Official Nintendo Wii Remote


When you purchase a Nintendo Wii you will need a Wii Remote to be able to play the games on your Wii. Thankfully most of the Wii bundles available in the shops come with at least one Official Nintendo Wii remote. If you require extra remotes though they can be purchased separately at a bit of a cost for the official ones, but there are cheaper unofficial ones available. My personal preference though is the Official Nintendo version.

I have been lucky in the sense that I have managed to get 3 out of 4 of my remotes with either the wii when we got it or through games promotions including a free remote. I did however purchase one official wii remote separately just to make my number up to 4.


** In The Box **
I ordered my Wii remote from play.com. When it arrived it was in a slim white box with a picture of the remote on the front. As I opened the box I could see the remote was well packaged and came complete with a protective remote jacket. Also inside the box were 2 AA batteries included, a wii remote adjustable wrist strap and an instructions sheet. The instructions sheet was in many languages including English and was clear and simple to understand.


** The Look **
From the front the wii remote looks good. Holding the wii remote vertically to face you in the top corner is a power button for turning the wii remote on and off, also at the top there is a directional button, underneath this is a round button with the letter A on it. Just beneath the A button is a small button slightly inset with a picture of a blue house, this is your home button and to the left and right of this are 2 more buttons '+' and '-' these buttons only seem to be used in most games for pausing and options menus. Towards the middle of the remote is a small dotted area, this is the remotes speaker. Under the speaker are two more small buttons with the numbers 1 and 2 on, these also don't seem to be utilised much in many games. Under these 2 button are 4 blue lights, these show which player out of 1-4 should have the remote, player one has the remote with the first light lit up, player 2 with the second light and so on.

The back of the remote only has one button, this is the B button and is shaped sort of like a trigger button. Towards the bottom of the remote on the back is the battery compartment, as well as batteries the battery compartment also contains the little red 'sync' button.

The underneath of the remote has a port for attaching accessories such as a nunchuk or motion plus. there is also a hole for you to attach the provided Wii remote wrist strap.

On the top side of the remote is a sensor area, this connects with the sensor bar that is placed either on top of or in front of your TV, this enables the wii to track the remotes movements in the games.


** The Set Up and Sync-ing of Remote **
The set up of a new wii remote is pretty simple, after taking the back off the remote and inserting the batteries you can keep the battery cover off for a moment as you need to sync the remote with your wii, if you don't sync your remote and wii then they wont connect together and wont work.

Sync-ing your remote and wii is simple, on the front of your wii there is a small flap, under this flap is a little red button, you press this red button at the same time as the red button in the battery compartment for a few seconds and then the wii remote will make a little beep noise and one of the blue lights at the bottom of the remote will be lit up, this shows that your remote is sync'd.

Also before using your wii remote you are recommended to attach the wii remote jacket to protect both the remote and also any TV's, walls or furniture you might accidentally get too close to while playing. The jacket simply slips into place over the remote. I confess I personally don't use mine as I don't like the feel of it, but I always put it on when my brother comes round to play with the wii. There is also a wrist strap which attaches to the bottom of the remote and must be worn at all possible times while playing, I don't find this too much of a problem as it annoys me when I forget and leave it dangling. Plus it saves the wii remote going flying across the room.


** Use of Remote **
Once set up the wii remote is the main controller in any wii game. There are alternatives for some games such as the classic controller or some games do require you to have a nunchuk or motion plus, these are all sold separately.

The way you use your wii remote varies from game to game. In the sports games in particular the wii remote is used in the same way as a tennis racket by swinging it like a bat, it is also used like a baseball bat for the baseball game, in golf games you can use the remote by pointing it down and taking your shot like you have a golf club in your hands. In a game like Warioware Smooth Moves the wii remote even gets balanced on your head and held in front of your nose like an elephant trunk. There are a lot of games like this which make full use of the possibilities for the remote.

In platform games such as Donkey Kong Country Returns the wii remote is held horizontally and used in the same way as a classic controller would be, but even Donkey Kong has taken advantage of the wii remotes capabilities by making the gamer have to shake or tilt the remote to do certain manoeuvres.

While games like these make full use of what a wii remote is capable of there are also a wide variety of games which require mainly point and click motions, my example of this would be Big Brain Academy where for most of the mini games you are simply pointing at the screen and selecting items. Some games including Big Brain choose to take advantage of the speaker on the wii remote and play sounds through it to incorporate into the game play.


** Attachments **
There are currently two main attachments for the Wii remote that I am aware of, these are the Nunchuk and the Wii Motion Plus.

The Nunchuk is almost like a second remote in some ways. It has a wire which plugs into the bottom of the wii remote and holding it in the opposite hand to the remote you can use this in a variety of games. My favourite use of the Nunchuk is in the Wii Play game with the Tanks game, with this you use the Nunchuk to steer the tank around and the wii remote to aim and make shots.

The Motion Plus accessory came out when Sports Resort was released and is a requirement for some games, but not all. The motion plus plugs into the bottom of the wii remote and picks up movement much more accurately than the wii remote alone which makes for a better gaming experience. The Motion Plus also has a port that the Nunchuk can be plugged into if required.

Wii remotes are now also being sold with built in Motion Plus sensors but there is a separate category for this so I wont cover it, all I will say is if you are buying a remote it would be worth the extra few pounds to have the one with a Motion Plus built in.


** Battery Life **
The wii remote requires 2 AA Batteries to function. Depending on the brand of battery you use will vary the life of the batteries drastically. For example when I have used a quality battery such as Duracell I found they lasted for what I've worked out to be around 30ish hours of gaming, but when we used the cheaper Kodak batteries they only lasted for around 6 to 8 hours. I always remove the batteries when I'm not using a remote as not removing them seemed to drain them too. Of course the best idea is to buy some rechargeable batteries and then you wont have to keep buying batteries.


** Price and Availability **
Wii remotes are widely available both in games shops and online. When I bought my wii remote it was before the release of the motion plus remotes and it cost me £32 which I thought was expensive and I could have bought a game instead. I now see though that the price has dropped down to a more reasonable £16 - £20 depending where you shop, which is a lot more reasonable.


** My Experience and Opinion **
Well, if you have a wii then you need to have a wii remote so of course I will recommend the Wii remote. I think it is a great way to play video games and the uses and possibilities for this remote are pretty much endless, I think Nintendo knew they were onto a good thing here!

Thanks for reading :)