the couch, and right back in to his hand, much to all our amazement! His reaction… “All right.. fuck it! Let’s DO THIS!” and started a rematch!
I don’t normally rage when I play video games. Maybe I get annoyed, and the most I’ll do is drop my controller on my lap, or off to the side on the couch.
One time, I was playing Bloodborne and I was fighting that one big, demon-spider boss thing (whatever it’s called) and it kept killing me just as I was about to finish it off. I always screwed up.
On the seventh or so defeat, I got so angry that I just randomly tossed the controller away from my hands… except I ended up throwing the controller into my own face, and the handle of the controller got me right in the eye.
You win again, Bloodborne.
Like all people with playstations I expect, we had a third party controller for our PS2. This blue hunk of crap was quite poor, so we upgraded as soon as we had the chance to an official one but kept the blue one for that most elusive events: 4 player Timesplitters 2.
Now, of course, the blue controller couldn’t really keep the pace with the official ones, and soon enough it started showing wear at the cable connection. Eventually, the wires frayed and began to break. I took it to my father and showed him. He looked for a moment at it, then went out to the shed and came back with his soldering iron.
My father taught me to solder on a crap third party ps2 controller.
The controller’s long gone, but the skill remains.
Running through a cable is not wise. N64 Goldeneye battle. Got frustrated about a loss and stormed off running through cable controllers being held by another player, pulling this out of their hand and recoiling the controller out of their hand and straight toward the nether regions.
Reminder: N64 controllers were large in size and hurt so bad that my future kids will still feel it when they are born. The future is now here where we have wireless controllers and we can vent without the thought of this reoccurring again. 😉
My Mum had a cat named Tabitha. She was weird in that there were clearly specific games she did NOT like to watch. She would often ruin games hitting the easy to access reset button on our old NES. It wasn’t as easy for her to do when we got a SNES, but she had one more trick up her sleeve.
This was back in the games of wired controllers. I bet a lot of gamers from this era can guess what happened. She would leap up, putting all of her body weight on the cord. If you didn’t quickly drop the controller, the cord would pull the system from it’s shelf with a horrible THUD! Then you got to spend a couple of minutes with your heart racing until you were sure the system would still run.
I’d yell, and she’d just clean herself, looking somehow proud of what she’d done.
I hada friend break a N64 controller of mine(casing cracked open), and then a few days later had some people around to play Mario Party. But I’d forgetten that one of my four controllers was still broken, but I realised I could still hold the circuit board and play by touching the rubber connecter things in the right spots. Didn’t do too bad.
Well not a ‘game controller’ story but a story involving a controller whilst gaming.
Back in 2001 my much younger self was intensely glued to the TV as I neared the end of my very first play-through of the now classic Final Fantasy X. After a good hour chipping away at the last boss, I finally stuck the killing blow. Elated and proud, I sat back to truly appreciate the final cut scene of this amazing game I’d sunk so many hours into…
It seems however that my dog had other plans.
During the pivotal scene between Tidus and Yuna, the most emotional video game scene I had experienced at that time, just as Yuna tells Tidus she loves him… MY DOG STANDS ON THE BLOODY REMOTE CONTROLLER AND TURNS THE TV OFF!
It took me a few seconds to realise what had happened, then a lot more seconds to desperately scramble to turn it back on again. But by then the damage had been done, I had missed a good chunk of the ending I had worked so hard for.
I shut off the playstation and sat there for a few minutes wallowing in self pity, before wiping away the frustrated tears and starting the old girl up again to battle the final boss once more and watch the ending in it’s entirety, this time with the remote securely out of paws reach.
The roar of the crowd crashes over me like waves breaking against rocks, the hissing and jeering like sea spray as it lashes up the face of a cliff.
I am filled with a terrified excitement as the Master of Games holds up his bejewelled hands, beseeching the mob for a moment of silence.
“Men and women of the Empire…” he begins with a tremendous baritone.
“We are gathered at the Pit of Trials to pass judgement on these two brothers.”
At his words I lock eyes with my elder brother, his gaze dull as if in a Zen-like battle-trance.
“The crime?” He continues. “None of than the most heinous of treacheries.”
He pauses for dramatic effect. “Screen cheating!”
The crowd erupts with another wave of shrill hisses and boos. My heart is thundering in my head. After moments the Master holds his hands out again, imploring for order.
“In accordance with the law of the land, these brothers – once bound by blood, now severed by betrayal – must fight to the death! Choose your weapons!”
At his command several slaves rush into the arena, carrying racks and chests filled with deadly instruments that will either be my saviour or my ruin.
I tentatively look into one of the nearby chests, brimming with lethal controllers of all shapes and sizes – each designed in its own way to kill a man.
I peer across to my brother, he has chosen a Nintendo 64 controller and I am not surprised. He spins the strange shaped weapon around with graceful and lethal flourishes. The crowd loves it. He finishes with a magnificent display of deft skill and the mob can barely contain its excitement.
Sudden desperate inspiration strikes me and I reach for two NES controllers. Though small and light, I tie them end to end like a pair of nun chucks and begin to flail them around myself with surprising speed, but the crowd is unimpressed. As the accused, they are barracking for my bloody and brutal death – but I know I am innocent.
Of course my brother was going to grab the rocket launcher and head straight for the Eastern tower in the final Deathmatch. I didn’t have to screen-cheat to know his tactics. They are as stale as the rotted tunic they have dressed me in. But he couldn’t accept his own predictable failures, and so now here we are.
Restless with anticipation I move in swiftly. He dodges my first swing, parries my second, and then counters as I go to make my third. The 64 controller slams into my exposed ribs, but thankfully it is shoulder first, and not the weird middle-grip, so the impact is not fatal.
