Dual Analog Vs. IR controls

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silentmac,

Thanks for a wonderful thread. In all the discussion of the Wii and Wii controls, there's been very little actual analysis of which genres benefit from the control options offered by the Wii remote. In my opinion, you've hit things just about right with your breakdown of the benefits.

Any game where you aim a weapon (first or third person shooters), and any game where you have to select items, people or places in an environment (point-and-click adventures, real time strategy games) would benefit from the precision of IR controls.

Motion controls seem to work well with individual sports games, and with games involving controlled tilting (the posture control on No More Heroes, the balance ball levels in Mario Galaxy, Wii racing games in general).

However, you're very probably right about the advantages of traditional dual analogue controls in traditional action-adventure games like Zelda or Okami. Of course, that problem could be completely solved, without removing motion control, if there was a second analogue stick somehow added to the Wiimote-nunchuk combo (another plug-in peripheral?). Maybe next console, eh?

The problem with analysing the benefits of these new control schemes is that players used to traditional controls will have to overcome a skills hurdle before they can play in new ways. That means that, unlike playing, for example, a FPS on 360, with the Wii they will have to put up with being bad at the game initially. For many experienced gamers, that's a hurdle they're unwilling to leap. That's why Bozon's suggestion is so interesting, it'll show those gamers unwilling to put the effort in to adapt to the new control system that they're being left behind.

In my opinion, it's that lack of effort in adapting to new controls that has lead to odd-one-out reviews of shooters on the Wii that criticise the controls, especially those kinds of comments seen in the GamePro and 1Up reviews of The Conduit. In my opinion, this lack of effort from reviewers will only get worse as the Wii is ignored more and more by the industry press. So we'll get a vicious cycle of 'fiddle around with IR controls; find you can't control your turning easily and don't bother trying to develop your skills; put down Wiimote and play 360 shooter with lock-on instead; fire off review moaning about poor Wii controls'.