I am cursed with old man's hands. Meaning, when I play a PS3 shooter against my 15 year old son, he kills me. Literally. Because I. Can't. Aim. Not even to save my virtual life. I push up on the thumbstick and the reticule flies over my target's head; I push down and it goes to his feet. I shift left and am about to shoot the rock he's hiding behind; I push right and watch the screen fill with blood because I'm taking so much time to get it right that my son had the time to polish his bullets before shooting. He can just stand there because he's not in danger even if I was holding a bazooka.
Leading me to my favorite recent purchase: the integrated gun controller, the Wii Crossfire. (See it on Amazon here.)
I tried a simple plastic shell pistol, but beyond on-rails games, they are useless because you can't easily reach the various buttons. The Wii Crossfire isn't a shell, it's an actual controller, with buttons and the directional pad within reach of your thumb. (Minus and plus are on the side and not so easy to reach but I've learned to live with it. Game makers: please code button remapping into your games.) I bought this controller just to play Wii GoldenEye. It is absolutely phenomenal and immersive.
The only trouble was, after a while I was reacting so furiously that I started to overwhelm the game. I moved too fast for the Wii. It started to bug me. I started playing shooters with the PS Move and started to salivate at what my Wii Crossfire could do when there was a lot of horsepower to back up the game I'm playing. I resigned myself to not being able to use it with the next Nintendo console.
So: Thank you Nintendo. And developers: please please please code Wiimote support into your Wii U games. Nintendo stumbled upon something so true when it comes to video gaming: the controller as much an integral part of the experience as the graphics and sound.
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