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Posted by Chris Scott Barr on Nov 20, 2008

Review – ezShot Gun For Wii

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One of the things I like about my Wii is that I can easily turn my Wiimote into a gun without the need to drop a bundle of cash on another accessory. Generally you shell out just a few bucks and get a plastic frame, which is fine with me. I personally have two different ones in my collection (the official Wii Zapper and the Nyko Perfect Shot), however, I’ve recently acquired a third. I decided to take my new ezShot Gun for a spin, and found it to be the most disappointing of any gun I’d used yet.

I have a long list of complaints about this particular product, which seems strange considering it’s mostly just a hunk of plastic. One thing I love about my other two guns is that inserting and removing the Wiimote and Nunchuk takes almost no time at all. In the case of the Wii Zapper, which actually takes advantage of the Nunchuk, Nintendo paid attention to the fact that there is a cord that runs between the two devices. This is something that ezGear seems to have missed. First, there’s no place that the cord is specifically designed to run, I just sort of tucked it between the Nunchuk and the side of the handle, which made it sit sort of funny. Then you’re left with all of this excess cord, which you just let dangle out of the bottom of the handle. I love how this isn’t actually shown in any of the pictures. Hit the jump for the rest of my review.

So yes, inserting the Wiimote and Nunchuk is annoying, but that’s nothing compared to removing them. Here’s something that will help you to understand just how painful the process is. Go grab your controllers, and disconnect the Nunchuk from the Wiimote. It’s pretty simple, just squeeze the sides of the plug, and pull. Unfortunately, with the ezShot gun, it’s almost impossible to squeeze on those little clips to release the plug. I tried unsuccessfully for several minutes before giving up and using some makeshift tools to do the job. This is a huge problem for me, since I’ve never had to use any sort of tools with any of my Wii accessories, and really don’t ever want to. I’ve done my best to show you just how the plug is positioned in the picture below. You can see that there is very little room to insert the two necessary fingers to squeeze the clips.

Okay, so now that I’ve got everything installed it’s time to sit down with one of my favorite shooters, House of the Dead 2. I get it all loaded up, and as the first two zombies pop into view I aim squarely at the first’s head and squeeze the trigger. Or at least I squeezed what I thought was the trigger. See, due to the position of the Nunchuk, your C button is in the natural position for a trigger. What button does House of the Dead 2 recognize for firing? The B button. That’s the one located on your Wiimote. Sure it’s accessible, but that requires a second hand wrapped around the barrel to use. Now how many people have you seen hold a handgun with one hand on the barrel? Well certainly neither of the two people depicted on the box were doing so. Well what about Link’s Crossbow Training? No, it too requires the B button for firing, and neither of the games allowed for the button configurations to be changed.

One thing that surprised me while looking over the device was the presence of a battery compartment. Now why in the world would a simple plastic accessory need a pair of AAA batteries? Grabbing the box I looked over the features, and saw nothing. However, reading the general description I found mention of a built in laser. So I loaded up a pair of AAA’s and found the laser button on the grip of the gun. Just hold down on it, and you’ve got yourself a laser pointer on your gun. Now this would be cool, if the games I was playing didn’t already have a crosshair. I will say that it helped me recalibrate my Wiimote, and my cat took great interest in my TV while I was using it. I spent a good 10 minutes letting my cat chase the red dot all around the living room. Honestly, that was probably the most fun I had with this particular accessory.

Overall, I think the execution of this device was terrible. It’s not easy to install or remove the Wiimote and Nunchuk, and it can’t be used properly while holding it like a gun. Really, those are the only two things that matter with an accessory like this, and the ezShot failed miserably at both. I don’t recommend this to anyone, as your $25 is better spent elsewhere.

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