By Jason Nimer

Like every single other gamer in the universe, when the Nintendo Wii was announced, I immediately flipped out at the possibilities of some new "light gun" type games. Apparently, I wasn't the only one who used his lunch breaks to play Time Crisis, so Nintendo jumped on the bandwagon and got to work. Now, a year after the Wii hit shelves in North America, Nintendo has unveiled the Wii's first official peripheral, the Wii Zapper. It holds both the Wii-mote and nunchuk and a Tommy gun style plastic shell. The Zapper can be fairly fun to mess around with, but to be honest, there is no Wii game out there that can't be played as or more accurately without the Zapper.

The Zapper has perks and downfalls in about equal numbers. First, let's talk about the positive. The Wii Zapper just feels cool to play with, First off, games like Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles and Ghost Squad were designed with this peripheral in mind, so having it can add both excitement and a feeling of realism to the games.

Another perk is that even though the Wii Zapper can be yours for the meager amount of $20, it actually comes with a brand new target practice game, Link's Crossbow Training. Admittedly, the game is about as much of a fully realized experience as Wii Play, but being back in charge of The Legend of Zelda's Link feels great, even if all you are doing is shooting stuff and going for high scores. The game will keep you occupied for an afternoon or so, but the $20 for both the Zapper and the game just can't be beat.

And speaking of games, Nintendo has released no less than three new stand-alone Wii Zapper games. Two of them, the aforementioned Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles and Ghost Squad, work really well with the Zapper in hand. The third game released with the Zapper in mind, Medal Of Honor 2 Heroes, actually suffers when played with the Zapper (feel free to check out reviews for all three of these games on this site). Also, if you are planning to use the Zapper for other games like Call of Duty 3 or Metroid, forget it. Older Wii games were not designed with this peripheral in mind, so like with Medal of Honor, suffer from the use of the Zapper.

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