Nintendo Wii Fanboy

Third-party accessory manufacturers aren't the only ones coming up with ridiculous things to attach your Wii remote onto! A recent patent application posted at the European Patent Office's site reveals some of the crazy peripherals Nintendo dreamed up to explain the controller's potential, like the goggles shown above. ThinkGeek's Wii Helm seems like a respectable, thought-out product, compared to this silly idea. Wouldn't that unbalanced weight give you a sore neck after a minute of wearing this headpiece?

And there are much zanier diagrams in the application document -- Wii remotes in racing helmets, bike pedals, skateboard wheels, and teddy bears! How would this stuff even work? There are also drafts for a docking station and the old shotgun-design Zapper (the GameCube and wireless receiver demonstrating the Zapper shows the artwork's age). You can check them all out in our gallery below!


[Via 22Hundred]

Tony Hawk knows a trick or two on them there wheelie boards. That's probably why he got a whole line of games bearing his name. And, following the release of his latest title, Tony conducted an interview with Eurogamer to discuss the new game and, more interesting to us Wii-loving folk, the new Wii Fit peripheral and Channel coming from Nintendo. As if you didn't think about its use for skateboarding titles yourself ...

So, Tony thinks it could be done, using the Wii Fit board as a control device for his game. "I think it's possible to incorporate the Wii Fit board into one of our games, but it would change the control scheme dramatically and we'd have to figure out how to make that work," he comments, further adding "So I don't know yet."
While we'd argue that performing ollies and navigating a skater's route in the environment could easily be done with the device, we wonder if we would have the ability to successfully bust big chains using the Wiimote in combination with the board, as we can easily do so with a more traditional controller setup.

How good does it feel to have a traditional Tony Hawk game finally release on the Wii? It feels good to us, or, rather, it will feel good when we give the game a rental this weekend. We're fairly certain that should the title lack any kind of engaging controls that maximize the use of the Wiimote and nunchuk, the Tony Hawk formula itself is something that will make up for it, as we enjoy it in and of itself (sheesh, we've bought almost all of them). Since we can't skate well like Eric Koston above or any other professional skater, we like pretending we can in video games, at least.

Any of you checking out Proving Ground or one of the other releases this week? What are you going to play?

The appropriately-named Black Market Skateboards is set to release an infringe-alicious skateboard design based on a certain input device that we obsess over constantly: the U-Force Wiimote.

We see it as kind of an alternate-universe version of the Wii Balance Board (or, as we like to call it, the Bumble Board)-- it's a Wii controller that you stand on, and your success in operating it is based on your balance. The major differences between this and the actual Bumble Board are that it's much easier to gleam the cube on this board, and also much easier to die.

Okay, we (and by we, I'm pretty sure here I only mean me) may be fans of Wii Fit, but we still have to offer up some props to this guy for sliding in a humorous reference to the balance board and the forthcoming fitness title in naming his altered-Pong video and homemade controller.

But we still laugh when he falls off. No idea what we're talking about? Then hit the break and check out this week's hilarious featured video! Now we just have to work on convincing our wonderful columnist Mike Sylvester to try out something similar (and film it for our pleasure).

Yesterday, the air was filled with wanton speculation about potential uses for the Wii Balance Board that will be packaged with Wii Fit. Now we're looking to get all those ideas down in one place -- specifically, here. We've heard some things already, like surfing, snowboarding, and skateboarding sims, and maybe for boxing games, but what else can you think of? Feel free to be both outrageous and creative. Also, are you interested in trying out something like surfing with an interface like this?