Once upon a time, gaming was seen toy for children. I, was one of those children. With an NES, I had the zapper gun that would allow me to reenact a successful hunting trip with Dick Cheney. There were a multitude of accessories that were out there that may or may have not enhanced the experience but nonetheless were still available, notably Nintendo made the most for its system as a first party such as the Power Glove. However, by the time of the Playstation we saw these attachments and “zany” accessories slowly go away. The average controller had enough buttons and functions that making some variant of this would only hinder the player and contribute absolutely nothing. The Playstation’s Dual shock controller was the culmination of well planned design and functionality. Games such as Gran Turismo and Metal Gear Solid required both a number of features and precise actions to be used, for this, the controller was prefect providing absolutely what was needed and nothing more (for the most part at least). Going to the next few generations, all systems had a controller similar to the PS1’s Dual Shock. With 1-2 analog sticks, a d-pad, some face buttons, and some shoulder buttons. Of course Nintendo tried to break the mold of conformity and, in particular with the Gamecube, was met with mixed responses and a bunch of 3rd parties trying to figure out how to multi-platform with it.

Now, in the year 2008, the Wii is out and about and it has brought back some of those useless demons we once thought had been sent back to hell. Most recently, Nintendo has coupled Mario Kart, a series slowly turning into dead horse with Nintendo beating the shit out of it, with the Wii wheel. Now let’s be straight for a second here. What is the Wii wheel? If my imaginary PHd in mechanical engineering has any practical use, then it will show me that the Wii wheel is basically a hunk of useless plastic. It does nothing that couldn’t be done by simply using the wii remote sideways. There are buttons which allow for some more “realistic” elements, but to be honest, the whole thing is just tacky. I made my peace with watching hords of people act like epileptic dance students on DDR, but that had a purpose. Your feet were to hit the blinking tiles and corresponded to the game. However, the Wii wheel serves no purpose and doesn’t add that all too important element of precision to the racing game. The only real thing going for it? You didn’t have to pay for it if you bought the bundle (which at the moment is the only Mario Kart Wii version available)

The Wii Zapper is another peripheral that adds very little in terms of functionality, but instead offers the illusion of practicality. What may even be worse with the Zapper is that right off the bat it offers virtually no quality games that can take “advantage” of it. Ghost Squad? RE: Umbrella Chronicles? C’mon, would you actually think that holding a frame that has the trigger in an odd place would actually add anything to some games with questionable reputations? I’ll tell you right now, it doesn’t.

The Wii Fit Board is definitely the strangest one out of Nintendo. Not because of what it is, but rather because I can’t help but shake that feeling that it’s pure novelty. Will you seriously be using this in the next coming years? I would’ve thought the same about the Guitar Hero controllers, but with their success, they could be used by a variety of music games that could be spun off such as Rock Band. I can’t foresee the future and I can’t tell you that the Wii Fit Board will be obsolete, but I don’t have much faith in it. There aren’t a whole lot of games that can be used for it except for ones that will have to alter their game dramatically in order to conform to the board’s possible applications. Once again, I see 3rd parties looking the other way which has been a common theme for Nintendo for the past decade or so. Granted the Wii is currently the top dog in the console race in terms of sales, but I seriously doubt any console mover or flagship game will ever adopt the board. So basically you’ll have another useless peripheral that will be gathering dust and may only be pulled out should you choose to buy that one sequel or expansion game that has a bunch of lousy minigames using the board.

So I ask you Nintendo, why? The Wii remote was introduced with skepticism, but in actuallity is very versatile and intuitive and is a legitiamtely good controller. Why add in all of this stupid shit along with it? I don’t think it’s for money simply because I’m not of the persuasion that these things are cash cows. What it seems like to me is a couple of guys threw around an idea, put it out on the market and are expecting developers to use it. It just doesn’t happen that way. So rather than putting out this junk, just stick with your bare bones interface which is the essence of simplicity and by default has numerous uses. Don’t make Gamestop have to fill their clearance bins with your shit because it demeans you and some of the worthwhile junk you might find in that bin.