N'Gai Croal redesigns the Wiimote for Metroid Prime 3

That's a slippery slope that leads to games like Steel Battallion! Pac-Man had no buttons, and if you dis Pac-Man you'll get shot.

Ha, had to look that one up. Seems like Steel Battalion was less of a game and more of an exact simulator, cause that's one hell of a controller (talk about hardware peripheral profits). I wonder how they got the system to differentiate all of the controls? Plug it into both ports? I'm almost curious to try to play that deal, but I bet the setup cost more than my current consoles put together.

And I agree, Pac-Man was sweet, but it would have been less fun if the joystiq had been inconsistenly context sensitive.

Wow, just had to add that Steel Battalion comes with its own allen wrench (I assume for assembling the 42 button controller). This has got to be the only video game ever to do so.

An allen wrench? Hahaha. I didn't even know that. The plot thickens. Some day I'll have to try it out, after I find the giant chunk of junk for under $10.

"developers had to tack on waggle to make up for the paucity of buttons."


Wow, you really think that's how it's supposed to work? Wow. ...Well, I guess there are indeed some developers who are stupid enough to approach it like that.

Interesting fact. Tekka (Steel Battalion) is the ONLY game I know of which had a class in Tokyo University based on it's gameplay. I have it and it's a tad frustrating because controls are VERY specific and in the heat of battle, sometimes you forget where the extinguisher button is to put out the fires in the cockpit.....

This is a much better design but Nintendo didn't want to confuse their new market with too many buttons.

Another instance where Nintendo is catering to the casuals while screwing the traditionals.

"Xbox and Playstation added more and more buttons to increase your control options (and thus increase realism)"

This line cracks me up! Because nothing says realism like pressing a button to make something happen... Take elevators, for example.

"Xbox and Playstation added more and more buttons to increase your control options (and thus increase realism)..."

You set yourself up to be picked apart by the hip Wii crowd with the bit in parentheses. Why would they need a proven control mechanism like that? They're too cool for school, let alone buttons. Just wait until next generation where they control their games with a laser pointer and laugh in the face of your analog sticks.

It increased realism by increasing the amount of interaction that was possible with the environment. I'd say that more buttons to press is a better solution than random flails with my arms (see wii boxing, swordplay in PoP, etc.). I love wii bowling, because it is an actual (and precise) recreation of the actual thing. PoP was infuriating because there was next to no precise control over your character's actions. To use your elevator example, that'd be like marching in place, but a third of the time you undershot your desired floor because the elevator didn't register all of your steps because they were too fast (ie wii boxing and its 3 actual punches per 1 on screen punch, if you try to act like a real boxer), and a third of the time you overshot because it registered every waver in your stride (like PoP, where the prince seems to love accepting whatever intentional input is going to get him killed).

Maybe it's just something i learn to expect from wii games, in a similar fashion to how the dawn of 3d graphics killed the pixel-precise control of platform games. Somehow these needs to be rectified, because somehow similar-but-imprecise movements does not equal reality to me, unless i want to experience what it is like to have a motor neuron problem.

I agree with ya', although I never had a problem in MP3. It's more in games like Super Paper Mario that I get annoyed. Moving my thumb down for MP3 was easy enough, stretching it across the remote for SPM is a pain.

Yeah, but at that point why not just play on PC?

Woah! I see what you did there! You!

Seriously though, I don't see how a keyboard & mouse is any better than the Wii remote + Nunchuk. With games like MP3 where they refined the controls rather than just not caring whether they suck or not (I'm looking at you Red Steel), the Wii's control method is just as good as a keyboard and mouse. And yes, I play a ton of PC FPS games, so I feel I am qualified to throw out that opinion.

I lol'd

You know I think I'd like a mouse with a nunchuck attachment instead, for the sake of analog control.

Actually sometimes I play FPS on PC with:

Right hand: Mouse (normal control)
Left hand: Left side of a 360 controller (movement, dpad for wpn switch, etc)

Truely mouse and nunchuck (with more buttons) would be the ideal control setup.

I don't really have a problem either when reaching for the plus and minus buttons. I agree with aristokrat in that they could just add two buttons there and leave the others where they are. It does still feel awkward to me in MP3 when reaching for the down button to fire missiles.

Too right. My biggest complaint about the Wiimote is how it works when you -aren't- using it to point and waggle. The buttons are all over the place and every thing I have to reach for the dpad or 1 button to do something it ticks me off.

Of course, games like Excite Truck now require the 1 and 2 buttons to remain where they are, so you either end up with duplicate buttons, or different 'motes for different games. -sigh-

The ogres would just have to press the bottom half of the A button

I don't think that would really be a problem, as the Gamecube controller had a very similar button layout focused around the large A-button.

if you have a gamecube controller, check the actual size of the buttons compared to the wii remote. the spacing and buttons are much bigger than the wii remotes. if they were to set the buttons like that, the wii remote would have to be alot wider.

And we people reading Joystiq give two shits about what the non-gamer wants?

See slazi, its that outlook that causes you to totally miss out on Nintendo's mission with wii.

Heads up, its not all about you anymore.

I guess you're special.

Actually, I can reach the plus/minus buttons but it's NOT comfortable. Often I would just reach over with my other hand to hit the buttons. Even using down on the d-pad to shoot missles isn't exactly convenient. The button layout is quite horrendous on the Wiimote.

http://www.bbspot.com/Images/News_Features/2006/11/wiimote.jpg

Oh yeah. The down button on the D-pad is soooooo far away from the A button. Damn, it's like, what, a quarter of an inch away from the A button? Look at the person's thumb it the linked photo! I bet if the woman sneezed she might accidentally graze the D-pad!

agreed.

You've got something with 4 buttons at the bottom, but the analog stick in the middle would make it unusable unless it was a nub like the PSP has. Then it would be slightly less unusable.

I was thinking that the stick would be the kind where you push it down and it stays down, and if you push down on it again, it clicks back upward.