Overview

Developer: Nintendo

Not as easy as it seems

Those of us who’ve played consoles extensively have had it happen. You and three of your friends are having a heated match of NHL or Madden, you’re pounding away at the buttons, screaming your heads off, and making incredible play after incredible play…and then your (circle one) mother/sister/girlfriend/cat/dog picks that key moment to walk across the TV and trip over one or more of the controller wires, yanking the pad out of your hands and/or pulling the console down off the shelf. It’s a tragic scene, and in this country, it happens once every 4.673 minutes.

We’ve seen wireless controllers in the past. In an effort to reduce the clutter in front of the TV, I remember my father about 15 years ago buying an infrared 3rd party joystick for me to use with the NES. Unfortunately, it was a piece of junk. Compared to the NES Advantage, the stick itself had a horrid, clickety feel to it, the base wasn’t as stable, and the infrared sensor could be interfered with by someone walking in front of the TV or setting a soda can down in the wrong place. The NES Satellite was a better option; it was an IR hub that allowed you to plug any controller (4 ports) in and use it remotely, but the IR nature still made it susceptible to interference. Those were my first and only experiences with using wireless controllers on console or PC. Obviously I wasn’t impressed.

WaveBird

Fast forward past the death of the NES, SNES, and N64, and here I am with my GameCube, finally healed from the trauma that was wireless gaming, ready to give wireless another chance. This time, I went with a first-party solution, Nintendo’s WaveBird controller. Unlike the horrible joystick I tried before, the WaveBird has the same solid construction you’d expect from a Nintendo product. And unlike the previous IR wireless solutions, Nintendo’s WaveBird uses RF, which means that you don’t have to be pointed directly at the console, nor will obstructions hinder its effectiveness.

The WaveBird has been one of the GameCube’s most highly anticipated accessories since before the system even launched. At least, to hardcore console/Nintendo fans. This particular editor hasn’t exactly lost a lot of sleep waiting for the WaveBird to come out, but I happened to be at an Electronics Boutique when it arrived in stores last week so I picked one up to take it for a spin.

What do we get for ten dollaz $34.95?

In the box, you get the controller, the receiver, and a pair of double A batteries. The receiver plugs into any of the four GameCube controller ports and draws the power it needs from the port. There’s a little green LED on the receiver that tells you when the receiver is getting a signal from the WaveBird. There’s also a dial underneath the receiver that lets you select between 16 different frequencies, labeled, oddly enough, 1 through 16. You’ll need to synchronize this number with the identical dial on the controller itself. Multiple frequencies allows for several WaveBirds to be used on the same GameCube without interference.

The receiver

Sync up the channels

Green LED lights up when receiving