Gadgetory

- Today's video is sponsored by Dollar Shave Club. When it comes to weird controllers, PlayStation has got to have the greatest library of strange designs. Because we've already covered a lot and there are still a lot more to do. One great one that we've just picked up, is the ZEROTECH 2 controller for the PS2. Now some of you might be looking at this controller wondering what could this possibly be used for? But it's actually based around a kind of familiar concept if you've ever played with RC cars as a kid, it's straight up an RC styled controller meant for racing games on the PlayStation. Now this is actually very reminiscent of another strange controller design we've talked about in the past which was the Namco NeGcon which was originally designed for a tanking game in mind but end up getting adopted by a lot of racing game fans 'cause it ended up being a really cool intuitive way to play racing games where it felt like a regular controller but then you would twist the mid-section to act like moving left or right on a steering wheel. And this ends of following a very similar kind of design where using this little knob right here, turning this forward or backwards acts like going right or left. And it features all of the additional buttons that you would need for any kind of side features for the triangle, circle, L1, R1, directional pads on the D-pad. These two right here act as the X and square button because on PlayStation 1 and PlayStation 2 racing games, these would be used for acceleration. And then, this little tab right here could act as either the R2 and L2 or the L1 and R1 depending on what games you'd use for shifting up or down. So when you wanna shift in the game, you'd use this tab right here. Now this is actually one of two color designs that are already released for the ZEROTECH 2. As you can see, it's primarily red with a little bit of black and yellow trim and white for the buttons. The other option they made was a more all blackout design which replaced all the red here with black, instead of yellow, you had red accents here and still had white buttons. So like the NeGcon, the main point of the ZEROTECH 2 controller was to give you a way to control racing games in a manner that felt a little more natural but added a more affordable pricepoint than having to buy a full blown steering wheel. Because while that's cool to use, it's a little excessive for some people. So if you wanted something to just plug directly into your system and was a more traditional kind of controller feel, but was also designed for racing games specifically, that's the niche they were trying to fill. Now whether or not this actually accomplished this job let's hook it up and actually play something to find out. Before moving on, I want to take a second to thank Dollar Shave Club for sponsoring today's video. Now I know what some of you are thinking, you have a beard, why do you need shaving supplies? Well, if you've been watching our videos for a while, you know that I ended up having kind of a mountain man face for a little bit and I didn't really care for that. So it's important for me to trim and shape my beard and that's where Dollar Shave Club comes in handy. And they do more than just shaving supplies. They also have shampoo, deodorant, toothpaste and more and right now they have a great deal where you can get their shower shave or oral starter kit for just five bucks each. Everything ships directly to your home and the more you buy the more you save. So make sure to go to DollarShaveClub.com/KevinKenson to get your first starter set for just five bucks. So like with other times we've demoed older school controllers, we're gonna hook this up to our PS4 adapter and play something on PS4. In this case, Gran Turismo and hopefully this is gonna go smoother than when we used that hand controller thing which, you know, (laughing) this is actually made for racing games. So let's try it out. So one of the things to make sure this controller works on modern game is we have to set the controls for moving X and square for accelerate and break instead of the shoulder buttons like a lot of modern games use 'cause that's how it worked a lot on the PS1 and PS2 titles. Thankfully, Gran Turismo has that as a baked in profile setting so we just did that and we're good to go. So in other news, how the actual turning mechanic is is good and bad. I actually like the way this feels. If you've ever driven like an old RC car when you were a kid this is exactly what that's like. It just feels like it's a bit too shallow of motion. Like I wanna turn it further than it's letting me. And in fact, I don't think it's even reading as the full extent of how far you can push the left and right stick? Yeah, I feel like I should be able to turn a little harder than what it's letting me do. It's only going maybe 45 degrees, if that? When I feel like it should be a lot further. It's just a very small window of how much I can turn it. But really, that aside this is, actually kind of natural. I also need to remember to shift up, I keep forgetting that's an option. (laughing) It's like why am I not going faster? Yeah, I gotta say, in the past of other weird controllers we've tried, this is a slightly more, emphasis on slightly, slightly more successful example of how a controller like this could work on a modern system. It actually makes me really curious on if we actually saw more attempts to do alternative ways of making specialized controllers for certain games instead of just straight up racing wheels. 