Nowadays, Star Fox 64 seems to be mostly known as a decent Nintendo 64 game that spawned some half-remembered memes. “Do a barrel roll!” You had to be there. It made sense back then. Actually, it didn’t, but gaming culture didn’t have the deepest bench of references to run with. You basically could do bits about Zelda and WarCraft 2.

But what blew my mind when I first played Star Fox 64 was the fabled Rumble Pak which would also make a fun name for a wrestling-based political group. The Rumble Pak, as you probably know if you also remember 9/11, was a big battery powered gadget that hooked into the back of the cursed Nintendo 64 controller where you also had to keep memory cards. Discussion for another time: a cartridge-based console expected us to buy memory cards. Jesus.

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Playing Star Fox 64 with the Rumble Pak now is a bit goofy because, compared to literally any other recent console, it’s janky, overdone, and oddly infrequent. But at the time, it felt like a whole new world of experience. I was feeling the explosions! I was feeling the big moments! If I couldn’t live inside the game, I could at least live it in some distant, far off way.

I remember being so excited by a vibrating controller. And I wasn’t even old enough to make it something rude. Goodness, the innocent times when I owned a battery powered vibrator and didn’t feel a deep sense of Catholic-instilled shame. It was just a controller that translated the action on the screen to tactical feedback and I was thrilled.

In fact, I was so excited that I told my older sister, then babysitting us while our parents worked late, that I could finally feel the action in the game. She asked what I meant and I said that when my starfighter was hit, it felt like I was being hit. She then punched me in the arm harder than she usually punched me in the arm and said “your starfighter just got hit.” I’m almost certain I learned the wrong lesson from this.

So, what does this have to do with the PlayStation 5 controller? You didn’t ask. You might not have even read this far! But I’ll tell you anyway, the void! The PlayStation 5 controller’s haptic feedback and adaptive triggers make me more likely to buy a multiplatform game on the PS5 than any graphics comparisons.

This isn’t to say that I’ll spend money on a PlayStation 5 game that’s available on Xbox Game Pass. I’m not a weirdo. I spend money like an idiot, but that doesn’t mean I actually hate the money. I like holding onto it. I like not spending it when I do not have to. However, if there’s a choice between spending $70 on a PlayStation 5 game or $70 on the same Xbox game, I’m always going with the PlayStation 5 solely because of the controller.

I’m not sure how I got here. I don’t particularly like the PlayStation 5 more than the Xbox Series X: X2: X-Men United. I find the PlayStation 5’s interface to be annoying at best and intentionally confusing at worst. Trying to find anything on a PlayStation 5 is a journey through a thousand ads and updates and notifications. Even turning off the console is more of a chore than literally any other video game system made after 2006. I don’t particularly love the Xbox user interface, but at least it doesn’t feel like it’s messing with me.

So when I say I prefer PlayStation 5 versions of games over Xbox, please understand this isn't coming from a fanboy angle. If the two controllers were switched between the consoles with the same features, I’d be writing this all day long about that fridge-shaped monstrosity.

To me, haptic feedback and adaptive triggers make games feel more “next gen” (e.g. current gen) than any sort of well rendered vista or million-polygon face. I love good graphics. But I grew up with old consoles and old computers, so I’ve never been someone who’s suffered from running games on Low. My family’s first computer didn’t have enough RAM to run Doom 2 properly. I wasn’t worried if Elden Ring looked a little hazier on PS4.

But when I play most games on PlayStation 5, the way the controller feels is fantastic. It makes the littlest details pop, even on older games. When I replayed Grand Theft Auto 5 last year, I marveled at the way the controller’s haptic feedback seemed to translate every bump on the road. When I turned slightly and my left tire hit a rumble strip, the controller slightly transitioned the feedback to that side.

“Visceral” is an annoyingly overused word in games, but there is something, well, visceral about your hands getting a near-accurate translation of the actions on the screen. The small difference in quality between the vibration in the PlayStation 5 controller and the one in the Xbox Series X controller makes a big difference in my immersion into the game. When I’m walking over grass and it’s almost like I’m touching that grass? Beautiful.

And the adaptive triggers. Oh, those adaptive triggers. Feeling resistance when driving develops a tension between the speed I’m going and the car’s ability to get there. Rather than trying to suss out the right amount of pressure to put on an analog trigger, the game tells me how an in-game car (or basketball or bow and arrow) is responding in real time. Again, it brings me one step closer to having a 1:1 experience with my character on the screen. That’s really all I’ve got on the adaptive triggers but, friends, they’re good.

As a fanbase and an industry, we spend so much time on the aesthetic differences between consoles that we sometimes forget there is other important stuff going on. Yes, I want a game that has a stable framerate. And if a game is broken on PlayStation 5, I’m not going to buy it because the triggers are more fun in said broken game.

But all things being equal, I’m going to value an immersive experience over which game has better water reflections.

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