Pelican G3 Wireless GameCube Controller Review

April 18, 2008 - Super Smash Brothers Brawl is a bonafide megahit on the Wii, and rightly so. Nintendo delivered an expansive new title in the popular franchise, and thankfully did not gut the series' play mechanics to incorporate Wii features like waggle. A consequence of this decision, however, is the fact that the game really must be played with something other than the Wiimote, as the controller simply doesn't have enough buttons to make it useful in competitive play.

The Wii's Classic Controller works all right for SSBB, but for many players that honed their skills in previous versions of Smash Brothers, there's really no alternative to a GameCube controller. Even Nintendo seems to support this position, as evidenced by the Japanese re-release of a special edition white wired GameCube controller. American gamers, unfortunately, won't be getting any re-release action out of Nintendo, and as such must either browse the used bins for old WaveBirds (they're suddenly quite expensive on eBay) and GC controllers or look for third-party alternatives.

Fortunately for us, Pelican is hoping to get a piece of SSBB's popularity by re-launching it's line of G3 wireless GameCube controllers. Thanks to the Wii's array of 4-GameCube controller ports, the controllers will work happily with the system, relying upon 2.4-GHz wireless signals to connect with their receivers.

Pelican's G3 wireless GameCube controller is rather shamelessly modeled upon the WaveBird design. The position and layout of all the major controls more or less mirror the WaveBird, and besides the G3's support for rumble feedback (the WaveBird did not include this feature in order to preserve battery life) the only other major change is the G3's repositioning of the batteries and wireless circuitry to a thicker section towards the controller's bow rather than in the WaveBird's 'chin' below the digital d-pad and C-stick.

Button design in the G3 is also quite similar to the WaveBird. Like the Nintendo controller, Pelican's G3 has L and R shoulder buttons mounted on long-throw springs with a lot of give and a very clicky Z button on the right shoulder of the controller. The main action button array is more or less an exact copy of the WaveBird layout. The only huge difference is, in fact, the G3's C-stick, which is made of hard plastic with a concave nub, as opposed to the WaveBird's plasto-rubber convex C-stick nub. The G3 is powered by a pair of AA batteries, which, in our experience, provided enough juice to keep the controller going for a good three-weeks of our standard gameplay schedule, which was good.

The similarity of design between the Pelican G3 and Nintendo WaveBird is a positive issue in our mind, as the original Nintendo controller was quite popular, but will sadly not be re-released. Button response throughout the G3 is shockingly similar to the WaveBird, and as we mentioned earlier, the G3 supports rumble feedback, unlike the WaveBird. The controller is most likely the most readily available option for SSBB fans in search of wireless GameCube-style controllers, and we recommend it as a WaveBird alternative with very few reservations.