Revolution: The Future Looks Bright
A look at the controller, and ZeldaRevo

About the middle of September, Nintendo revealed something that could make or break them. The “ugly white remote”, otherwise known as Nintendo’s newest controller was debuted at the Tokyo Games Show. But then again, isn’t ugly a matter of opinion.

My first reaction to the controller was that of utter shock. What is that hideous thing? was one of the first thoughts that came to my head. Is it a remote, and is Nintendo going to become a TV manufacturer? As time went on, however, I began to realize the ingenuity of it. Nintendo was pulling a very risky move by distancing themselves from the competition. The style of games made for the Revolution would be highly different than those of other game consoles in the market, and would force the average gamer who only wanted one console to choose between vastly different types of games. The Revolution is like a sibling to the DS, not only through the company, but also through the level of interactivity that Nintendo is giving the player. Instead of playing as Link, Nintendo could put you in the shoes of Link and make you actually swing the sword, toss the boomerang, or hurl the bomb. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s talk about the actual controller first.

As far as actual face buttons, the remote seems to look bare. It has the Select and Start buttons with a button called Home in between them. Besides that, there is a power button, along with A, B, a, and b buttons and a D-pad. At the top of the controller is what looks to be a laser emitter, which will recognize movement. It also has a tilt sensor built in which will recognize up, down, left, right, forwards, and backwards. All of the controllers are wireless, with a built in rumble pack. At the bottom of the controller is a port for expansion packs.

An example of an expansion pack is the nunchucku style. It has a cord connected to a joystick with two buttons on it, Z1 and Z2. Mockups of other expansions have been done by IGN with the controller stuck into what looks to be an enlarged Gamecube controller, while another one has the controller inserted flat into a gun very similar to the old Light Gun used in Duck Hunt on the NES.

As for a potential controller scheme, consider the following: If using the nunchucku expansion, the joystick could be used to move Link around, while exploring, and the remote could be used to control the camera angle.

But where would the fun be in that? Once combat begins, you could use one of the Z buttons to target an enemy, and use the remote to swing your sword, throw your boomerang, or use one of Link’s other weapons. This would completely ditch the older versions of Zelda having a character “teach” you the moves, giving you the opportunity to master your own style of swordplay.

To give the series something different, Link could be given the ability to jump pressing the A button. Losing a life due to a faulty auto-jump would be a thing of the past. Also, Link could have an item that would upgrade his jump, similar to the scales system of OoT upgrading his diving skills.

To incorporate the B button in the game, it could be used as a trigger, especially useful for firing arrows or slingshots. Once loosened, a slight vibration could be sent throughout the controller, giving another sense of realism.

A fear then grew in my head as I was thinking about this. Where will Link’s items go, seeing as there are no X’s, Y’s, or C’s? The only place it could go would be the D pad. It would allow Link to potentially equip four items, allowing for even greater combinations and highly unique fighting styles.

Now, enough about Zelda for the present. Let’s focus on the Revolution itself a little bit. I mentioned a Home button earlier in the article, and didn’t say much else about it. Let’s return to that button. My idea for the Home button is that when powered up, the Revolution will have what may be called a home page, similar to the DS. You can have the option of playing a Gamecube game, Revolution game, or a downloaded retro game. Also from that screen, you can download more games, manage your memory card, or join a potential chatroom (Hey, it’s a possibility!).

But who knows. I could be totally off and none of this could happen. I mean, it is Nintendo we’re talking about, the masters of innovation.