The Nintendo Wii’s been pretty interesting so far – very up and down. Hands down the biggest success on the system is Wii Sports. For what it is, it’s absolutely perfect – a collection of extremely accessible, enjoyable, simple games that are designed to be enjoyed by newcomers, and the hardcore alike. Newcomers are entranced by how accessible the controls are – how they’re similar to movements they’re used to, while the hardcore enjoys the simple novelty of it all.

The game’s tuned to be almost instantly rewarding, which I’m sure shortens its lifespan for hardcore gamers, but the best thing about it is that total newbs can instantly feel that positive surge of success. My mom, for instance, who’s probably never played a videogame for more than four or five seconds, played Wii Tennis for a few complete games and made a Mii. Astonishing. Revolutionary, without question.

When the game’s control allows the player to harness movements that they use in other activities, the Wii is a tremendous success. The player feels like they’re leveraging existing knowledge, and the connection between reality and the virtual world is blurred enough that nongamers can immerse themselves in the process without thinking about it. It is, quite simply, magical.

The problem is, Wii Sports is the ONLY game in the entire lineup that captures that magic.

Rayman Raving Rabbids, the game that I was looking forward to the most, has absolutely inspired character design, but the minigames are so hit or miss that I find it equal parts entertaining and hair-pullingly frustrating. Sonic and the Secret Rings just doesn’t feel like a complete game. It feels like an incoherent mishmash of mini-levels, and the menu structure utterly destroys any hope of a cohesive narrative arc and feel to the game. The controls are okay, but at times completely unintuitive, and often less responsive than the game would require. Still the best console Sonic game in years, but that’s not saying a whole lot.

SSX Blur deserves a paragraph on its own because the controls are completely bonkers. They feel like they must have been designed by a strung-out drummer. The control movements require you to coordinate movements between your left thumb and your left wrist, your right wrist, and your right thumb. While the Wii controls can, at times, be intuitive and simple, this is such a convoluted, complicated control scheme that I honestly don’t want to play the game. And I LOVE the franchise. I’m hoping after vacation, I’ll be able to give it another shot, but I’m not even going to try to pick it up again when I know I’ll be gone for a week, ’cause I’ll just have to re-learn the controls again. I wonder if this is what nongamers feel like when they pick up a controller to play Halo? I have absolutely no doubt that no “newbie” player will ever even come close to understanding SSX’s control scheme without literally hours of practice.

Zelda… Ah, Zelda. Such a disappointment. The game itself? Zelda, pure and simple. Buy it for the Gamecube. The widescreen mode is a mess, because they didn’t alter the viewing frustrum to match the aspect ratio of the screen. As a result, instead of looking like a wider window into a world, it looks like you’re looking through a fisheye lens. Rotate around, and watch the distortion towards the edges of the screen. The other problem is almost complete lack of camera control outside of first-person mode. It feels like a leap back to 1997. The biggest mistakes are the sword controls. The Wiimote is nominally the “sword” to the player. Waggling the Wiimote from side to side initiates a slash motion on screen. Cool, right? You want to stab? Oh. Hold Z to target something, then press A. Simple, right? Wait, wasn’t the Wiimote supposed to be like a sword? What happened there? What about jump-attacks? Hold Z to target, press forward on the analog stick, and hit A. Seems strangely similar to the other combination. Why? Because the Wiimote *isn’t* the sword. It’s a really trivial, pointless controller mapping that makes the whole battle system make no sense at all.

And that’s not the worst part. The absolute, number one worst thing ever about Zelda, and I’m really, really surprised I never read it anywhere in a review, is that so long as your Wiimote is pointing at the screen, there’s a little blue ball with wings that indicates where you’re pointing. And whenever it moves, it makes a sound. Which means if your hands aren’t rock-steady, it’s constantly “swish”ing at you. Or, if you say, “fuck that,” and point away from the screen, the stupid blue ball sits there, half on, half off screen, obstructing some part of the screen for NO GOD DAMNED REASON.

Buy Zelda on the Gamecube. It’ll be played at the aspect ratio it was designed for, with the controller that it was designed for. Instead of playing Zelda with completely fucked up, nonsensical garbage for controls, you can play it in a way that actually makes sense, and is more or less pleasant.

Every single reviewer – every SINGLE ONE who said that Zelda was a superior experience on the Wii is a complete idiot, and should be fired. There’s just no excuse.

So, that’s the Wii. One bright, shining moment of genius, and a whole bucketload of complete garbage.