When the Nintendo Wii and Sony's Playstation 3 hit stores next month, they'll usher in a new era in videogames thanks to their unique controllers. Both allow you to control games by gesture; tilting and swooping movements for airplanes, rotational gestures for car steering, pushing forward to shove an enemy, and more. On top of that, the Wii's remote-shaped controller has an optical sensor so that you point at objects on screen, like aiming a gun or selecting an item from a menu.
Because of this, we're instituting an occasional feature called Alt-Ctrl that will examine some of the interesting ways in which game developers are using the Wii remote and the PS3 Sixaxis controller (yes, folks, that's the official name), as well as other alternative input devices. First up: an exclusive look at the four control schemes in the Wii version of Electronic Arts' Need for Speed Carbon, complete with screens.
The default driving scheme is similar to other Wii racing games in that it only uses the Wii remote for steering. "The Wii target market is more casual, so that's why this is the default control," said Larry LaPierre during our hands-on session a couple of weeks ago. "Non-gamers had no trouble picking it up. The longest it takes to get the hang of it is 30 minutes. But experienced gamers didn't like it as much. So we have alternatives."
Those alternatives use both the Wii remote and the nunchuk attachment. In the first one, you rotate the nunchuk left and right to steer, and tilt the Wii remote forwards or backwards from a 45-degree position to accelerate or brake, respectively. For both the second and third alternatives, you hold the Wii remote at a 90 degree angle and tilt it forward to accelerate, while using the Z-button on the nunchuk to brake. The difference is that in the second alternative, you rotate the nunchuk to steer; in the third, you steer with the nunchuk's analog stick.
LaPierre's team worked closely with Nintendo of America on additional the controller configurations. "People like options, and we felt motivated to provide them," he says. "We found three that worked and 20 that didn't." He also added that EA's most recent focus group on this title preferred the Wii version to those on PS3 and 360 because "when they were in control, they felt like they were in control, and when they were out of control, they felt like they were out of control."
Of the alternatives, we liked the first approach the best, because during our brief test, it felt just as comfortable as using a more typical gamepad, while adding just the right amount of gesture to the experience. In fact, we preferred it vastly to the default controls, which use the Wii remote alone as a steering bar. Even though all of the Wii racing titles use this approach, and it certainly works, we've never found it to be particularly comfortable.
To get the full picture--no pun intended--on Need for Speed Carbon Wii, be sure to check out our exclusive screenshots below.
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