The Little Flightstick that wasn’t.
Once upon a time, there was an enchanted prince who lived in an enormous, three story pumpkin. As part of his regal entertainment system, he had borrowed his father’s (the king) Playstation. He tried to play Wipeout XL but the original Sony controller was too stiff and the D-pad hurt his thumb. The good controller fairy came by, and in exchange for his teeth, gave him some Naki Wireless Controllers.
The new controllers were great, his thumbs felt fine and the cord didn’t get tangled on his magic boots. But then the happy prince tried to play Formula 1 and Bogey: Dead 6. The digital controller didn’t have the refined control that he needed. He couldn’t make smooth turns on the track, and he lost every dogfight. The happy prince became sad.
Suddenly, there was a knock at the door of the pumpkin. When he opened it, there stood a beautiful princess.
“Greetings, sad prince”, said the princess. “I have traveled seven leagues from the Valley of Gumdrops because I heard you we’re sad. And I have brought you a gift!”
With that said, she reached into her bag of many colors, from which the rays of the sun were reflected in almost oriental splendor. From her bag, she pulled the nYKo Bio Grip and presented it to the prince.
“What a glorious analog controller!” he cried. “I’ll get my name on that high score list yet!”
“But oh dear,” the princess replied, “My feet are so sore from walking seven leagues that I will never make it back in these uncomfortable shoes. Might I borrow your magic boots?”
Wanting only to get back to his Playstation immediately, the prince quickly agreed and took his boots off right there and gave them to the beautiful princess. She thanked him and disappeared back into the woods.
The prince plugged his Bio Grip into the Playstation, shooed away Herman (the talking cat who was lying in front of the TV) and turned on the power. Immediately the prince noticed something was wrong. The base of the Bio Grip was too small, and difficult to hold. Many of the buttons were inconveniently placed, and it was not programmable, so you could not reassign buttons for different games. Alas, the trigger button was destined for all eternity to be Square. What if he needed X to fire?
But when the prince actually began to play with the Bio Grip, he began to cry. His movements were still stiff and jerky. His wrist strained and his muscles began to tighten. It wasn’t an analog controller at all! The poor prince had been fooled by a badly made digital controller that only looked like a flightstick. His heart was broken, and on top of that, his feet were getting cold.
Meanwhile, back in the woods, the beautiful princess (who was really just a wicked old crone in disguise) took off the tall pointy princess hat that she had rented from the costume shop. She pulled on the magic boots, danced a merry jig, and wandered off down the trail, chuckling quietly to herself.
