The Nintendo Wii struck a different path three years ago, by ditching the dual thumbstick gamepad as we know it, and opting for motion control instead. The Japanese giant has certainly lured new gamers into the fold with the promise of virtual sword fighting and generally just flapping your arms around, but have motion controls turned out to be a stroke of genius, or just a gimmick? Read on and find out in our Nintendo Wii motion control review.
Read the rest of our Nintendo Wii review:
Nintendo Wii review: Three years on
Nintendo Wii review: Online abilities
Nintendo Wii review: Design and build
There’s no denying that the Wii’s motion sensing, which works in conjunction with the sensor bar you perch on top of the TV, has caused some lazy game design over the years. Why flail your arm about to open a door in a game when you can just press a button? Yet after all this time, we’re still enamoured with the Wii’s control kit, and that’s down to the simplicity of it.
Playing and pointing is easy with the Wii controls. The connection rarely breaks, and the buttons are perfectly designed as if to encourage developers to keep games pure, simple and fun (Nintendo was wise to keep the menu type buttons small and out of the way). Plugging in the nunchuk controller, which has the most comfortable thumbpad of any current console, causes no hiccups. It just works. In fact, the only thing vaguely complicated about it is pairing a remote with a new console, so just keep a manual to hand and you’ll be fine.
Of course, the motion controls themselves are far from perfect. If you’ve ever tried to play a tennis game on the Wii, you’ll know that swings can often have only the most tenuous of links to what your player does on screen, although pointing works perfectly: guiding your remote to BBC iPlayer and firing up video on demand from your sofa makes you wonder why we’re still stuck with 0-9 remotes in everyday life.
Nintendo has given the Wii’s motion controls an adrenaline boost though now that we’re well in to its lifecycle, in the form of MotionPlus. It’s a teeny cube you plug into the bottom of the remote that gives you something closer to 1-1 motion, finally giving you the opportunity to play games which mirror your moves exactly, rather than produce lazy stock animations based on the vague direction of your waggling. Unfortunately, few games have still to really take advantage of its full potential, but it’s worth buying for the riotous Wii Sports Resort alone: sword fighting and frisbee throwing are eerily accurate. MotionPlus now comes included with the Wii, so newcomers will be sorted.
On the ergonomics front, Nintendo really has done a remarkable job striking a balance between motion control for the rabble of sport and mini game titles now out there, and traditional joystick and button gaming for more traditional platformers. We’re not huge fans of using the remote horizontally as a NES style gamepad, but with the nunchuk plugged in, and both hands full, we’re still surprised at just how similar it feels to holding a GameCube, Xbox or PS3 controller.
A prime example of this is a game like Super Mario Galaxy. Because the controls have hardly changed in the series since 1996, you’ll know what buttons pull off which jumps, and you’ll be pulling them off as if you were holding an N64 trident all over again – but in two hands. It’s that intuitive.
It’s a shame though that some other elements still haven’t been changed. Why Nintendo hasn’t update the Wii remote with a rechargeable battery inside still baffles us, as there’s nothing more irritating than the charge running low mid-game, only for you to discover you’ve run out of AA batteries. Again. The Wii has a USB port perfectly capable of charging gadgets, so why not the remote?
The Wii’s motion control set up comes at quite a cost too, by far and away our biggest gripe. By multiplying all the peripherals you need for the full experience, Nintendo’s priced a lot of people out of the fun. If you want to get a bit of four player Wii Sports Resort action going on, you’re looking at having to buy three new Wii remotes with MotionPlus add ons and nunchuks, which will cost you in the region of £150 – just shy of the price of the Wii itself. This is offset if you can get three mates around who have a Wii too of course, but if you’re planning on buying a Wii as a cheap way to keep the family entertained, that low pricetag may come back to burn you.
Motion control is set to become a huge battle ground over the coming year, with the PlayStation Move wand and Xbox 360 Natal camera both on the way. Considering the Wii’s motion controls are so much older though, we still think they’ll hold the Wii in good stead against them: they work with no interruptions, and ease of use is every bit as important as the sensitivity of the kit inside. Whether the Nintendo Wii itself can cope is another matter entirely: for that, red our full Nintendo Wii overall verdict here.
Read the rest of our Nintendo Wii review:
Nintendo Wii review: Three years on
Nintendo Wii review: Online abilities
Nintendo Wii review: Design and build
