Inspect the Zapper even more closely

by JC Fletcher { Nov 5th 2007 at 12:00PM }

Seeing as it's (kind of) the next upcoming major Wii peripheral, we think it's worth our time to look at lots of hardware pictures of the thing and scrutinize its design. GAME Watch felt the same way as we do, except they got one.

Luckily for us, they took a bunch of detailed pictures from different angles, of the peripheral alone and in use. We thought the picture above was interesting, because we don't usually see the two-handed approach in Zapper demonstrations. We think you'll agree-- it's nice to have the option, but it looks totally goofy with this gun shell design. If only they would give us such a detailed overview of the shark gun!

Tags: ghost-squad, gun, zapper

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Troy @ Nov 5th 2007 12:26PM

The ratio of articles to articles without some bashing of Nintendo is slipping on this site. "Nintendo sucks at advertising, just doesn't get online, releases pointless perheprials, I wish we had GAME X for PS360 for Wii, etc etc." and these complaint type statements are creeping into more and more of the articles. It makes a lot of people feel alienated. I mean if you can't even sound Pro-Nintendo on Wiifanboy dot com then whatchya gon' do? Ha ha. Just Kidding this is a great site (kind of) ha ha see what I did? I used YOUR thing on YOU!

troy @ Nov 5th 2007 12:28PM

Maybe you meant Wii Fit is the next 'real' perhephrial but you are making an absurd distinction that basically insults Nintendo's entire strategy of making perhephrials that don't require additional electronics, which is actually quite clever.

JC Fletcher @ Nov 5th 2007 12:29PM

So what you're saying is that the above picture doesn't look weird, and if it did, I would still be disloyal for pointing it out?

This is actually one of the more positive Zapper posts I've written.

troy @ Nov 5th 2007 12:37PM

Oh no JC it wasn't the weirdness of the two handed Zapping but the (kind of) inserted at the beginning. It was a real buzzkill for me to be basically mocked for even caring about the Zapper almost. Maybe I took it wrong. But see: you even say that that is one of the more positive posts you've written on the topic. So there are others where you did worse than just imply that it was not that exciting. Not saying its not your right its just kind of a bummer. Like if 'DinosaurFanBoy dot com' was like 'A big new find (kind of) was located in Argentina that totally changes our idea of how dinosaurs evolved (as if that matters)'

JC Fletcher @ Nov 5th 2007 12:40PM

Oh, I see. Well, I wasn't actually mocking anything. The Zapper is just a weird item, and it's somewhat difficult to classify in the same way you would another controller or a camera or something, because it technically doesn't do anything but hold the remote for you.

racecar @ Nov 5th 2007 12:42PM

I'm fine without the Zapper in it's current iteration. Something a little more handgun or shotgun-flavored would have been to my liking, but I guess a lot of these rail shooters are utilizing the nunchuck so you have to have some sort of set up like this. I'll just stick with a more traditional, non-enclosured setup.

Oh, and seconded on the wierd picture. What is the point of having the Zapper if you're not going to put the nunchuck in it? Kinda kills the feel, doesn't it?

-racecar
http://everybodyvotes.blogspot.com

troy @ Nov 5th 2007 12:52PM

That's why it is a touchy subject. I see now what you meant. It's a strange issue: Nintendo clearly developed the remote to be able to be inserted into things like the Zapper and the Wii Wheel (and even third parties get on board with their pointless tennis raquets etc) so make the price of these add ons much lower. At the same time it severally reduces the new functions that these add ons could possibly offer and basically gives new ways of holding the controller. The wheel, for example, would enable rapid roation of the remote when turning and little else in terms of additional ability. Compared with something like the DDR dance pad or the Wii Balance Board these are little more than little plastic shells, but in terms of Nintendo's plan for the Wii and its add ons they are significant perhephrials which illustrate the idea of the electronic-less perhephrial. Which I can't spell ha ha. But I see what you mean: it isn't necessarily anything but a holder. I am curious about future add ons. I can see little else holder-wise in store save some kind of special strap on remote holders for full body motion detection. But the expansion port on the remote holds far more opportunities in the future, and perhaps Nintendo will think of a better way of addressing the full body motion capture than four remotes strapped on, with some add on using the nunchuck port.

Zack W. @ Nov 5th 2007 1:26PM

I still think this peripheral will work...mainly if we have the option of custom button configuration. Like moving primary fire from the B button to the Z button. I als think it would be funny so see people play non-shooting games with it....like Twilight Princess or Paper Mario.

ramuji @ Nov 5th 2007 1:56PM

The Game Watch article linked to above includes some information about the zapper that I've not heard before.

Apparently, Biohazard: Umbrella Chronicles is designed so that the player uses the zapper (with Wii remote installed) in one hand, and the nunchuck (not installed in the zapper) separately in the other hand. (Like the picture shown above.) The article says that the nunchuck is used to control the knife. (The implication is that the nunchuck is shaken to pull out and/or attack with the knife.) It doesn't mention anything about alternate modes of control.

Is this new information, or just something I've missed?

Ok, I just read their report on Umbrella Chronicles from the Tokyo Game Show, and they say that a knife attack is performed by holding the Z button while shaking the nunchuck. So, maybe it isn't absolutely necessary to have the nunchuck out of the zapper.

Peter Tangney @ Nov 5th 2007 6:41PM

I'm looking at the second to last picture. http://www.watch.impress.co.jp/game/docs/20071105/gglw10.htm

Please, do not tell me that he has the wrist strap on with that thing. Caring about the safety of our televisions is one thing. You can go too far with it, though.

THRILLHO @ Nov 5th 2007 7:40PM

unless you have a wii remote specifically for the zapper (and maybe also for gh3 and using a classic controller) of course the wrist strap would be on it. are you going to remove the strap every time? its not like he is using the strap, its just on the remote...