Washington Post expects Wii Zapper backlash, too gun-like

by Griffin McElroy on Nov 18th 2007 4:15PM

The Wii Zapper/Link's Crossbow Training bundle drops tomorrow -- a relatively surreptitious release considering some of the other holiday giants coming out this week. However, something tells us that the political backlash to Nintendo's kinda-gun-shaped-but-not-really peripheral will be anything but furtive -- and Washington Post writer Monica Hesse agrees.

In her article, she gives a brief history of toy guns, and how the Zapper fits into the grand saga of controversial faux weaponry. Some of her sources are firmly opposed to the idea of bringing a gun attachment to the otherwise kid-friendly system, but we feel that 14-year-old Damian Crisafulli's response to paranoid parents is the most insightful soundbite in the whole story: "It's plastic that clips to a video game controller." Well said, Damian.

[Via GamePolitics]

Source

Tags: Controversy, Violence, WaPo, Wii, Wii-Zapper, Zapper

Reader Comments (83)

I don't think parents know how to be parents anymore. I mean, if they did, they woulnd't be flipping out over this plastic peripheral. Parents who don't know how to parent their kids are for more dangerous to their kids than any plastic gun.

It's like saying that kids should not use scissors in school 'cause they are two blades ductaped together.

exactly

i have the good parents who told me that shooting stuff is bad, and they told me real from fake, i played duck hunt constantly when i was 5, and i am perfectly fine

hah two blades duct taped together, in a Nintendo post...oh the irony

A balance of proper discipline with enough leeway, within reason, to allow kids to do dumb things is healthy. Most kids learn the consequences of their idiocy immediately afterwards.

It's the ones that don't learn or who show signs and symptoms of a mental disorder you have to watch and get help for.

In other words, it's the latter group that potentially shoots up their schools. Movies, music and video games CAN influence their behavior since they lack the mechanism to seperate fiction from reality, as much as terrible parenting. Entertainment mediums aren't a cause, but they're not helping these type of kids either.

And why should they help them? It's up to the parents, and whatever medical help they can provide.

At albinogoldfish:

That's not irony. You might want to look up the definition.

@Joshua

Seeing as how my post was about parents, I'm lost as to how anyone can actually find another meaning.

Plastic weapons aren't a danger to kids, plastic parents are.

I fully agree with adam's comment.

this thing doesn't even look like a damn gun. parnets today are a butch of pu$$y.

I'm glad you put the dollar signs in there, to protect my virgin ears from a potentially nasty word.

So, in the US, thins that LOOK like guns are bad, but real ones are hunky-doory?

God I love America.

So do I, if only because it makes living in the UK seem so much better. God Save the Queen!

indeed Dr. S, the grass is ALWAYS greener on the other side. God saved your queen but not your princess...dunno why you consider him on your side.

USA FTW!!!!!

Hello, that was completely uncalled for, rude, and terrible. It's my apology to myself you live within ten thousand miles of me.

Don't worry about it. What the UK says about America makes their insults rather quaint in comparison.

@Neebs and Dr S-

Sorry. That didn't (and probably would never have) come out correctly...it really wasn't meant to be a slam against the UK or its Queen. Just stupid sarcastic humor that shouldn't have been posted. My apologies.

oh by the way, I'm guessing you were talking about Diana as the princess, but to let you know she was a princess until she and Charles divorced, and to be honest I hated the stuck up cow and can't see why she is worshiped so much anyway.

But yeah, just wondering was there upheavels other stuff like the G-Con and shiz?

This is just stupid.

All guns are ok, it's how you are taught to respect and use them that makes your actions with them good or bad.

I'm glad I live in a country that allows me to make the distinction, instead of just not trusting me, or the police, like I am a criminal.

I celebrate Princess Di's deathday every year with streamers and balloons

Yeah, because tabloids covering Paris Hilton are SO MUCH better than covering Princess Di.

Compared to the other third-party attachments, this one seems pretty tame. But really, how is this worse than, say, giving a kid a BB or airsoft gun? I don't see anyone getting upset over people selling those.

I don't think this backlash will be that big or matter that much, simply because while you needed the NES Zapper to play Duck Hunt, Hogan's Alley, and Barker Bill's Trick Shooting (and even the beautiful unlicensed Chiller), you don't need the Wii Zapper to play Ghost Squad, RE: Umbrella Chronicles, House of the Dead 2/3, or Medal of Honor Heroes 2. In fact, the only game you NEED it for is Link's Crossbow Training, which is the least interesting one.

Man I love how the Wii is getting all these arcade shooters. I'll never need quarters again...

The arcade shooters are serving another purpose as well. They'll teach people how to properly aim with the wiimote for when more serious FPSs besides MP3 and MoH:H2 start hitting the system (its inevitable, the controls are made for them).

Actually I don't think you do need it for Link's Crossbow Training, aside from the fact that it comes with the game I guess. It's not like the Zapper has any new technology, it's just forcefully making you hold the Wiimote and Nunchuk in a certain position, which I think is ridiculous of Nintendo, but whatever.

