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. ...