G-pinions

Nintendo has finally revealed what makes their new system so darn revolutionary. Believe me, it's unlike anything else we have ever seen in gaming.


This is the real thing

Ok, so the way the controller works is so complicated it's ridiculous. In one hand, we'll say the left, you hold what looks like a frickin' TV remote control. When I first saw this I groaned. Who wants to play games with a TV remote? It has a D pad and some buttons on it, which makes sense, as well as a 3D sensor on the front. More on that in a second. First, you can turn the damn thing sideways to play SNES and NES game. How sweet is that? Pretty awesome.

There is more to the controller than that, but I want to get to some ideas out there first. I was talking to Tim about this and, as he was scoffing and making fun of its complicated nature, we thought up some great ideas. First of all, it can work as a simple 3D pointer. Just like those lame laser pointers jerks bring to theaters. A demo was shown where the controller would point to colored blocks on the screen. Doesn't sound too fun on its own but get this - it essentially makes the system a touch screen.

I'm loving Meteos right now and, using this 3D controller, you'd be able to play the darn thing on a TV. And even Kirby would be pretty easy to play. Heck, any DS game could be easily replicated on the Revolution. How amazing is that? We get the functionality of a touch screen without the lack of tactile feel or a huge price tag.

But who cares about a puzzle game? What about Zelda? IGN mentions how fishing will work much better now. Sine the controller can actually sense movement you'd be able to mime the motion in real life and watch Link throw the line, or whatever the appropriate fishing term is. Sounds fun, but not something you would buy a system for, right? How about being able to swing a sword? Or flick your wrist to use your hook shot? With rumbling it should provide enough force that it actually feels like you're controlling these things. This is a fun version of virtual reality.

Potentially even better is how sports games will work. Easy first thought is something like baseball or tennis. Again, simply swing your controller and you can really match your skills against the pros. But then Tim thought up a great idea: football. Hold on a second, this is great. The quarterback would cock his arm and throw, hitting a button at the end of his motion to release the ball. The receiver would then have to move the controller into his body at the right time to make the catch. Amazing.

And the best part is most of these things can be optional. If you want to just hit A to swing your sword or throw a football you can do that as well. I don't see a problem with this at all.

How about this: in Beyond Good and Evil you sneak around a government facility taking pictures. What if you had to hold the controller high up over your head to simulate hiding behind a crate to take a picture? The level of interaction possible is mind-boggling.

Oooo! You could play an interactive Spin the Bottle! Killer App Right There!

In Pikmin 3 you could use the controller as somewhat of a lasso to grab your troops. In the next Luigi's Mansion you could use the controller to simulate the flashlight. Or how about the next generation of music games? You could pretend to play drums or conduct an orchestra with ease.

Ok, so that's my idea for just the standard controller. Now I can talk about the attachment. You can plug in attachments into the controller. The only one they showed is kind of like a 3D mouse, with an analog stick and a few buttons. This is suppposed to be the attachment of choice to play FPS with. The only problem I have with this idea is cost. Are we going to have to buy a bunch of different attachments to play all the games we want? Nintendo better work this out before launch because add-ons are never a good idea.

I have to say that, even though I was initially shocked beyond words, I am quite excited now. I like that we have a company willing to actually advance the industry. If the fun I'm having with the DS is any indication what Nintendo is capable of I will be one happy gamer next year. Can't wait to see what games Nintendo comes up with.

Edit: Just to flesh out Tomsie's post a bit, here are a couple of links with some nice hands-on write-ups, and a video which demonstrates some possible uses quite nicely and gives you more of an idea of how this whole deal works. I'll probably post some impressions tomorrow sometime. - Nick