The Wii zapper has been a long time coming. Extremely mixed reviews have been surrounding the device itself. With what seems like dozens of knockoffs from third parties already on the market, Nintendo understand the necessity of providing a first party gun peripheral for Wii owners, stamped with Nintendo’s quality and unmistakable style. Nintendo has done just that.

The Wii Zapper itself is straightforward. You place the Wii remote into the front part lying face up. The zapper then locks the wii remote into place, as its vital that the zapper trigger hits the b trigger on the remote itself. The nunchuk is attached and locks into the back. Nintendo got inventive with the cord connecting the two and allows for the user to hide the cord inside the back handle. I can understand why some Wii owners might be hesitant to purchase a $20 plastic mold, and it seems Nintendo understood as well.

Enter Link’s Crossbow Training (LCT), the packed-in game that comes with the zapper. Possibly even more straightforward than its plastic partner, LCT provides the player with a experience that’s visceral in its pick-up-and-playability. It’s so easy to understand, and brainless to play through, you may have to play through a couple extra rounds of brain training to counter your crossbow training. A lightgun game at heart, LCT puts players back into the Twilight Princess world and has them taking aim at anything from beasts to balloons. The interface is predictably similar to that of the other simpler first-party titles (Wii Play, Wii Sports) as well as a medal system. The shooting itself feels good. A (albeit barebones) A timer is involved and an interesting multiplier system makes this game a high score whore’s dream. There are 9 stages and each stage has 3 sections. The first is always a form of target practice, the second usually involves being able to look around in a stationary position, and the third stage usually has you running via analog stick on the nunchuk, and gunning via the wiimote. I really didn’t play through a level I didn’t care for. To give you a feel for how rewarding the game can be, the first time I ran through a level I scored 40,000 or so points, enough to merit a respectable silver medal. On my second run through, I scored over 100,000 points netting a platinum medal and, of course, bragging rights. Nintendo made a glaring mistake, though, by not including online leaderboards, especially when so many 3rd party developers are starting to include them. Also, unfortunately, if you aren’t into high scores, this game will entertain you for an hour, tops. That isn’t to say the game isn’t worth a look. At $20 you could do a lot worse and not much better, as far as new games go.

Visuals = 221
The game isn’t ugly by any means, but one can’t help but notice that the Twilight Princess engine is starting to slightly show its age.
Sound = 201
Most of the soundtrack is taken directly from Twilight Princess. After Galaxy’s fully orchestrated soundtrack, its hard to go back to midi.
Fun Factor = 312
For what you’re paying, if you enjoy lightgun games and playing games to death to reach high scores, its impossible to pass this game up.
Mechanics = 247
The Zapper feels good, and the lightgun is functional, but more customizable calibration would make this game feel a little better. Sometimes feels as if the cursor is kind of playing catch up.
Replay Value = 294
This game will certainly have you saying “THIS time I will definitely get that high score/platinum medal,” even though you’ve tried 20 times in a row. Though people not into high scores should steer clear unless they want the zapper.

Total = 1275

Grade = B-

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