Article: Remembering Activator

[Zadoc]

Link to article. (http://www.revrob.com/sci-a-tech-topmenu-52/146-sega-activator-full-body-motion-controller)

On a personal note, I remember getting this as a kid. In Mesa, AZ there is (was?) this record store called Rockaway Records and they had tons of video games. My dad took me there one time and told me I could get anything I wanted.

That day I picked up Sonic 2 and the Activator. It looked sooo freaking cool. Just look at the box art. It's all glowing, and the dude is standing in a room with glowing dots on the wall. I actually believed that it could translate punches and kicks in games like Mortal Kombat.

In the training video the dude playing with the controller gets his ass kicked by the cooler looking kid using the Activator. I tried that the first day I brought it home on Mortal Kombat II, except I was using the Activator and my friend kicked my ass repeatedly with a standard 6-button.

I bust it out on occasion. It's a neat conversation piece.

[Chris]

I saw one of these recently in a store on Kingsway in Vancouver. It looked like it had never been used. The lady wanted $25 for it, and my wife tried to get her to come down to $10. She said she could'nt let it go that cheap because they sell for $80 new. I thought that was funny.

[Jax184]

I bought one at a salvation army in ~1999. The pack in was of course missing, but it was otherwise complete. It got used once and then packed up.

It wasn't even like the Virtual Boy, which caused most people's eyes to explode but which I can play for hours. It just made every single game much much worse.

[Christuserloeser]

Interesting:

As a controller, Activator is a disaster. The controls are imprecise, pulling off combination movies is impossible, and the player becomes fatigued quickly. After ten minutes with the Activator, the standard Genesis controller seems like the greatest device ever invented.

It should then come as no surprise that the Activator wasn’t originally intended as a videogame controller. Go figure. The device was originally called “The Light Harp” and was invented by Assaf Gurner to make music by moving around the body. Here’s a video of Gurner demoing the product at the 1993 CES:

YoxsnCiX05k

[Rusty Venture]

It makes more sense as a "Light Harp".

The only one of these I've ever actually seen didn't seem to work (literally wouldn't power up). The concept for it sounds cool, but the way it actually works really just sucks.

[old man]

Interesting:

[i]As a controller, Activator is a disaster. The controls are imprecise, pulling off combination movies is impossible, and the player becomes fatigued quickly. After ten minutes with the Activator, the standard Genesis controller seems like the greatest device ever invented.

It should then come as no surprise that the Activator wasn’t originally intended as a videogame controller. Go figure. The device was originally called “The Light Harp” and was invented by Assaf Gurner to make music by moving around the body. Here’s a video of Gurner demoing the product at the 1993 CES:

LOL.

[Jax184]

It's true! You try standing on one leg and waving your arms around.

[Rusty Venture]

The "Activator" is Sega's "Power Glove", except without all the ironic nostalgia love.