TechEBlog put together a top five list of the best Wiimote hacks we've seen before, and as usual, I agree with most of their picks, but not their ranking:

• 5. DJ WiiJ
  
• 4.
• 3.
• 2. Tennis WiiBot
• 1. Smarthome Wiimote
  

The one I find the most interesting is #3, the 3D dome virtual reality simulator seen in the video above. Paul Bourke and others at the University of Western Australia used the Wiimote as a cheap tool for space simulation navigation. The result is using the Wiimote to look around or even fly through the map at great speeds, making it one of the best untapped virtual reality setups I've seen in a while. The 3D dome even looks sleek as opposed to the majority of the clunky virtual reality projects in the past, I'd gladly spend a few thousand bucks on this if it meant Nintendo, Sony, or Microsoft was making games for it.

Since wireless gadgets in the form of any external remote control or mouse are too complicated for old people to figure out, there's laptops in development to make the laptop itself tilt sensitive. So basically it's like playing Nintendo Wii, with a TV that's tilt sensitive instead of a controller:

"The tablet PC laptop has been adapted to respond to a user when moving the machine up or down, side to side, or forwards and backwards. It is hoped the BT Balance system can help people with disabilities or the elderly, for whom using a keyboard or mouse can be difficult. . . the idea was to make using a computer as easy as using an Etch-A-Sketch toy. . . The system can be used to read through books or documents, turning pages with a simple flip of the monitor. Maps could be read by tilting the screen up or down, left or right, corresponding to moving the map north, south, west or east."

Sort of like the tilt Kirby games on Game Boy Advance. All of a sudden their lack of gaming skills gives them an even better handheld than we have. There could be some really cool games (cough, Katamari Mobile, cough) developed specifically for this laptop, how come the old people get all the fun? They'll probably just get motion sickness and throw up every time they turn it on.

A few weeks ago we found out Resident Evil 4 was being remade for the Wii, and that a completely new game, Resident Evil Umbrella Chronicles, was also coming to the Wii. TechEBlog found this Capcom interview video that shows off some of the Wiimote gameplay, including the new knife controls we already knew about. Both games seem to be pretty far along in development, although I don't believe the director of marketing when he says these games will look more graphically advanced than Resident Evil 4 on the GameCube. However, if you found Resident Evil 4 to be too challenging to play before, then you might actually want to give it another try on the Wii. It looks like the Wiimote on-screen instructions walk you through most of the game, making for a fun, but less less authentic experience.

. . . when you lock up your house with a Wiimote. It slices, it dices, it plays music, heats houses, drives cars, makes fat people look funny, breaks noses, and now it can even help you break into houses. If only it could actually play games smoothly. Put half those Wiimote links together and you've got a whole murder scene and a motive - it shouldn't be long until the show CSI bases an entire plot on this not so innocent game controller. They could even make it a two parter if the kid murderer blames it on Nintendo and calls in Jack Thompson to his defense. Surprise ending: Jack Thompson framed the little kid and we get the satisfaction of seeing Grissom throw his ass in jail.

Wiitar Hero brings out the Wiitard in band people. Apparently a lot of gamers were actually worried that RedOctane's Wii Guitar Hero III game was going to submit them to Wiimote and nunchuk gameplay. Here's some "no duh" news for you band burnouts:

"We are really excited about the Wii game because there are so many options for the Wii remote. However, you will play the game with a guitar peripheral and it will be similar to a guitar you've seen in the past." 

More importantly, he also confirmed that Guitar Hero III on the Wii will contain online play and downloadable music: awesome. And yes, we have seen what Guitar Hero played with a Wiimote looks like before: awful.

No new pictures of the odd third party Wii controllers, just new release date and price information. The "Wand Remote Controller" will retail for $49 in America, and be released on September 28th. And the "Funchuk Controller" will be out on June 29th for $20. If that's too expensive for a more fancy vibrator, then Amazon UK is offering them for $39 and $18. You either love or hate Mad Catz controllers, and in the past it's almost always been the majority of gamers hating them - we've all had multiplayer nights of "winner of one round has to play with the Mad Catz controller next round." The Nintendo 64 controller with no handles was the most annoying gameplay devices I can remember, but now that the vertical layout design is the Wii's style, a more curved "wand" might be a nice Christmas gift for people still in need of more Wiimotes.

Koei has a new game for the Wii that they're working on, here's the simple stuff:

"Opoona is not only the game's title, but the name of the main character, as well. Opoona, a descendant of the brave Cosmo Guards, is visiting the planet Landroll with his family, when he's separated from them and find his parents in the hospital for series injuries and both his brother and sister completely missing. What happened? In Opoona, it's your job to earn a license to travel to other colonies and find out. These licenses are different jobs -- rescuer, idol, detective -- and players pick and choose what they'd like to become."

The interesting part is how it's played though. While everyone's busy trying to be unique by making clever games that utilize the Wiimote, Koei threw the Wiimote idea out and came up with something new:

"Opoona is controlled without touching the Wiimote whatsoever. We only have a brief description of combat from Koei, but they claim movement and "Active Bombom Battle," which encompasses the game's combat scenarios, is controlled entirely by the nunchuck, allowing for one-handed play. Snapping the nunchuck fires projectiles at enemies, whose trajectory can be changed by moving the nunchuck."

Add to that the guy who composed the Final Fantasy 12's soundtrack, and you've got a Wii game worth keeping an eye on.

Yesterday Shigeru Miyamoto talked about a few rejected Wiimotes that, thankfully, didn't make the cut. Here's the video that was being played behind him during that portion of the  keynote speech. The first one they show is a squished octagonal wreck that has a lot of wasted space, and the one that follows it has got to be a joke - it looks more like a gamer girl scout's merit badge for having sex with a controller. The next one resembles the new cameras with spinning screens, but it doesn't look very useful as a controller. And finally, with the last one you can see how the Wiimote design progression began. All they had to do was get rid of some buttons and figure out the nunchuk would be a better way to make money and piss off parents.

Here's another way to help fight the boredom on your Wii while waiting for more games to come out. WiiToob is a blatant ripoff of YouTube, but it's interface is larger to help the Wiimote precision out. When you click on a video it even makes the playing resolution larger to make it more enjoyable to watch on a TV. It's nothing worth buying a Wii over, but the Wiimote 'gimmick' doesn't look like it'll get old any time soon.

Yah, what ever happened to that Wiimote gun Nintendo promised us? It was the "Wii Zapper," and you can see the picture of it below, but a random forum member on GameBeaver got tired of waiting and made his own:

Back at E3 the when Nintendo began its display of the Nintendo Wii there were several extra items that caught the attention of the public. One such item would be the Nintendo Wii Zapper. In case you don’t know what the Zapper is let me casually explain. The Zapper is a holster for the Wii Remote; in short it is a plastic gun shaped case that the Wii Remote and Nunchuck can fit in to give a more realistic first person shooter experience. Well since the Wii’s release Nintendo has said nothing about when the release of the zapper will take place. Fortunately for the world this delay, has given several individuals a chance to come with their own imitation Zappers.

Now if only it worked. Nintendo hasn't followed up on their Wii Zapper status since they first announced it, so for now we must just rely on the Wiimote and Wii nunchuk. I wouldn't be surprised though if the Wii Zapper was given to the public around the time of the E for All Expo, I've got a very strong feeling that Nintendo still has a few tricks up its sleeve.