The Power Glove

“I love the power glove. It’s so bad.” -Lucas

Power Glove

If there was an award given for the “most-hyped-but-totally-useless-video-game-accessory-of-all-time”, Mattel’s Power Glove would win easily. What other game accessory premieres in a nation-wide motion picture and sports a famous toy company name on it?

As the late, great Public Enemy would say: “Don’t believe the hype.”

Don’t get me wrong, the idea of a virtual reality device is in every Nintendo fan’s dreams but the execution and sheer uselessness of this item made it a total flop.

Simple, plausible scenario:

The year is 1988, and you have just come home with a brand new Power Glove that you bought at the local Kiddie City. You read the instructions and each step. You read the instructions and each step, again. You put the instructions pack in the box. You place the four included sensors around on the floor. You turn on the only, fully compatible glove game, ‘Super Glove Ball’. You realize it’s hard and clumsy. You change the position of the sensors. You change them again. And again. And again. You have the patience of a 5-year old because…you are one. You play with it for another four minutes. You then realize it sucks. Finally you realize that in the future you will read reviews of video game accessories before buying.

Quite honestly, this accessory is complete junk. The only redeeming quality worth mentioning is the “elite” feeling while wearing it – there’s just a certain coolness obtained. Then I look in the mirror and realize how much of a dork I look.

The Power Glove’s history starts out in a company called PAX in Japan. It was first released for the Famicom but didn’t sell too well and put the company in bankrupt. Mattel came along and snatched the rights to bring it state-side in a big promotion with The Wizard movie. It’s success is considered varied. Although it did not sell pretty well, because of the 1 game limit and really no use with any other games, it failed gameplay-wise and thus overall. Oh, and price? It retailed for roughly a hundred bucks. Who’s so bad now, Lucas?

Nowadays ‘the glove’ is a hot selection for NES collectors, like myself. I picked up mine last year on eBay for $25 (which is in the average price range of $23-35 depending on if instructions or box is included). The only recent use for it is a conversation piece. I read somewhere of a couple of Unix fans who made a program that allows you to hook up the power glove to a computer port and control the cursor on Linux boxes. Wow.

One thing is for sure: when Lucas said that the Power Glove was bad, he wasn’t kidding.