EA Creates A Racket (and A Golf Club) On The Wii

LOU KESTEN

The "Wiimote" — the motion-sensing wand that controls the action on Nintendo's Wii — serves many purposes. It doubles as a sword, a gun, a racket, a steering wheel or whatever else a game designer might dream up.

What it doesn't do is mimic any of those devices accurately. So if you were expecting the Wii to provide a realistic simulacrum of, say, a golf swing, you were disappointed. Yes, you had to wave the Wiimote around to get your on-screen avatar to act, but only rarely would your character duplicate your reality-based flailing.

Nintendo promises to fix that with the Wii MotionPlus, a $25 attachment that snaps onto one end of the wand. It's supposed to create a true one-to-one correspondence between your actions and those onscreen — something we had expected the Wii to do when Nintendo introduced it three years ago.

The MotionPlus is in stores now, as are the first games to take advantage of the technology. Two of the titles come from Electronic Arts Inc.'s reliable EA Sports label, and they wisely involve sports that require a lot of swinging: "Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10" ($49.99; $59.99 with MotionPlus) and "Grand Slam Tennis" ($49.99).