U-Force

Summary

The U-Force for the NES is a motion-control controller and was developed in 1989 by the American video game and learning software company Brøderbund. For publication, the controller cost about $70. The U-Force controller consists of two fields that were able to register the player’s hand movement using infrared sensors. The fields did not have to be touched. The hand hovered, so to speak, only over the fields. For example, if Mario went to the left, the player moved his hand over the field to the left. What sounds like a nice idea, however, was not as functional in practice as Brøderbund wanted. Thus, many movements were misinterpreted by the U-Force, so the operation of the U-Force became a greater challenge than the game itself. The U-Force was listed by IGN editor Craig Harris in eighth place of the worst video game controller.