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My Hand, My Neck, My Gun: The Mouse Turns 40

Posted by Joe Keiser

Festivities are already underway for the computer mouse, which turns 40 on December 9th. It’s a happy time for the little pointing device, so we all need to forget, just for a little while, all those spreadsheet cells we’ve had to click on with it. And please, whatever you do, do not bring up all the occasions you were forced to penetrate its ball-hole with a Q-tip. We’re in polite company here.

No, let’s talk about the best times: the times the mouse was a game controller. A humble game controller, and possibly the best one ever made. Let’s walk down memory lane, and think about some of the greatest moments in the history of mouse-based gaming.

1987: Maniac Mansion, one of the earliest graphical adventure games designed to be more about clicking than text parsing, began the era of LucasArt’s genre dominance. Starting here the mouse spent about a decade in the SCUMM engine, clicking on all manner of slimy, horrible things.

1990: The SNES Mouse brings it pointy, clicky goodness to Mario Paint. This version of the mouse spent it formative years as a fly swatter, and today it enjoys a retirement as one of YouTube’s most popular composers.

1992: Dune II ensures that real-time strategy will forever be mouse-based. Or at least until somebody actually manages to crack the control scheme on console—there’s certainly enough people trying.

1994: Marathon becomes the first-person shooter that popularizes mouselook as the de-facto standard for gun pointing and neck moving. This innovation remains the most accurate and enjoyable form of control in the genre; it took nearly a decade (and the work of Bungie, again) before console’s little thumbsticks even came close.

1995: The mouse wheel is introduced to the market. Digital sniper rifles everywhere rejoice.

1997: Diablo.

2000: Diablo II.

2001: Um…Bejeweled. Admit it, you’ve clicked on as many diamonds as you have hell demons.

2003: Freelancer. The ten of you that played it know what I’m talking about.

I think I’ve made my point. Forget your touch screens and shoulder triggers and waggle wands—we’ve already got a great controller. We’ve had it since 1968.

Related Links:

A Decade of Gaming Excellence
Ranty McRant Rant: What the Hell does Casual Mean?
Diablo III Designer Responds to Criticism

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Posted Dec 03 2008, 03:00 PM

Filed under: diablo, pc games, joe keiser, the good old days, dune ii, mouse

Comments

Bob Mackey said:

My favorite mouse moment is the one Star Trek movie where Scotty tries to talk into a mouse.

December 3, 2008 3:12 PM

Demaar said:

Oh wow, had no idea it was 40 already. Guess I'll celebrate by buying a brand new mouse to replace my coincidentally ailing one.

December 3, 2008 10:06 PM

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John Constantine, our superhero, was raised by birds and then attended Penn State University. He is currently working on a novel about a fictional city that exists only in his mind. John has an astonishingly extensive knowledge of Scientology. Ultimately he would like to learn how to effectively use his brain. He continues to keep Wu-Tang's secret to himself.

Derrick Sanskrit is a self-professed geek in a variety of fields including typography, graphic design, comic books, music and cartoons. As a professional hipster graphic designer, his recent clients have included Nerve, Pitchfork and MoCCA, among others.

Amber Ahlborn - artist, writer, gamer and DigiPen survivor, she maintains a day job as a graphic artist. By night Amber moonlights as a professional Metroid Fanatic and keeps a metal suit in the closet just in case. Has lived in the state of Washington and insists that it really doesn't rain as much as everyone says it does.

Nadia Oxford is a housekeeping robot who was refurbished into a warrior when the world's need for justice was great. Now that the galaxy is at peace (give or take a conflict here or there), she works as a freelance writer for various sites and magazines. Based in Toronto, Nadia prizes the certificate from the Ministry of Health declaring her tick and rabies-free.

Bob Mackey is a grad student, writer, and cyborg, who uses the powerful girl-repelling nanomachines mad science grafted onto his body to allocate time towards interests of the nerd persuasion. He believes that complaining about things on the Internet is akin to the fine art of wine tasting, but with more spitting into buckets.

Joe Keiser has a programming degree from Johns Hopkins University, a tiny apartment in Brooklyn, and a fake toy guitar built in the hollowed-out shell of a real guitar. He writes about games and technology for a variety of outlets. One day he will stop doing this. The day after that, police will find his body under a collapsed pile of (formerly neatly alphabetized) collector's edition tchotchkes.

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