Yeah that's what I meant about Link's Crossbow Training. I doubt they'll sell it alone.

yeah, that thing totally looks like an AK-47. Harmful to children for its IR signals that will be used to castrate each other (hence the name Wii Zapper)....

Here's a prime example of why political correctness is destroying this country.

When I was a 10 years old, in 1984, The Transformers had just come out in America. Megatron - the leader of the decepticons, was a realistic looking luger pistol.

I used to take mine to school, because all the kids would bring their transformers and play with them at recess. I would bring Megatron often, and my teachers saw it, and never said a thing about it. I was never suspended. Never sent home from school. Never arrested.

At the pool, during the summers, we would all have our realistic looking water pistols (remember the AK Centerfire?) and run around the crowded pool, spraying each other. And those water guns looked more real than msot other toy guns at the time. Yet we never started a panic at the pool.....

It really makes me sick to see how far we, as a country, have devolved.

Yep, I was five in 1984 but I remember a few things quite well. Like Dungeons & Dragons being the cause of violence in our youth since it encouraged no penalties for doing bad things. Or GI Joe becoming a huge fricking hot topic because of all the guns and such. And Tranformers because, as you said, one of them was a scale pistol.

People act like this is something that's new. It's not. It's been around my entire life. But at least I don't look through rose colored cglasses back to some era that actually didn't exist.

God, remember when Jazz music was the corrupting influence?

Dude, you Americans have got it relatively lucky: games have actually been BANNED from the UK (manhunt 2) because some government official thinks that the population of his own country don't understand the difference between reality and games, yet he is the only one who does.

And Manhunt 2 was aiming to be rated 18+, so no kids would be allowed to buy it anyway.

That's ok, the way people are looking ot the government to take care of theri every need nowadays it is only a matter of time before we are having our freedom of expression trampled by the thought police as well.

The idea that the Wii is just a child friendly system is completely laughable. Especially considering how the system has been marketed towards pretty much every single age group imaginable.

Also the fear that some parents have of their children playing with the Wii Zapper is silly as well. It's not like Nintendo representatives are going house to house forcing the Zapper on their households. Although it might be nice if they did since I'm broke and can't afford the Zapper until I get paid next month.

The NES Zapper was unambiguously a gun. The Wii Zapper looks like a giant high-heel shoe you hold backwards.

Well heaven forbid a plastic husk designed to make the wiimote and nunchuck feel like a gun.....succeeds at feeling like a gun. The worst part is that it doesn't; it would take a special kind of person to be able to mistake that pearly white hunk of excess with a real weapon.

I remember playing on my big brother's Nintendo, shooting at ducks with the original, grey zapper. How I envy the japanese for not having to play with bright neon orange light guns.

Then again, maybe if the police could stop blowing away kids with waterguns and schools would stop giving students reasons to shoot them up, this issue would be a non-issue.

So many places to direct my annoyances, so little time.

And why aren't these parents opposed to Nerf guns and squirtguns? Or any of the other toy guns that have been around for centuries, including the wood pipe with cork and string?

Just paint them bright orange like a baboon's ass-nobody but a tardstick would hold up a bank with an orange gun. Idiots. lol

What about the backlash because it sucks?

Nintendo should have made the Wii controller gun shaped. It would have made aiming a lot easier and more comfortable. They could've made the barrel short so it didn't look too much like a gun. It also would have allowed one handed shooting instead of this two handed crap.

And how would you play tennis or excite truck.

Jesus, you can tell how much effort Nintendo put into making this as little gun-like as possible while maintaining it's purpose, and people are still bitching? It's white, it's plastic, it doesn't resemble a gun for shit, there is no way anyone could mistake it. It's pearly white for fucks sake!

You mean you don't remember that James Bond movie, The Man with the Porcelain Gun?

You hold it like a gun, you aim it like a gun, you fire it like a gun.
It's a gun.

You sound like an idiot, your post is idiotic, you are an idiot.

Introducing Synner - gun nut.

you'd have been around here longer you'd already know that. I do like guns, and I think people should be given the responsibility to own them, then feel the full force of the law up to and including the death penalty if they abuse that trust, so what? I know you brits prefer the nanny state, but let me explain to you.

The Wii Zapper does not fire a bullt or other projectile past the opening of the muzzle, hance not a gun. A toy gun, is not a gun, it is a toy shaped like a gun. A gun is a gun, playing with a toy is not going to make you any more or less likely to go on a killing spree.

@Vince UK

So do water guns, where is the backlash for those?

Gun peripherals don't kill people, the wireless effects that cause brain cancer do.

I don't even like the wii zapper, i've already beat umbrella chronicles, and I had no problem at all, actually from how frequently you press the A button in that game it's probably more difficult to play with the zapper. Waste of 30 bucks.

I guess that means I have can equip a small army with my NES Zapper, Super Scope, Dreamcast Gun and Xbox gun.

Now all I need is the Wii Zapper and Xbox360 gun and I can take over the world.

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Washington Post expects Wii Zapper backlash, too gun-like

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