Awkward Controls with the Wii Zapper

The Wii Zapper

The Wii Zapper was a very good invention to showcase the light gun functionality of the wii-mote and nunchuk. Essentially the Zapper is just a housing for the controllers, thus there is no need to worry about the gadget failing you as there are no electronics.

When using the Zapper, the wii-mote fits nicely in the front portion of the housing, with a spring lock to hold the controller in place, while the nunchuk goes to the back to become the ‘handle’ for the gun. A small compartment can also be found below to hide the wires from the nunchuk, so that minimal wires will be exposed and dangling. The Zapper is designed such that the ‘B’ button on the wii-mote becomes (or it appears to be) the main trigger for the light gun. The game that came with it, Link’s Crossbow Training, also uses this front button as the trigger.

However, it seems that most game makers (not all) have followed after Nintendo in using the ‘B’ button as the main trigger. Link’s Crossbow Training was a relatively simple and straightforward game to showcase the use of the Zapper, but in more complicated games such as Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles, it becomes hard to aim with swinging actions to reload and more buttons to press, which makes the Zapper kind of awkward to use.

Instead, the ‘Z’ button on the nunchuk is better positioned as the main trigger, so that  the hand pulling the trigger will be at the back and the front handle/trigger functions as a support and secondary button. So game makers utilising the Zapper, please reconfigure your controls! This will definitely make the game more fun when using the Zapper.

Despite most games using the awkward control configurations, it is still good to have the Wii Zapper as one of the essential Wii accessories. Having compared with third-party Zappers, the original Zapper is much better in terms of built, finishing and quality, which justifies its price over the third-party variants (~$10 more). Furthermore, the Zapper looks cool, the first impression most of my friends had when they first saw it.