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(Credit: Shacknews)

When it comes to plastic toy guns, two names tend to come to mind: Nerf and the Zapper. Thanks to the new partnership between Electronic Arts and Hasbro, those two are about to collide. Kotaku and Shacknews have reported that EA Hasbro has revealed Nerf N-Strike for the Nintendo Wii and DS systems, along with a Wiimote-based Nerf blaster.

Wii Zapper clones aren't exactly new. Nyko's Perfect Shot offers a satisfyingly gun-shaped alternative to the Zapper, and CTA Digital's torrent of inexplicable gun grips give even more choices. Nerf's Wii blaster puts a new spin on the Zapper by making it double as a functional Nerf dart gun. The Wiimote can pop into the Nerf-themed gun grip to function as a game controller, or you can pop in a Nerf blaster module to fire foam darts at your friends and enemies.

The Nerf N-Strike games and blaster are scheduled to ship in fall 2008. Hasbro will likely unveil more details about the games at next week's Toy Fair in New York.

The Wii Zapper: Spiritual Successor to the old NES light gun?

(Credit: Nintendo)

If you grew up with a Nintendo Entertainment System in your house, then you no doubt remember the Zapper, the gray (or bright orange) light gun that let you shoot at ducks, bulls-eyes, and banditos. After almost 20 years, Nintendo has brought the Zapper, at least in name, to the Nintendo Wii. It's available in stores today for just $20, and it includes a free game, Link's Crossbow Training.

Instead of a light gun, the Wii Zapper is a simple gun-shaped plastic shell that houses the Wii remote and nunchuk attachment for use in certain shooting games. Simple, curved, and white, the Zapper fits perfectly with the Wii's aesthetic. Despite its vague gun shape--it loosely resembles a Capone-era Thompson submachine gun)--the Zapper's profile is nowhere near as menacing as the original Zapper's. Frankly, it looks more like an abstract sculpture than a gun, all rounded and white with nary a sharp angle to be seen.

Underneath the curved, matte white shell is a simple and comfortable device with few moving parts and no electronics. The Wii remote slides into an indentation in the top of the Zapper and clicks in place securely. The nunchuk attachment slides into a smaller notch on the back of the Zapper and stays in place thanks to two small plastic pegs. Once both devices are locked into the Zapper, you can keep the cord between them wound up and hidden thanks to a compartment inside the handle. This cord-winding and tucking will keep your Zapper nice and neat, but inserting and removing the corded nunchuk is a pain--you'll probably want to invest another $20 in a dedicated nunchuk that will remain permanently housed in the Zapper.

With both the Wiimote and nunchuk in place, the Zapper feels a bit more solid and comfortable. Your front hand has access to the trigger that sets off the Wiimote's B button, while your back hand has total control over the nunchuk. Even though it doesn't look like a gun, the Zapper at least feels a bit like one. Hold it in both hands, point the "barrel" at the screen, and let the Wii pointer do the rest.

You could simply hold the Wiimote in one hand, the nunchuk in the other, and play any Wii game as you normally would. But it's all about the ergonomics. While the Zapper doesn't add any meaningful or unique features to the Wii's control system, it provides a near-ideal grip for shooting games--the Zapper simply feels better than holding the remote and nunchuk normally. It doesn't offer quite the same experience as a genuine light gun, since you're still constrained by the Wiimote's sensors, but it still makes those games feel much more intuitive than the typical Zapper-less remote/nunchuk control scheme.

Or at least it does while you're aiming and shooting; moving around (with the nunchuk's thumbstick) adds something of an ambidextrous challenge to games that takes a bit of getting used to, and may be downright frustrating for some. Judging from the Zapper-centric games in the pipeline (Medal of Honor: Heroes 2, Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles, and Ghost Squad are all available now, and a retooled House of the Dead is on the slate for 2008), publishers are focusing on "rail shooters"--games that have you automatically progressing through a level on a preset path. That lets you concentrate on aiming and blasting, not on moving around.

Even if you don't want those new titles, the Wii Zapper justifies its $20 price tag with its pack-in game, Link's Crossbow Training. This simple, Zelda-themed shooting gallery game would have easily been worth $20 alone, without the Zapper. It's not the largest or most complicated game for the Wii, but it offers enough fun and variety to satisfy both casual gamers and Nintendo fanboys. You play the ubiquitous elf Link, who got his hands on a crossbow after almost two decades of using a bow and arrow. Coincidentally enough, Link's crossbow looks very similar to the Wii Zapper. You can run through nine levels, each with three separate stages, to test your marksmanship. Besides the typical shoot-the-bulls-eye on-rails experience, Link's Crossbow Training includes modes where you must fend off hordes of skeletons advancing upon you, shoot your way through a goblin camp, and even plink flying skulls out of the sky in a stage that feels more than a little like the original Duck Hunt's skeet-shooting mode. It's not a very deep game, but it's simple and fun--a recipe for success on the Wii.

