Steel Battalion

Steel Battalion from Capcom is legendary above all for its unprecedented controls: the game was sold exclusively with a special giant controller that took up a substantial part of a desk and featured forty buttons, two analog sticks, and a set of foot pedals, far exceeding anything consoles had offered up to that point. Playing as the pilot of a giant combat robot called a Vertical Tank, the player operates the machine in a post-apocalyptic world where Japan faces an invading enemy army, having to manage a complex sequence of actions, from starting the engine to switching cameras to operating weapon systems, much like an actual pilot would.

The machine's movement itself is deliberately sluggish and inertia-heavy. The Vertical Tank turns slowly, aiming requires anticipating the target's movement, and the player must also monitor overheating gauges, cooling system status, and ammunition supply, so combat feels more like crisis management of a machine than classic action. The game is also famous for its uncompromising mechanic: if the player fails to activate the emergency ejection system before their machine is destroyed, it is recorded as permanent pilot death, and their progress in the game is irrecoverably lost. This emphasis on authenticity and risk was completely singular in 2002 and created an experience closer to a professional simulator than a typical action game.

Given the high price of the bundle with the controller and its bulk, Steel Battalion remained a niche affair, but that's exactly what made it one of the most valuable and sought-after collectibles of the entire Xbox generation, a symbol of the era's Microsoft daring to experiment with unusual hardware. Capcom later released a sequel focused on online battles over Xbox Live that used the same controller for team fights. The controller still ranks among the bulkiest peripherals ever made for a game console, and its rarity on the secondary market has made it an object revered by collectors on par with the rarest games themselves.