Hands On: Wii by Sports Illustrated

Hands On: Wii by Sports Illustrated

December 10th, 2006, 02:33 Posted By: wraggster

Heres an excerpt

Here's the gist of Wii gameplay: The system is motion-based, meaning that the actual movements of two controllers are translated into sword parries, baseball bat swings, steering wheel motions and so forth. The primary controller is a remote that is held in your right hand. The remote has a directional pad, A and B buttons, and the equivalent of START and SELECT buttons; and if you turn the thing sideways, you have what functions like an old 8-bit NES controller. (For Wii racing games, you hold it sideways and rotate it from an imaginary center-point like you would a steering wheel.) If you point the remote at your TV, you'll find a moving icon (or crosshair, in shooting games) that serves the way a mouse cursor would on your computer. This is how you generally navigate start screens. The remote rumbles—nothing new. But it also communicates with you through a tiny speaker. It talks, whirrs and reminds you that it's your turn in, say, a game of bowling. And it boasts a power button, too, allowing you to turn off your unit from your seat. I should also note here that I've exhausted the two AA batteries required of two of my four controllers already.

For some games, you're required to attach the remote to a smaller, left-hand controller that Nintendo is asking us to call a "nunchuck." The nunchuck interacts with the remote via a three-foot cord and features two more trigger buttons, plus an analog stick. This comes into play in first-person shooters, Madden, or any game where you have to use two control pads. In Call Of Duty 3, for example, you move your infantryman using the nunchuck's stick, and point the controller at the TV to maneuver his eyesight and aim.

Finally, there's the gaming unit itself, a snazzy white casing that is about the size of three DVD cases stacked onto each other; and a pencil-sized receiver that is placed on top of your TV. (The later is what your controllers interact with.) The console physically echoes Nintendo's previous system, the GameCube, in its minimalism, but is actually quite complicated. I was pleased to learn I wouldn't have to run an internet cord into my living room as the Wii has built-in wireless internet access. (I was slightly less pleased that it took just short of an hour to configure my wireless connection.) The Wii also plays GameCube games and can interact with GC controllers; and it has a port for SD memory cards. My editor pointed out that Wii doesn't come with a component cable and complained of being forced to go directly to Nintendo to buy one, but that has yet to bother me.

For more information and downloads, click here!