Johan Simbade
Motion Plus – The Facts About Its Effectiveness
Motion Plus is an addition device for the popular Wii Remote, the original gamepad for the Wii. The new device allows more elaborate movement to be executed than the Wii Remote does on its own. The original Wii only supports the standard motion commands – up, down, left and right. Both the Wii and its newer sequel, the Wii U, implement the MotionPlus accessory in a select few games.
We got hands on with the MotionPlus for this game. Using the Wii U at its retail launch, we tried both the older console and the more advanced Nintendo Wii U at the same time. Here’s what we found. –
MotionPlus was not included with the Wii console when it was released. It must have been a great demand from consumers since it was not available at launch, which is pretty common these days. Fortunately, the developers of the game did include MotionPlus with the console after it was sold out in most stores. The best way to find out if the new accessory is compatible with your unit is to get a video game expert to perform a compatibility test. This will save you the hassle of having to search endlessly through the manual and online documentation. Once you find out whether the MotionPlus works with your system, you can proceed to read our review of the game.
In terms of the motion detection technology used, we didn’t notice any differences between the MotionPlus and the built-in remotes. Based on the fact that the two systems use almost the same technology, there should be no big difference in the processing of commands. The difference lies instead in the amount of information that is processed. It’s probably safe to say that the MotionPlus can process more data at once than the built-in remotes can.
To find out if the MotionPlus can be used for video games, we conducted a test using two popular sports games: Golf and baseball. We hooked up each controller to a separate Wii Remotes and then played a round of each game on the MotionPlus. We then recorded the results so that we could compare them with the response time of the MotionPlus. Both games showed a slight increase in response time, which is pretty normal, but the actual reaction times for the different controllers were quite different.
In short, we did not find any major problems with the MotionPlus in terms of its ability to detect movement. Based on the results of this test, we can conclude that the MotionPlus is a decent addition to your gaming console. It definitely improves the quality of your experience.
