Shigeru Miyamoto and Nintendo of Japan representatives walked CNET.com.au sister site GameSpot.com through a collection of demos designed to show some of the theoretical applications for the unique Nintendo Revolution controller. Before starting the demos, Miyamoto was quick to emphasise that what we were about to see did not reflect the look of a game running on the Revolution hardware.
The demonstration stations consisted of several different TVs that had red X's taped to the ground that were a set distance from the units -- to show you where to stand. Once we were situated, we got our hands on the controller, which feels like an ergonomic remote control or even a laser pointer. The new Nintendo interface could easily be mistaken for a TV remote -- with its long, rectangular shape -- as it's designed to be held in one hand. It was very important to stand in the correct place for the demos, because the console actually tracks where you're pointing the controller at the screen, thanks to a small transmitter hidden inside the top of each controller. That's right, you can move around onscreen just by pointing the controller in a different direction.
The top half of the unit is devoted to the directional pad and an oversized A button. If you hold the controller like a remote, your thumb will have immediate access to the D pad and the A button. The underside of the controller has a B button that functions like a trigger button. The controller features select, home, and start buttons lined up horizontally halfway down the controller, and the bottom half of the controller has the X and Y buttons stacked vertically. If you turn the controller sideways, the X and Y buttons become B and A buttons for classic Nintendo gaming.
Demo 1: Shootin' cubes
The first demo let us get a feel for the way the controller could be used to spice up the traditional game experience. Wire-frame and solid polygonal boxes appeared on a black background. Blue- and red-coloured crosshairs tracked our movement onscreen, as well as that of controller two. Hitting the B button let us shoot at all the cubes as they appeared, which yielded different point values. The demo also showed off the controller's built-in rumble functionality. The early rumble-enabled prototype controllers had power cables, but the final wireless units will be self-powered.
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 The Nintendo Revolution controller ir designed to be held in one hand. |
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Demo 2: Fishing games rule!
The second demo showed us how the controllers would handle in a 3D space. A simple, line-drawn-style pond full of multicoloured fish was displayed onscreen and challenged us to do some fishing. A small human hand functioned as the onscreen cursor to show us where our controller was pointing. You could take hold of a fishing rod that rested in the centre of the screen by moving the hand over the rod and waiting until your virtual appendage took hold of it. Rod in hand, we were able to move the controller around to move our virtual rod up and down, right and left, and back and forth on the screen, which affected the position of the rod's lure. Obviously, the key is to hook fish. We tried our hand at introducing our hook to a few of the finny locals. The controller would rumble with each fish nibble, providing us with our cue to reel it in. Rather than hand-crank the line, we simply had to pull back and flick our wrist back at the right moment to snag our catch.
Demo 3: Irritating stick
The third demo showed how the controller could improve your standard puzzle-type game. The demo dusted off the Kuru Kuru Kururin, or irritating stick, baton from the Game Boy Advance puzzle game. The demo segment charged us with guiding the rotating stick through a winding pattern in a cave setting that was fraught with peril. The demo began with us lining up our coloured crosshair with the large jewel-like decoration at the centre of the stick. Once that was done we had to guide the spinning stick through a windy path to collect coins, all while avoiding touching the side of the path or hitting moving blocks.
Demo 4: Air Hockey
The fourth demo had us move to a new television so we could try out the proper wireless controller prototype form. The game featured an overhead view of an air hockey table that let us control a paddle. Though the basic mechanics were about as old-school classic as it gets -- which means we had to block incoming shots from our opponent before flinging them back, all in the hopes of scoring -- our paddle mechanics were not. Rather than simply letting you move your paddle up and down, we were able to move it anywhere on our half of the screen. You could also twist your wrist to give the puck some spin, just to keep things competitive.
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Iniquitous
21/09/2005 08:00 AM
Huh? Man, why dont they stick with what works, gamecube contollers were sweet, they had everything you needed..and it didnt look like a tv remote...hey Nintendo, what's wrong with you guys? Here's an idea for your new controller...take a gamecube controller, and slap two triggers on the bottom left and right sides....voila. Just cuz the systems a revolution, doesnt mean the controllers need to be.
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martin
22/09/2005 05:46 AM
Nintendo Revolution controller sucks it dosent look good has ps3 or xbox360 controller .
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sim
22/09/2005 05:55 AM
the old gamecube controller is much much much better than the controller for the revolution (the white new revolution)
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matt
22/09/2005 06:04 AM
its too early to say...it could be the next best thing in gaming, and it could be the next worst thing in gameing. nintendo is betting all there chips on this one.
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apple
22/09/2005 11:25 AM
i think its totally awsome
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from teh future
07/04/2008 12:27 PM
Man this looks funny now :P
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