'Cause racing wheels are cool, but for something that's a little more low key, smaller and maybe a little easier for people that don't wanna have a full set up, this is kind of cool. Either the motor in this is just really old and not working as intended or it's designed to kind of sound like an old car engine. Which is kinda cool if that's the case. I don't think that's what happened though. I mean, I finished a race. That's more than I can say that I used for the glove controller 'cause that was a mess. Something that's interesting about this controller as well is that the steering wheel actually gives it the option to change it from reading left and right to doing up and down for the left stick which I'm not sure how many situations where that's directly useful? I could see certain flight simulators and things using that but then those are also situations where you wanna be able to do up, down, left and right all at the same time and not switching between them a lot. So it's cool that the option's there. I'm just not sure when that would really come up. You know, I think if I actually took the time learning with this controller, I could maybe get good at this? Like, actually doing well in races, not just you know, (laughing) finishing them with it. The only thing I'm worried about is again that range of motion just feels a little too shallow? But maybe that's just me being bad. I could just be bad. Another interesting choice with this controller too is the materials that they used. You'll notice that on the handgrip that I'm using, it's actually rubber which doesn't age super great so it feels a little awkward now. But the turning mechanism right here, it's made out of some kind of hard foam which has just a little bit of give to it. I actually think it's kind of comfortable to use. I actually like this better than if it was like a really hard plastic, I think it would wear down on my fingers a lot faster 'cause I'm, especially 'cause I'm gripping this thing on some turns. A unique opportunity that comes up while talking about the ZEROTECH 2 is that I can actually compare it to other controllers that were trying to do the same thing and see which one actually did a better job of doing it. Because what might be a strange looking controller at first glance, it really is a functional, specialized designed controller that's just meant to work for one kind of game, racing games! Anything else and yeah, it's gonna be a mess to use. But that's the point. It's meant to work for one kind of game. It's not just simply weird for the sake of weird like the slime controller even though I love him so much. Another interesting thing is that like in the demo we were just doing, there are adapters out there that will let you use old school controllers on modern systems. And so are these actually even worth still using for some games? And I think the answer is, kinda yeah. So in the case of racing games, we have the argument of which is better to use? The ZEROTECH 2 or the NeGcon? And they both have their own unique aspects and strengths. I think the NeGcon is something that feels just a little more natural for people, whereas the ZEROTECH 2 does feature a lot more buttons which, back in the day, didn't necessarily matter quite so much 'cause most games really just had accelerate, break, maybe changing your view point? But nowadays, racers require a lot more additional buttons for different features which you might not be able to do with the NeGcon. With that said, honestly, I kinda think the NeGcon's the better choice even with using on a modern game. Sure, if there is a title that needs all these additional buttons then yeah, that sucks. You're not gonna be able to use it. But in anything where you only need a handful of buttons to work with, I honestly cannot get over how strangely intuitive the NeGcon is. It is the weirdest controller to show someone to be like, yeah this is great for racing games and they'll just look at you like, what are you talking about, that looks insane. But it really does work. The ZEROTECH 2 by comparison, yeah it does make a certain degree of more sense. Especially if you've ever messed with RC cars but the limited range motion on the turning mechanism just doesn't feel quite as right. Now I realize this is a little crazy 'cause I'm doing a comparison video on two controllers that are about 20 years old but honestly, I really miss designs like this being something that companies went for. When you look at modern controller designs, so many of them are either just the catch all design that you see that's normal for a Xbox One or PS4 controller or something that's super specialized and over the top like a full steering wheel set up which is cool but there's this kind of interesting midpoint that some companies mess with a little bit but none of them do it in an interesting way like these controllers did. And it's something I think we're missing.