Review: Link’s Crossbow Training

I have to admit, I wasn’t all that impressed with the idea of the Wii Zapper. It’s a fancy piece of plastic. There’s not even any electronic components, it’s all mechanical. It’s not worth $20 by itself. (I should stress “by itself.”) Frankly, it feels too much like those iPod accessories you see in clearance all the time. Someone said, “hey, iPods are popular, so let’s make a bunch of random but generally useless accessories to make them do crazy things!”

I was wrong. Not only is Link’s Crossbow Training well worth the $20, it really proves how freaking awesome the Wii Zapper is.

As a quick overview, Link’s Crossbow Training pits you against several different types of “shooting gallery” style courses. There’s the basic pre-scripted “target practice” courses. There’s another mode called “Defender,” where you’re able to rotate around 360 degrees to fend off incoming enemies. And, finally, there’s a mode called “Ranger,” a third-person-shooter style game where you run through an obstacle course eliminating enemies.

This, my friends, could be the future of the Wii FPS. It’s most certainly the future of the light gun game. If you’ve ever played Red Steel, it did a pretty decent job of FPS controls with the Wii remote. (And let’s be honest, that’s one of the holy grails of the Wii’s control scheme.)

But Link’s Crossbow Training outdoes it. There’s no crazy moving your crosshairs to the side of the screen to turn. You just tilt the Wii Zapper a bit. It’s hard to describe just how it works, but it feels pretty natural. Of course, it takes a little getting used to; it’s still possible to get off-center and spin in circles. Circle strafing in this setup doesn’t come easy.

If you pick up the game, prepare for a slight learning curve. You’re going to have to get a feel for the Wii Zapper before you get any good. The first few games that The Chef and I played were rather dismal, but we got pretty adept at the tricks of the trade quickly.

Spend some time in the adjustment screen to fix the height and speed of the cursor. It’s well worth it. For the first few games, I didn’t do this, and as a result, the controls felt rather wonky. A few minutes in the adjustment screen, and some experimenting with the settings, and it’s much more playable now.

Also, accuracy is your friend. There’s a lot of nifty things hidden in the (usually pretty destructible) scenery to get bonus points. But your best bet is to try to improve your accuracy first–hitting a 10x or 20x bonus multiplier by focusing on the targets can often get you far more points than you’d get from bonus items in the scenery.

To be honest, I haven’t spent much time on the game yet. But for $20, it’s a pretty decent return in terms of entertainment. If you pick up on the tricks of the trade quickly, the first few levels go by in a hurry, but they get significantly more tough towards the end. And there’s always the goal of going back to completed levels for better medals (you can get a bronze, silver, gold, or platinum on each level).

There’s also a multiplayer mode where you can square off against up to 3 friends. Sadly, this is no different than the single player mode, and it isn’t simultaneous. But it is good fun.

So, my verdict? Get this game and accessory. You may never use the Wii Zapper for any other game, but this is a nifty game to add to your collection, and it’s only $20.