The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess Wii

You can learn a lot about the Wii by playing its best game. Our hands-on time with Zelda shows what's BEST about the Wii

We recently had the chance to join a swarm of other games journalists at the Nintendo headquarters in Redmond, Washington and spent some serious time with the much anticipated The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess running on the Big-N's flashy new console. In addition to checking out this hot new title, we wanted to put this new hardware system through its paces, and see just how well the new controller scheme performed under pressure.

First, we're pleased to report that the weird-looking Wii controller is surprisingly comfortable to hold, and preformed fairly well during our extended, five-hour hands-on session with The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. The wireless nunchucks are light and ergonomically designed for hours of comfortable playing - unlike the original, bulky Xbox controllers.

"Damn these pesky mosquitoes!"

The analogue pad is small enough to be cradled in a player's palm without feeling insignificantly diminutive, and its pliable trigger is reminiscent of some small Star Trek phaser. In the other hand, the blocky "remote" serves as the main button-based input device, with a single, large A button in its center, and a trigger-style B button on its underside; Both of which were carefully positioned for maximum comfort.

In total, the Wii only utilizes three main buttons for Twilight Princess (a trend we expect to see repeated in other action games), although the remote did feature a number of smaller buttons for menu navigation. This basic, three-button layout is reminiscent of the wonderfully simplistic, original NES controller, but the deceptively one-dimensional controls belie a fairly nuanced and sophisticated interface.

With such a Spartan button interface, the Wii relies heavily on its motion sensor control feature to assume some of the control normally mapped to a button series. For Twilight Princess, this meant josteling the remote and shaking the analogue control pod for most of Link's attacks - an innovative approach that proved successful overall, but required some trial and error experimentation to get used to.

Bringing new meaning to

Bringing new meaning to "one-eyed monster"

Sword fighting combat with Link in Twilight Princess offered some intriguing insight into the way Nintendo will likely utilize the nunchuck's motion sensing controls to execute melee battles. In Twilight Princess, you control Link's attacks by locking onto a target with the Z button trigger and waving the remote sharply back and forth to swing his sword. What should be an intuitive process (swinging the remote swings Link's sword) takes quite a bit of practice before it becomes second nature.

The remote's motion sensor control is certainly responsive, but without adjusting the sensitivity (and plenty of practice) it was a bit frustrating to gauge just how much swinging was needed to produce the desired attack. Making grand, dramatic (and goofy looking) EyeToy-style flailings seems to produce the most consistent on-screen strikes, but quickly tires out the your shoulder and arm (not to mention your pride). Upward movements don't necessarily result in upward strikes either, as Link's actual movements aren't directly tied to the direction of your own swings and are instead generated in a random combination.

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