It goes without saying that the controller is a very important part of a videogame console. Being the only piece of hardware that you are physically interacting with, it's critical that it is a well thought out device. It should be sturdy, comfortable, and have a solid feature set. No brainer right?

Well it turns out that it isn't as obvious as it seems. Hit the jump to see a list of the top five crappy videogame controllers to ever grace our carpel-ridden hands:

*Update* This list is no particular order. I don't think the Sixaxis is the worst controller, just one of the biggest disappointments ever and worthy of being in the Top 5. If I had a (dis)honorable mention, I would have included the Xbox 1 controller.

N64 controller: While the N64 controller won major points for making analog sticks a standard in all future videogame controllers, it's on this list for one very simple reason. You need three freaking arms to use it! Nintendo actually purposefully designed it so that it could be held in multiple positions, not realizing that most gamers prefer to be able to reach all the buttons no matter what position the controller is held. The N64 controller holds the record as the goofiest designed controller ever.

Steel Battalion controller: See all those buttons? They're all needed in order to play the Xbox 1 mech game, Steel Battalion. This specially designed controller was designed to simulate the actual control panel of the ingame mechs and in that aspect, it's pretty cool. The fact that you practically needed a PhD to operate it makes it less cool. Throw in the fact that it was expensive ($200+), hard to find, and only worked with Steel Battalion and it's sequel -- and you're looking at something that should have never gotten out of the design phase.

Dreamcast controller: While not quite as large as the Steel Battalion controller above, you gotta wonder who at Sega thought it would be a good idea to release a controller that was almost as big as the console itself. Sporting two large expansion slots on its back, a slippery analog stick and a horrible d-pad in its mammoth shell, the Dreamcast controller was hands-down the worst controller of the previous generation. It also had just horrible ergonomics that made prolonged game sessions actually painful. This is the only controller that has ever actually hurt me.

Atari 5200 controller: The old school failure of the bunch, the Atari 5200 controller was so bad that it was a major factor in the failure of the Atari 5200. It had an analog stick that for all intents and purposes was worthless, it didn't center itself which made controlling a character on screen incredible difficult and lacked linear acceleration making movement awkward. The controller was also incredibly poorly made and would break constantly, as well as frequently lock-up during use. To make matters worse, development teams were given prototype controllers that actually worked, so when their games hit the market -- many were largely unplayable by consumers using production controllers. Things like this are why nobody is surprised Atari crumbled.

Sixaxis: Poor Sony. Entangled in a lawsuit over force feedback, mocked over their initial 'boomerang' prototype, and taken by suprise at the amount of love the Wii-mote was getting went back to the drawing board and came up with the Sixaxis - the first controller since the PS1 that didn't have rumble. Using their classic controller design (which admitadly is great), they simply ripped out the force feedback and added in their own motion controls to combat Nintendo. The problem is that rumble rocks and after 10 years of playing videogames with it, the lack of it was extremely noticeable in a negative way. And to make matters worse, the touted motion control tech kind of sucked and was laughable in the face of the Wiimote. Also, even though it had great battery life, it had no auto turn-off switch, which meant for many gamers that 30 hour battery lifespan equaled one day. Sony eventually made things better by settling their force feedback lawsuit and releasing the DualShock 3, as well as patching in an auto turn-off functionality, but not soon enough to keep the Sixaxis from being one of the biggest disappointments in controller history.