PAX 07 hands-on: Wii Table Tennis controls are insane

The blame for this lies wholly in Rockstar and their ineptitude, the remote and sensor are plenty accurate and capable of doing this. They're just jumping in for a cash-in and to test the market with another shoddy port... pretty disappointing actually.

Online gaming with no online gaming. Free. Old game ports. $50. A paperweight and garage opener. $250. Trying to get the damn thing to work right. Priceless! There are somethings that money won't buy.

I'm a little late to the party but just for reference to any that may read this thread later. It is completely untrue to say the Wii is incapable to do 1:1.

It has already been demostrated with a launch game called Elebits. While the story line truly is "kiddie" its gameplay is actually really fun and above all it shows that wiimote can actually be used as a 1:1 input device.

As said by someone else its not that the Wii is unable to do 1:1 its just that the developers often decide against using that as a control scheme. To be honest for most games a 1:1 control would be too difficult for most people. For instance people like Wii Tennis for the very reason you don't have to be good at Tennis to place, however if it were 1:1 the majority of people would not be able to play a game in same way they really can't play Tennis. However I know this thinking doesn't rule out the possiblites of multiple control schemes.

The truth is what we really want is semi-1:1 motion. A scheme where what happens on screen is based upon what we are "trying" to do or mentally want to do with the controller. Unfortuantly this is probably a lot harder than simple gestures or real 1:1 motion. Maybe someday some developer will program something who actually is able to pull this off. But until then I would bet that well picked gestures is better than 1:1 for most cases.

it seems that you can't do ball placement and move character within one setup. looks like the characters are supposed to move by itself like the tennis in wiisport. the control of 360 version worked great, and this wii version sounds disappointing.

Just picked up a copy of Wii Table Tennis used at Gamestop yesterday. I even asked the guy, "how is this available used? Hasn't it only been out for like two days?" As soon as I started playing, I completely understood why someone returned it, as I will later today.

The original review is absolutely correct. Even though I was able to finally get the timing such that I could win a few games on easy level, never for a second did I feel like I had any control over my character or what was happening on the screen. You're supposed to swing the wiimote in different directions to place the ball, but even after playing for a few hours the ball still goes the opposite way as often as it goes the way you want. The spin control is confusing and having to use that D-pad while trying to swing is not fun at all.

Wii is fun for games with simple motion like Tennis and Bowling, and it will probably work well for Trauma Center and other DS ports, but I agree with the other comments that you need more accurate controls for high-speed action games. Despite good reviews, I thought Madden for the Wii was awful because the controls were so silly and hard to get right. Zelda sort-of worked because they didn't expect much out of the wiimote, you basically just waved it in any direction to use the sword or sometimes pointed at the screen to aim. But overall, I think you just need a controller for most games.