GameCola: 0wning the Competition (6-12)

-- by Kevin Leacock

I just picked up a Wii Blaster yesterday. I have four words that I will use to describe it: What the hell, Nintendo? Like most Wii controller accessories so far, the WiiBlaster is nothing more than a fancy Wiimote holder. The difference is, this one didn't have to be. See, with the golf club or tennis racket, the only real thing it needed to do was feel like a golf club or tennis racket and use the Wiimote's built-in motion sensor. But the Wii Blaster has buttons on it. It has a trigger. It has controls at the back end of the gun. But the controls at the back end of the gun aren't actually controls. It's a nunchuck clipped to some pegs, with a cable running up top to the Wiimote. And the trigger? That's not actually a button. It's a moving piece that presses the trigger button on the Wiimote for you.

Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but this could have been done better. When I bought this thing, I expected the Wiimote to clip into the gun, as it does, but instead what I would've thought happened was the gun itself would've had buttons and lights on it, and the gun would've connected to the port where the nunchuck controller plugs into, on the bottom of the Wiimote. This would've allowed the gun to have actual components or interactivity, instead of just being "a fancy holder".

On the other hand, I suppose I can understand why it was designed like this. This design holds one thing over most other accessories for most other consoles: It's cheap. Yes, I believe this thing cost me less than $25 bucks. (Although I'm not certain; gift cards are nice things.)

Nonetheless, I'm not sure how I feel about purchasing a controller holder that I could probably make out of spare wood from my garage in 20 minutes. Or even pick up a $5 kid's wooden rifle from a yard sale and tape/glue/velcro the Wiimote to that. Seems like a waste of 25 perfectly good American dollars. (Well, as good as they are right now, anyway.)

My brother told me I should get it because it would be "required" for a couple of upcoming games that he wanted to get. I fail to see how it could be "required"—"useful" maybe; but not "required." Why can't it be required, as my brother was lead to believe? Very simple—because it's a cheap piece of plastic with some clips on it; the console can't even know if you have one or not! I leave you with that.

-- Kevin Leacock {12-2007}

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