The Wii Zapper doesn't quite live up to its formidable pedigree, and probably won't burn itself into gamers' memories like its predecessor. Still, the Zapper is a fun little gadget with a great pack-in game that justifies its scant price tag. It might not be a must-buy accessory/game for the Wii, but it'll give you more than enough fun for the Jackson you'll drop on it.

EA Games held a preview event last night in Manhattan, showing off the company's latest big-name games, from The Simpsons Game to Half-Life 2: Orange Box. While most of the action took place on the various screens around the room, my eyes were drawn to a large, funky-shaped piece of white plastic at the Metal of Honor Heroes 2 display. They had an actual Wii Zapper set up to demonstrate the game's on-rails shooter-style Arcade mode. I couldn't resist the chance to try Nintendo's new Wii peripheral, not scheduled to hit stores until November.

The Wii Zapper is fundamentally just a white plastic shell in which you place your Wiimote and nunchuk and hold like a machine gun. That said, it's a very nice white plastic shell in which you place your Wiimote and nunchuk and hold like a machine gun. It feels solid, and both controller parts fit snugly into the device with no noticeable wiggling. A trigger on the front of the Zapper counts as its only moving part, activating the Wiimote's B button when pressed.

Medal of Honor: Heroes 2

I used the Zapper to play Medal of Honor Heroes 2 in its arcade mode, a variant that feels more than a little like Time Crisis. The Wiimote picked up some interference from the numerous other Wiis and light sources in the room (a problem you probably would only experience at an event like this), but once I got the hang of it, the Zapper control worked pretty well. It felt relatively comfortable while I aimed at the screen and shot at Nazi soldiers. While Arcade mode felt well enough, I can imagine more traditional FPS gameplay feeling disorienting to get used to, with the nunchuk and its analog stick mounted on the back of the Zapper.

Like I said before, though, the Zapper is just a plastic shell and aiming with it didn't feel very much different from aiming with the Wiimote as usual. You still have to point the Wiimote at the screen and adjust your shot for wherever you put the sensor bar. It feels pretty cool and gun-like, but it doesn't really change the gaming experience.

Granted, I only played with the Zapper for a few minutes, and with only one game. Future Zapper-compatible games might take advantage of the accessory to provide some as-yet unheard-of change to gameplay. The $20 device comes with a Zelda-themed crossbow target game, too, so it's not like you're dropping a Jackson on only a piece of plastic. Either way, I'm not ready to either condemn or worship the Nintendo Wii Zapper yet. It might be fun, or it might be a useless gimmick. We'll find out in November.

The Wii Zapper will include Link's Crossbow Training as a pack-in.

(Credit: Nintendo)

When Nintendo announced the Wii Zapper back at July's E3 show, the company promised the $20 add-on would be bundled with a game (a "pack-in," in gamer parlance). And today the company made good on the pledge: The Zapper will include Link's Crossbow Training, a Zelda-themed target shooter. The game will progress from simple bull's-eyes to moving targets (including enemies from the Zelda series), and--while I wouldn't expect much more than a glorified "how to use the Zapper" tutorial--something tells me Crossbow Training could be as infectious as Wii Sports. Either way, it's nice to see Nintendo adding a bit of value to what's less a controller and more a big hunk of plastic. (The Zapper is simply a housing that places the Wii Remote and Nunchuk into a mounting that's vaguely reminiscent of a Tommy gun.)

In addition to the included crossbow title, three third-party titles will also be Zapper-compatible: EA's Medal of Honor Heroes 2, Capcom's Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles, and Sega's Ghost Squad. Each of those games are Wii exclusives, and all are due by the end of the year. The Zapper itself will be available in North America on Nov. 19.

Over a year ago, before the Wii was even released, we reported the possibility of a gun accessory for the Wiimote. Well, Nintendo finally announced one, and it's...not quite what we expected.

The Wii Zapper looks more like a Star Trek phaser rifle than the pistol we saw 14 months ago. The curvy, simplified white gun holds both the remote and nunchuck attachment in place, with the remote's B and nunchuck's Z buttons fixed like triggers on the device. It's clearly intended for two-hand use, with the front hand controlling the remote and the back hand controlling the nunchuck. It seems a bit more Super Scope than it is NES Zapper, but that doesn't mean it won't still be fun.

Since it seems to be just a housing for the remote and nunchuck, the Wii Zapper will probably work with almost any Wii games, though a handful of upcoming titles are being designed with the Wii Zapper in mind. Capcom's Resident Evil Umbrella Chronicles, Sega's Ghost Squad, and EA's Medal of Honor: Airborne will all support the Wii Zapper.

If you don't plan on getting any of those shooters but still want to have some Zapper-centric goodness, the Wii Zapper will be shipping with its own pack-in software. No details have been announced about what the software is, but good money says it'll be something with the words "Duck" and "Hunt" in the title. The Wii Zapper and its pack-in game will together retail for $20 when they ship later this year.