Wii Remote: An in-depth analysis

Format Nintendo Wii

Developer Nintendo

Publisher Nintendo

Genre Unknown

45 Comments

You know how the Wii controller works. You know what it can do. You've seen the press shots and read the games previews. But how does the controller actually feel?

No matter how many Wii game previews you read, finally getting your hands on the controller in December (or November, if you're a super-keen importer) will be a totally new, slightly unusual feeling. But we analysed, poked, prodded and playtested the controller to death in a recent hands-on session with Wii to bring you these detailed impressions of exactly what the controller is like and how it performs.

Please note, Nintendo was quick to stress that the controllers we used were not final retail units, and so may still differ slightly from the end product you'll be excitedly plucking off the shelves. But apart from a couple of the controllers still being hard-wired to the consoles (instead of being fully wireless), they felt pretty near to complete to us.

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THE WII REMOTE
The Wii Remote is, as you'd expect from Nintendo, a solidly-designed, comfortable piece of kit. At roughly the length of an average biro pen, the remote has curves in all the right places to make reaching all the buttons an effortless ordeal.

When held in the remote position, your thumb sits nicely over the A, with the D-pad easily within reach. On the flipside, your index finger rests completely naturally on the B trigger - a curved button that is strangely satisfying to press.

Earlier versions of the controller felt light and relatively cheap - as expected for a demo containing almost none of the final controller's technical guts. But we immediately noticed that these newer controllers were, on the contrary, rather weighty. Just think, as well as the buttons and usual circuitry, there's a force-feedback motor, speaker, battery pack, accelerometer thingies and the sensor panel and trickery all packed into that small unit so it's bound to have some heft. It's good - it feels like quality. And it feels expensive (which at £30, you might say it is).

How does it perform? Superbly. The feature that's most intriguing to begin with is its pointer functionality, as this is the first function you see in action, used to navigate almost all game menu screens we've seen so far on Wii.

Completely ignoring the on-screen prompts to start the game, we waved the controller gently left and right to test the pointer's response times. It's spot-on. If you're REALLY picky, you might say there's a slight nanosecond delay in the pointer's motion. But it's so slight it's not a factor - and we played Trauma Center long enough and hard enough to confirm that fact. Besides, these aren't final controllers, remember? Response time could be totally perfected on retail units (and we'll be testing those in two weeks time).

Delving deeper into our curious examination, we lifted the controller to our eye and looked down its body at the screen like you would a gun. We realised that the controller's pointer function is not direct - as in the icon you're controlling does NOT appear on screen exactly where you're aiming the controller like it would with a lightgun.

It works more like a mouse. With a PC, for example, if you have a 17" monitor you don't have to slide your mouse 17 inches across to move the pointer from one side of the screen to the next. The Wii works the same - your movements are scaled up.

That said, the distance from the TV (or in fact, the sensor bar) made a great deal of difference in the pointer's sensitivity - the closer we were, the more sensitive the pointer's movements became. Standing right next to the TV made it near unusable, the slightest movement sending the on-screen pointer flying off the edge of the screen. We found that the sensitivity was most comfortable from about four feet away. Although anywhere from around three feet to the average length of a living room was more than playable.

To test the motion-detecting accelerometers, we had to jump in and play some games. In principle, there are two main ways games seem to use the accelerometers - to accurately track your every move, or in a simpler fashion, to detect a specific gesture. The simple gestures mechanic, used for example in Wii tennis to swing your racquet, is responsive and intuitive. Although it's designed to recognise the wide range of gestures that could be made by different people (not everyone swings a racquet EXACLTY the same) so the motions required to trigger these functions aren't so distinct. You can use tiny wrist-flicks or massive arm movements to achieve the same results.

Games like Excite Truck and Wii baseball, on the other hand, track your every move, and do so brilliantly. Moving a controller in mid-air obviously lacks the touch-feedback of a control stick, so the steering in Excite Truck feels a little weird, but you get used to it. And when playing Wii Baseball, no matter how slight you move, or at what angle, the on-screen bat will follow you precisely. It's a great feeling - almost like you imagined the virtual reality gloves in those ridiculous 80's sci-fi films would have felt like.

Moving onto the controller's simpler functions, the rumble force feedback really added a greater visceral illusion to the motion of the controller, and it's connection to the game, despite not being as beefy as the rumble in the GameCube controller. When fishing in Twilight Princess, for example, the controller's violent reaction to a fish pulling tight on the fishing line really makes you feel like there's tension there. Of course, there's nothing pulling your hand forwards, but you subconsciously imagine that there is, and we found ourselves gritting our teeth as we tugged against that fish.

The speaker further enhances this illusion, with the sounds of various crashes, bumps and bashes sounding from the controller itself. It's fairly loud, too. You'd be able to hear it even with your TV up high although, as internet forums have speculated, the sound quality is pretty low. But it does the job.

We can imagine what a challenge it has been for developers to make games for this controller, but when done properly, we're already certain that this controller offers the functionality to produce totally unique and absorbing game experiences.

NUNCHUCK EXPANSION
The Nunchuk expansion plugs into the bottom of the Wii remote with a chunky proprietary socket that clips in firmly. Two small prongs lock it in securely, so there's no concern of the expansion coming lose during the pressures of heated gaming sessions. The wire is also suitably long enough - at about a metre in length, you can have one hand held against your shoulder and stretch your other arm out fully without a problem (unless you have an ape's arms).

The Nunchuk expansion is far lighter than Wii Remote - which is expected because it lacks a force-feedback motor and doesn't need a battery pack as it draws it's power from the remote. The analogue stick feels nice, with just the right amount of resistance, and an adequate level of grip from the smooth rubber surface on its top, and its accelerometer functions are every bit as responsive as the remote.

And so concludes our detailed (and lengthy) analysis of the Wii Remote and Nunchuk controllers. Hopefully this will put most of, if not all, your fanboy curiosities to rest. But if you do have any questions, please unleash your queries in the comments section below and this correspondent will do his best to answer them.

Mike Jackson