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Nintendo's U-Force

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73 pointsbookofjoe34 comments

When I was in elementary school, I received the Power Glove for Christmas and a classmate received the U-Force.

We became rivals, both trying to convince the rest of the class that ours was the ultimate controller and amazing for giving a competitive advantage in Punch Out!, Rad Racer, and other games.

Secretly we both knew both controllers were completely useless and never worked, but we never dared admit it.

I love the Power Glove, it's so bad.

And I mean.... bad.

(AVGN power glove episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYDuy7wM8Gk)

There was a movie about the Power Glove, which was?

I’m guessing you’re probably thinking of “The Wizard”

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0098663/

Pretty sure there's an old movie with Keanu Reeves using some sort of power glove to "browse the net", cyberpunk style.

Edit: Oh yeah it was Johnny Mnemonic https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0113481/

Unlike the U-Force, the power glove actually worked. By that I mean it's ability to track hand and finger positions in space worked really well given how it was designed and buildt. But aside from a single game (Super Glove Ball) no games ever supported anything other than it's controller emulation modes which were absolute junk and made worse by the terrible and unergonomic way it was built. While everyone continues to bemoan the Power Glove as a useless and failed product, I continue to view it as an excellent technical achievement that failed in all other areas. How dissapointing.

When I was about 12, I got a cheap powerglove for $20 from a used games place after they were all cast off as useless. I took all the guts out of it and sewed them into a golf glove to make it into a much less cumbersome device. I interfaced it through the PC parallel port, and was able to get it talking in its high resolution mode. That was really pushing the limit of what I could do at the time, so I never got much further than having a wireframe hand floating around the screen, but it was pretty impressive. I still have my construction somewhere!

We had a U-Force in our household.

My memory of it is it was designed/compatible with exactly one game (Punch-Out!), and it never worked. Whether your arm motion in front of the panel actually caused Little Mac to punch felt entirely coincidental.

The U-Force is my earliest memory of returning a product to the store for being an utter piece of garbage. I felt guilty because I knew it was expensive and my parents were excited to give it to me. FWIW, great learning experience, I guess.

U-Force promised basically what Leap Motion can do today. The tech wasn't there at all, and the product should never have been released.

Hahaha, I had one of these as a kid, and I literally forgot about it's existence until recently. I remember it working much better with the included button handled things.

Looking at it now, I see this probably wasn't a factor -- but, in perhaps a prediction of issues to come, at the time I actually thought a significant reason it didn't work is because I'm black and and it couldn't "see" darker skin?

Angry Video Game Nerd covered it long, long ago in a video about weird NES accessories.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9kBMscW_dVg

NSFW I guess. He does like to swear.

Not NSFW is The Gaming Historian (and more informative): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVszKSeSE-0

You mean the same video that's embedded in the fine article?

uhh, ya! I hadn't read the article because I already watched the video months ago.

My NES came with a catalog of all the Nintendo products, games, and accessories you could get for the NES. So if you were into gaming and were Xennial, GenX, elder Millenial you probably heard of U-Force. Unlike the Powerglove, it wasn't everywhere but it was not hidden.

I did have a Powerglove and while the coolness factor wore off after a few hours I think it was amazing for the time.

I'm a Xennial and I thought I was well-versed in all things Nintendo, I even went to Powerfest 94[1] after I won a local competition, and I've never heard of U-Force.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_PowerFest_%2794

Side note: I just realized my name is on this Wikipedia page!

Well I knew of it but didn't know anyone who actually had one. The Powerglove seemed more practical with actual controls and buttons. And I saw it in The Wizard [1]

But while looking for more history on it I came across the LaserScope[0] which I was not aware of. So I guess we're in the same boat on NES oddball accessories.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaserScope

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wizard_(1989_film)

I love The Wizard! I recently re-watched it and it still holds up for me, but a large part of that could be nostalgia. The ending still gets me though.

I stopped by the Dinosaurs of Cabazon earlier this year while driving from Palm Springs to LA (part of a larger road trip I took this year). It's so different now, they've painted them really bright colors. I was there 15 years ago and back then they still resembled the ones from The Wizard and Pee Wee's Big Adventure. Was still cool though.

I had an original system w/ ROB and was an early member of the Nintendo Fun Club (before Nintendo Power was released) and don't recall seeing this device before. Not saying I haven't, just don't recall.

So it turns out, non-tactile controls can be exhausting to use. There's nowhere to rest one's hand, so simply holding state requires constant expenditure of effort.

This is why joysticks are such a saddle-point in the UI space: motion controllers are great for novelty, but the industry keeps gravitating to joysticks and buttons.

This is why I never got into the Wii. My "centered/straight ahead" was never where the Wii wanted it to be.

That was entirely defined by where you put the IR blaster. There was also a setting depending on whether it was sitting above or below your TV. If that was wrong, the whole thing felt off

Tiring as it is, motion control is more immersive and just has something going for it that gamepads don't.

And the "exhausting" aspect can actually be a good thing. It means getting some exercise while doing something fun. I was surprised how well VR exercise actually worked for me when I tried it.

Upvoting this comment, dunno why it's been downvoted to hell - you're totally right.

I agree with shadowgovt above, in that; yes - motion controls aren't meant to be used all the time, it absolutely gets exhausting.

But on the other hand, you're completely right as well - I'm also very impressed by VR exercise, and games can be a very effective tool for exercise, especially for a nerd like me who finds motivation hard.

I had a power glove that barely worked with anything and even my naive prepubescent self knew the u-force would likely not do anything close to what it advertised. I still liked looking at the "action shots" in the advertisements though of what "could be".

My most used accessories for NES/SNES era were likely the powerpad and superscope though. (not counting the NES advantage)

The Super Scope was hilariously big, and a battery drain, but was shockingly accurate and fun.

Speaking of Punch Out, the SNES version had a recent discovery: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2022/08/28-years-later-super-...

I heard about it. I saw it advertised at the time. The ads made it sound awesome. Glad I didn't beg and cajole my parents to get it for me in retrospect, though.

I had one, but I couldn't get it to work reliably. That's the real reason no one heard about it.

I wanted one when it came out. I now have an incomplete one I got at a yard sale sitting on a shelf.

If I ever wanted to go to hell, I’d put these at my feet, power gloves on my hands and a virtual boy on my head.

Related question, what are the best Leap Motion uses?

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