Are these the most useless Nintendo Wii accessories?

Simon Brew

The way the Wii has revolutionised the way we interact with our games is a good thing. But that doesn't mean there aren't a few problems...

Don’t panic. You’re not about to read one of those pieces where they bash the Nintendo Wii for the hell of it. We’ve had a terrific time with Ninty’s machine, and ain’t afraid to admit it.

Even the most ardent fan of the console though would have to concede that its success has attracted a fair amount of junk being produced, and the assorted add-ons and peripherals – aka cumbersome frames to try and jam your controller into – are prime examples. Here’s our pick of the worst to date…

6. The Steering Wheel Attachment

Playing Mario Kart on the Wii with the steering wheel add on is akin to painting a wall using a toothbrush – generally it does what you want it to do, but compared to plugging in a good old fashioned games controller to do the same job, it simply doesn’t measure up. To be fair, the wheel is quite useful by standards of what's about to follow, but if Nintendo wanted to do a steering wheel add-on, can’t they just do a proper one?

5. Sword & Shield

Zelda: golden. The old TV show Knightmare: a hoot. The idea of combining them in the comfort of your own home: not successful.

The key problem, as with many of the add-ons that third party manufacturers have rushed to swamp the Wii market with, is that is doesn’t help the game in any way. And after you’ve stood there looking like a dick for the best part of quarter of an hour, the superfluous add-ons are best tucked behind the telly or something, to next be seen when you move house.

For best results, get the sword and shield set that blocks the sensor at the end of the Wiimote, so it can't even communicate with the console.

4. Fishing Rod

Just look at it. Back when Sega produced a fishing rod add-on for Bass Fishing back in the Dreamcast days, they’d given some thought as to how the damn thing might work. But this fishing rod with wheel looks as if the Nunchuk is all but glued on with Pritt Stick. And is the Nunchuk really supposed to be a wheel you spin round? Another example of find successful-ish game, and develop a frame of a control system that you can bodge the Wii controllers into, irrespective of whether it improves things or not.

3. The Light Sword

Okay, a little bit of us loves the idea (aw hell, a big bit of us does…), but the novelty again is gone in double-quick time, once you realise that you’re still waving around a Wiimote, albeit with a strip of light at the end. Plus, crucially, it gets in the way of the gaming. You’d be as well buying a torch and Sellotaping it to the end of your controller, frankly. You’ll look just as convincing should the Empire itself happen to fly one of its fighters past your living room window. They’re hardly going to be shitting themselves, are they?

2. The Wii Zapper

As clunky a piece of shit as we can ever remember being pumped out in Nintendo’s name. Light guns are a good thing, as all the days we lost to Time Crisis over the past decade can testify. But the zapper – or frame that you can just about comfortably get the Wiimote into – is ridiculous. No matter what game we tried – Ghost Squad, House of the Dead, Link’s Crossbow Training and Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles – we still found it much easier to shoot straight by extricating the Wiimote from this tin-pot mechanism and just pointing it at the screen. Ho hum.

1. Almost any Wii Sports add-on

Ah, the proverbial solution in search of a problem. All around the world, people have got the idea of playing Wii Sports by waving around their Wiimote in response to the on-screen action. So what on earth is the point of adding another attachment around it? Granted, fitting your Wiimote into a plastic tennis racquet may make it look, to your neighbours, that you’re playing tennis with the cheapest racquet in the shop, but does it help the game? Nope. It’s a novelty that gets in the way more than anything, and has given an assortment of companies an opportunity they couldn't resist to shovel a load of these things into a box and reap rewards for it.

If we had to cite one Wii Sports add-on as the worst, though, then special mention should go to the Wii boxing gloves. Isn’t this just a pair of gloves that you, er, hold your controller with? Or are we missing something here? Hmmm…