Four Terrifyingly Bad Video Game Products You Could Actually Buy

There are plenty of questionable gaming related items available to buy online just waiting to show up on your bank statement. While most of these things are rather innocent or only slightly odd, there are still quite a few things out there on the market that are so horrifically bad that once you learn about them, you can never forget them.

No, we won't be talking about those different figures you can buy online at "specialty" stores. I really can't judge those types of people now that I have a five foot tall Juliet sitting the corner of my room, judging me. The products we'll be discussing today are just so far out there that when you're finished reading about them, you'll just stop and think, "Seriously?"

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REZ Makes A Bad Choice With Their Peripheral

Rez, the trippy sci-fi shooter can best be described as insanely weird. You play some sort of dot shooting monsters in cyberspace or something along those lines. As you progress through the game your character even begins to take the shape of a human! I actually owned the game and that's the best description I could come up with. While that is all weird and good, the game also a rather peculiar design.

Instead of shooting wildly and hoping you don't die, you're supposed to keep with the beat of the game's soundtrack. The more in sync you are, the better your score and the more impressive the visuals get. Now here's where things get really sinister. Or erotic. Which ever way you want it to go. Preferably sinister once you hear what it is.

Haha, this is in my search history now!

When your game peripheral is called the trance vibrator, you know you're in trouble. The original way you were supposed to use the device was to put it in one of your hands or under your feet as you played. The peripheral would then vibrate to the beat of the game. Instead, it just ended up being used as a vibrator.

After that, everyone pretty much agreed that was it's main function. It even became a bit of a running joke online. It got to the point where the game's creator actually came forward and stated that the product wasn't meant to be used in such a way, and things just didn't seem to work out with it.

The remake of the game that was released on the Xbox Live Arcade did not support the Trance Vibrator, but if you plugged in an extra controller it would take on the characteristics of the Trance Vibrator, vibrating along with the music of the game. Oh God, why did I read up on all of this!?

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The Bowling Ball Peripheral (The Widow Maker)

At some point during the motion control craze a group of men in business suits all sat down in a room together. One man stood up and asked the others "How do we knock out as many people's teeth as possible?" The answer of course, was a bowling ball. People like to pretend to throw things, why not have them really throw things?

A bright blue ball with randomly placed buttons. Oh yeah, I'm bowling now.

The only fault in their master plan to knock out everyone's teeth was the fact that their peripheral was a huge chunk of wasted plastic and people didn't need an actual bowling ball if they were going to pretend to throw one. Thankfully, the widow maker had a strap attachment to prevent too much property damage.

Unfortunately, anyone who actually bought one on purpose probably didn't have safety in their best interest and probably played with the device without being limited to the confines of such a silly idea. Seriously, when you're handed a huge chunk of plastic and told to swing it at your expensive HDTV, do you actually think that could be a good idea? If so, what is wrong with you?!

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The SEGA Activator Encourages Fist Fights

Do you think the Kinect is a bad product because you don't have a large enough space to use it in? Imagine if you will, a product that worked in similar ways to the Kinect, but only needed about three feet of space to work. Now imagine it didn't work properly and actually encouraged you to swing your feet and fists around harder.

Two men enter, then they realize just how small a space they're both standing in.

You have just created the SEGA Activator. It was a ring you dropped down on the floor and stood in to play. Infrared beams would come out of the device and allow you to actually kick and punch along with your character on screen! Did I mention the controller worked with games like Mortal Kombat, a game usually played by two people?

Get rid of the Activators and all you're really left with is a fist fight, something you would probably end up having if you had a bunch of kids trying to use it. You know why? Because the peripheral was extremely sensitive. If you had a ceiling fan in the same room as the Activator then odds are it wouldn't work correctly.

Don't have a ceiling fan? Well you're in luck, because light sources screwed with the controller as well. People were literally dropping $80 so they could have an excuse to punch one of their siblings, because that was all the controllers ever actually achieved. I guess that almost makes them worth it.

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The Original Nintendo Zapper Could Land You In A Lot Of Trouble

There have been actual instances of people robbing banks with Nintendo Zappers. I'm talking about the ones that used to come with the Nintendo Entertainment System. You all know what they look like, They're pretty much the opposite of what an actual gun looks like so it is easy to wonder why someone would hand over thousands of dollars to a guy brandishing what is essentially a squirt gun without any water.

Don't worry, he couldn't hit a duck even when he was holding the zapper against the TV.

But then when you see what the Zapper looked like in Japan, you must think it is a wonder the controller wasn't used in more bank robberies. Seriously, just look at it. You could probably point it at a deer and yell bang and the deer will actually die. Obviously things were much more relaxed in Japan at the time, but nobody would dare make something like this today... at least I hope.

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As always, thanks for reading. Know of any other crazy peripherals that should have never existed in the first place? Why not mention them in the comments below?