Geeks and Geekettes I present to you, the Revolution Controller:

revolutioncontroller1.jpg

I know what you’re thinking, and yes it does look like a remote control.

Where’s the analogue? Well… it doesn’t have one in it’s “simple” form… you have to turn it into Nunchaku form to get it (courtesy of 1up):

revolutioncontroller2.jpg

It does have those gyroscope functions everyone was talking about. They showed a few demos in which you could use it, such as fishing in which your controller would be like an actual rod and you’d pull it like one and they also showed how it would work for a shoot-em-up (in this case Metroid Prime), in which you used the Nunchaku form analog stick for movement and aimed with the controller itself pointing at the screen.

Could this be the answer for consoles for the lack of a mouse? Well, frankly, I’ve had a controller with gyroscope technology before (Microsoft’s Sidewinder) and I know years have passed and technology has evolved but I am bit skeptic about this one because I don’t remember having any fun at all with my old controller in “gyroscope mode”. Though if the console can keep track of the distance of the controller in a room for example, you could perhaps have a virtual paintball (but I’m not sure if it does).

How the heck you play all the classic games on it? Easy, just turn it sidewards… and now it looks like a normal Snes controller.

My bottom-line opinion: It’s innovative as Nintendo promised it would be however I’m not sure of how functional it really will be until I have my hands on one. I can think of many games which could take advantage of this new technology, however, I can also think of many games in which this technology doesn’t fit at all, only time will tell. You can always use it as a normal controller, but, it’s lack of buttons in that position (since it seems to become harder to press the back trigger) might make some complex control games even a bit more complex to play.

The really question is: Does innovation have a place between a graphic obsessed gaming community? And once again the answer is: Only time will tell.