Customer Reviews

Wii MotionPlus

5 star:		(175)
4 star:		(79)
3 star:		(29)
2 star:		(16)
1 star:		(23)

 

 

The motion plus definitely makes the games more fun - I really enjoyed the sword fighting in Wii Resort.

That said, there is one serious issue. When I first fired up WII Resort, I thought it was interesting they kept harping on how to recalibrate the motion plus. Eveytime a game starts. Everytime you move to a new level. If it doesn't feel right recalibrate.

Well the reason for that becomes evident if you play any of the 'intenser' games, ala sword fighting. The controller quickly becomes uncalibrated. This is expecially bad in the horde sword fight levels - it simply starts getting out of sync after 5-10 enemies. I have to recalibrate it every 3-5 minutes.

And before anyone says 'hardware issue' I purchased two of them. I have two remotes. Every combination exhibits this issue - it's highly unlikely both of my motion pluses have a failure.

This is a pretty glaring problem in an otherwise very cool addon - and honestly is extemely disappointing to me as the sword fighting possiblites is where I was most interested in it. I sure hope it's something that can be addressed in the future via a software patch, but I have my doubts.

Length:: 2:33 Mins

I've only tried the Wii MotionPlus with one game so far, Virtua Tennis 2009 but the MotionPlus enhanced the sensitivity of the Wiimote and made it more responsive when playing this game. It seems to sense the turning and direction or your hand better than the Wiimote alone and I thought it made the Virtua Tennis game more realistic and enjoyable. It gives you that little bit extra to play the game.

I recorded this short video so you can see how it attaches to the Wiimote. As you can see, when it's on you don't even notice that it's there. It isn't big or clunky like some of the add-on's to make the nunchuks wireless that I've seen.

I liked the addition of it with this one game and I'm looking forward to trying other games as they're released.

Update 6/21/09 - I had a chance to try the Wii MotionPlus with a friends new Tiger Woods Golf game and the difference between the game with and without the Wii MotionPlus is pretty amazing, probably even more so than with Virtua Tennis. It's much more fine tuned than last year's game.

The Wii Motion Plus is a small add-on accessory that plugs into the bottom of the wii remote. The device also comes with a larger silicone sleeve for your Wii remotes, which is nice.

At the time of this writing, I have only used the Motion Plus with one game, Tiger Woods 2010, and I have to say that I'm flat out impressed. If developers can continue to make games that implement this device at least half as proficiently as an early game such as Tiger Woods 2010, I have very high hopes for this product. The device makes a night and day difference in the sensitivity and responsiveness of the motion controls. I really hope more developers keep producing games that utilize this device, because I'm hooked.

PROS:
+++ Increased controller sensitivity and responsiveness
+++ Comes with a new silicone sleeve for your controller
+++ Gives the Wii Remote a heavier, more solid feel.

CONS:
--- Limited number of games that support the device (but this number should hopefully grow)
--- Additional cost. Nintendo officially has the most expensive controller if you count the Wii Remote ($40), Nunchuck ($20), and Motion Plus ($20).

If you want to own a game that requires the Motion Plus, you don't really have a choice and are pretty much forced to buy one of these. If you own a game that has the option of using Motion Plus, I highly recommend that you purchase one of these little gems. If possible, try to get one as part of a pack-in combo since you may save a little bit of money.

We bought the Resort Sports (which we love) and apparently the motion plus is a packaged deal. We got one with the game and bought one separately.

The recalibration on this is driving us crazy. There are some games (wakeboarding) that we (the adults) have to do it pretty often and others that we don't. However, for our 5 year old, she has to recalibrate practically every minute. She gets so frustrated and then doesn't even want to play.

So, we just paid lots of extra bucks for a controller that makes our child (and occassionally us) not want to play the game. Where is the logic in that!!! With the regular Wii Sports golf game she had so much fun - with the new one she can't even play!

We are so frustrated with wii right now!

Okay, got one in Wii Sports Resort and bought an extra two for everyone else (eventually getting another one for the last Wii-mote). In case you were wondering, yes, it does come with the longer jacket for the wii-mote. In fact, the Wii motionplus is attached to the longer jacket and it comes with instructions on how to attach it properly. The connection on the Wii motionplus to the wii-mote feels flimsy, but it's supposed to feel that way -- it's NOT broken!

What it does is provide more information to whatever game you're playing about the position of the wii-mote. This enables you to be more in control and play games more realistically. However, very few games support it right now and it saps your batteries twice as fast, but it's generally worth it. Let's just say that if Nintendo comes out with an "improved" Wii MotionPlus in 6 months to a year, I'm going to be riotous, but not surprised.

I suggest you get Wii Charge Station Quad or Wii Charge Station or some rechargeable batteries if you haven't already because the price for power gets even higher with the Wii MotionPlus.

There is no question this little device makes the existing Wii Remote sensor better. However, support for the MotionPlus in the first 3 games are spotty and minimal at best. The 2 EA games (Tiger Wood 10 and Grand Slam Tennis) have seemless support but only provide minimal enhancement to the games, which played fine without the MotionPlus. Sega Virtua Tennis 2009 is a bit weird and frustrating that it required me to calibrate the MotionPlus before each serve! Virtua Tennis 2009 is arguably better WITHOUT the MotionPlus. If you haven't bought a MotionPlus (or a 2nd one) just wait and buy it bundled with Nintendo's own Wii Sports Resort (July/26), which no doubt will take full advantage of the MotionPlus.

My wii remotes work perfectly ... that is until they are connected to motion plus. The motion plus, while creating a slightly more realistic game playing experience for things like Tiger Woods 2010, causes sporadic loss of communication with the console. This has the affect of making games unplayable. I will be calling Nintendo ASAP.

This took my Wii Fit and EA Sports to a new level. Even playing tennis is now much funner- I don't have to work as hard to make my motions show, and I wish they came out with this sooner!

I got the Wii Sport Resort yesterday. It is very fun. BUT! the MotionPlus needs more work from the Nintendo people. You have to balance the WiiRemote w MotionPlus like every 10 minutes. Sometimes the game tells you to do it. Also, sometimes when the motion on the screen "feels and looks" funny, you have to put the WiiRemote facing you so it can balance.

Maybe if Nintendo can make the WiiRemote WITH the MotionPlus integrated, would be better.

We picked these up along with the Wii Sports Resort, and while we love the new games we're not so happy with the remote. When it works, it works great. I like that you can put a "twist" on a ping pong ball, or get a real curve while bowling. The "sword fight" games are also a lot of fun, but that's where things start to break down. Almost every time we do anything with the swords game we get the "remote has lost its connection" message and then we need to calibrate (which means you have to set the remote down on a flat surface and wait about 30 seconds while the wii checks the signal from the remote). The same thing happens every once in a while on other games, but it happens with great frequency during the sword games. I found that about half the time I would lose the duel game simply because my remote would stop working mid-swing, and even when it didn't totally lose connection it would often become less responsive than usual. It really started to become frustrating. Video gaming should not be so stressful!

I thought that maybe I was being too "rough" during the sword games, swinging too hard -- but, first, you have to swing fast to win, and second even when I worked at being very soft and less energetic with my swings the remote would still act up. I guess it's possible we got a dud -- and I'm giving this a few stars because it is very fun when it works -- but a quick scan of some of the other reviews shows that we are not alone. Here's hoping that for the next generation Wii Nintendo can come up with something that does what this can do but works all the time.