He thinks me finished and so swings at my head with a final blow. But I duck at the last moment and swing both controllers up into his chin – the double crescent moon!
The crowd wails. Blood erupts from his wincing mouth, and he manages to cry out…
“GET MUM!”
One time my friend pulled out a package, it was a game he had bought in Japan. It was Rez, with the ever so charming… lady pleaser. As children we were having fun innocently playing the game not really understanding, until my mates sister came in and started making jokes at us (we were too young to understand).
She then proceeded to have a turn; now while it wasn’t really a powerful vibration, my mates sister seemed to really enjoy the game. These days I still can’t look her in the eyes.
Let me rhyme you a tale, a grand tale my friends,
Back then you’d have rolled in your stroller,
But this tale spins no bull, for I swear it is true,
It’s the grand tale of the REAL Iron Controller.
Back then we loved games, we Sega’d it up,
We loved fighters, and not ten pin bowlers,
But we had shitty pads, oh god how we wished,
We had some fancy, pro arcade controllers.
The problem we had, we were doing it tough,
Oh lord we were broke, and poor.
And the prices were high, astronomically high,
We looked around and we checked every store.
And then one day, how lucky we were,
My grandfather came over for dinner.
Said “here’s fifty bucks, go buy what you want!”
To Video Busters I ran like a winner.
For an earlier visit, I discovered a thing,
Ex-rentals were selling 16-Bit or older,
So I asked the man, “do you have what I want?”,
And he presented an Arcade controller.
Fifty bucks was gone, but I held in my hand,
The tool that would make me a great fighter.
As I held it in my hands, all I could think,
Was it’d be cool if it was fifty pounds lighter.
Weeks went by, my school report was in,
It appears I got a C in Phys Ed,
The screams were loud, the stomping was frightful,
The door opens and in marches dad.
He yanks out the connector, and takes the controller,
I thought “I’m grounded” and proceeded to curse,
He opens the door, and walks out the front,
I ran out and thought “crap, this is worse!”
He grabbed the long cord and he started to swing,
Round it went in a circular motion,
The controller went flying, opposite side of the street,
All the neighbours came to check the commotion.
My dad went inside, I ran to the road,
Picked it up and thought “it’s done for, its over!”
Some days went by, I plugged it in IT STILL WORKED!
Thus ends the tale of the true Iron Controller.
Legends and tales, are told decades since,
You’d think I’d have learnt a lesson?
Clearly not, a week passed, and it was thrown out once more,
And I still can’t even use Ken in a session.
@serrels hey bud my comments (including my comp entry!) appear to be getting moderated again, can you please fix? Cheers! 😀
@markserrels
Let me rhyme you a tale, a grand tale my friends,
Back then you’d have rolled in your stroller,
But this tale spins no bull, for I swear it is true,
It’s the grand tale of the REAL Iron Controller.
Back then we loved games, we Sega’d it up,
We loved fighters, and not ten pin bowlers,
But we had shitty pads, oh god how we wished,
We had some fancy, pro arcade controllers.
The problem we had, we were doing it tough,
Oh lord we were broke, and poor.
And the prices were high, astronomically high,
We looked around and we checked every store.
And then one day, how lucky we were,
My grandfather came over for dinner.
Said “here’s fifty bucks, go buy what you want!”
To Video Busters I ran like a winner.
For an earlier visit, I discovered a thing,
Ex-rentals were selling 16-Bit or older,
So I asked the man, “do you have what I want?”,
And he presented an Arcade controller.
Fifty bucks was gone, but I held in my hand,
The tool that would make me a great fighter.
As I held it in my hands, all I could think,
Was it’d be cool if it was fifty pounds lighter.
Weeks went by, my school report was in,
It appears I got a C in Phys Ed,
The screams were loud, the stomping was frightful,
The door opens and in marches dad.
He yanks out the connector, and takes the controller,
I thought “I’m grounded” and proceeded to curse,
He opens the door, and walks out the front,
I ran out and thought “crap, this is worse!”
He grabbed the long cord and he started to swing,
Round it went in a circular motion,
The controller went flying, opposite side of the street,
All the neighbours came to check the commotion.
My dad went inside, I ran to the road,
Picked it up and thought “it’s done for, its over!”
Some days went by, I plugged it in IT STILL WORKED!
Thus ends the tale of the true Iron Controller.
Legends and tales, are told decades since,
You’d think I’d have learnt a lesson?
Clearly not, a week passed, and it was thrown out once more,
And I still can’t even use Ken in a session
We were about 7 or 8 yrs old, playing the old Sega Master System, I think it was California Games.
Friend is just failing dismally, you could see the rage building up, his face steadily growing more and more crimson.
Eventually, as always, the rage dam burst and we got the all too familiar controller throw. He pegged it straight at the TV, which, being a sturdy old CRT, caused the controller to bounce straight back at him, clocking him square in the face.
This obviously enrages him more so he picked it up again spun around and went to throw it at the wall behind us, but the controller cable becomes snagged and swings back around in one of those moments where everything goes into slow-mo and you can see exactly what’s going to happen. It hits him hard in the balls and he goes down like a sack of shit.
He learned to fear the vengeance of the Iron Controller that day. Don’t think he ever rage threw again.
So… you know them N64’s with their crazy rumble pack slots…
Yeah I stepped on one the wrong way and cut my foot up real good.
It sucks. I only have 10 toes.
So, back in 2017, I read this weird comic series. It had a golden controller in it. GImme a thousand bucks. The end.
I played a lot of Mario Kart on the Wii. Like a lot.
Recently I played on Wii U at a friends and people were making fun of me for using the motion control Wiimote option. They didn’t find it as funny when I soundly trashed race after race.