The Disadvantage of Motion Controls

I clearly remember the first time I heard of the Nintendo Wii. At E3 2006, legendary video game producer Shiguru Myamoto traipsed on stage holding a fancy white remote. He promised ingenuity and unparalleled creativity in gaming, and that players would be more involved and in tune with the experience. He played “Wii Sports,” an admittedly impressive demonstration, showcasing the potential for the remote on a 3-dimensional plane. He swung the remote like a racket when playing tennis, held it like bowling ball when bowling, and kept his guard up when boxing. I still felt some lingering skepticism, but my interest piqued and I could almost sense the public hype meter rocketing upwards.

The system launched in November 2006, and though I all but channeled Sherlock Holmes to find one, I couldn’t help but smile as I hooked the cables up to my newly purchased HDTV. I eagerly created a Mii, and began playing “Wii Sports” with a friend. Sadly, my anticipation proved unfounded. Wii boxing could be beaten by shaking the controller violently; baseball fared no better, requiring little more than a flick of the wrist from a sitting position, and bowling amounted to swinging the remote in the TV’s general direction.

Frustrated, I popped in The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, perhaps the most timeless video game franchise in its newest incarnation. Advertisements led me to believe that I would fill Link’s shoes like never before. If I swung the remote down or to the side, Link, too, would swing his sword down or to the side. If I drew an arrow, then I expected mimicked actions from my favorite character. These expectations were quickly dashed. Sword-swinging amounted to remote waggling, which constituted an imprecise replacement for the standard A button. In fact, the only tangible usage of motion controls in the game were for the few moments when Link found himself engaged in a fishing mini-game, complete with a casting of the rod and the subsequently reeling in of the caught fish. Nintendo hadn’t catapulted gaming into a new era, but rather left it in the previous generation, slapping awkward controls on an over-clocked GameCube.

After two years on the market, despite stellar sales and mounting popularity, I still see the Wii as little more than an artifice of potential. Nintendo has lured a new demographic to gaming, the non-gamer, but they have forgotten the fan base that allowed gaming to grow into the entertainment behemoth it has become. Granted, a few stellar first-party titles have been released, but their quality isn’t due to the way they control. Super Mario Galaxy featured a rather standard analogue control scheme, and the majority preference for Super Smash Bros. Brawl was the GameCube controller. Technically, both games show their age as well, looking rather pixelated and blocky when viewed side by side with entertaining blockbusters like Metal Gear Solid 4 or Gears of War 2. Third-party titles released on the Wii are mediocre as well, furthering the perception that many developers see the Wii as a means to release a cheap game with gimmicky motion controls, and sell it to an unwitting audience. With a recent slew of casually-targeted titles like Wii fit and Wii Music, Nintendo seems more focused than ever on the non-gamer. Well, I for one will react accordingly, nose turned upwards when confronted with Nintendo Wii shovelware.