The Nintendo Wavebird is a controller for your Nintendo Gamecube.

The Wavebird controller comes in a silvery grey colour and is very similar in design to the original Gamecube controller. At a glance you may actually think it is the same until you take a closer look and realise that it is a lot fatter this time around! The gain comes at the bottom of the controller where on a normal controller the two parts with the C stick and directional pad are separate here they are joined together.

You get a lot more in the box with this controller, the Wavebird which comes with a good set of AA batteries (I think they were Panasonics) and a receiver unit for the controller.

Getting the Wavebird set up is a slightly tricky process which has been much more streamlined in modern days for example with the sync button that we have on the Wii. The Wavebird you have to sync manually by matching the channel of the controller with the channel of the receiver unit. You do this by adjusting either the knob on the receiver unit or the knob on the Wavebird until the light on the receiver goes green.

The controller works perfectly well in wireless mode and even has an on/off switch on it so you can save the battery life when you are not using it. Some sacrifices have been made however, it is heavier than a standard controller and they have removed the rumble feature altogether, personally I think it is worth trading the rumble for the convenience of being wire free.

It has inherited the flaws and benefits of the Gamecube controller too, it is still very comfortable to hold with perfect button layout yet it doesn't have enough buttons for most third party titles.