With the Wii remote's application towards shooting games, a light gun accessory was inevitable. So, the Wii Zapper, which resembles a small sci-fi blaster, will probably be a sought-after accessory this holiday season. The remote slides into the front to form the gun barrel while the Nunchuck attachment goes on the back and looks like an oversized gun hammer. But what fun is a light gun without anything to shoot at? Nintendo puts the accessory to work by including Link's Crossbow Training.

Although the Zapper looks pretty cool, it's a fairly small device. It's roughly the same height as the light gun that came with the original NES, but it's longer to support two-handed control. One hand goes on the trigger while the other manipulates the Nunchuck's control stick. For most part, the setup works nicely and lets the user aim with the precision needed to shoot pop-up targets and approaching creatures. However, its small size puts all the stress on the player's biceps and it can get tiring after 5-10 minutes of playing. This plastic toy gun becomes especially hard to hold up after working out on very fast motion controlled games. Arms start to sag, causing both aiming and response to suffer. Treating it like a pistol and using one hand worked horribly since the Zapper isn't balanced for single-hand use, and aiming gets thrown off by the Nunchuck weighing the back down. The Wii Zapper could benefit greatly from a few extra attachments like a shoulder brace or, at the very least, a strap to help take the stress off the arms. Pressing the back of the gun against our chests and using it as a pivot point helped to compensate, but hooking it over our bags (using the strap to pivot) and using one hand to shoot from the waist helped tremendously. At least it did until we reached sequences in Link's Crossbow training that required the analog stick to move around. We suspect that playing from a sitting position and resting some of the weight on a leg would help, but there's no getting over feeling that the Wii Zapper wasn't designed for adult use.

On the brighter side, Link's Crossbow Training makes an excellent companion to the Zapper. The game starts simply enough, with bull's-eye targets that pop-up sequentially, and hitting them all without missing builds up bonus points. Players can also aim for decorations like clay pots, pumpkins and scarecrows to earn more points and unlock secrets. Pushing the Nunchuck's analog stick zooms in, but we rarely needed to use it. Things become more challenging and animated when players progress to later levels. On the next stage, skeletal zombies surround Link. At times, a green skeleton will rise, and shooting it activates a special rapid-fire ability to mow down creatures in groups. Moving the targeting reticule to the screen's edge pans across the landscape, which works well here, since Link stays in one spot and spins in a circle, but not as well in other stages. Things can get a little hectic on levels where Link moves around, like raiding a monster camp. The analog stick moves Link without any problems, but the screen panning is a little slow and requires the user to aim toward the edge of the screen until creatures come into sight, then players re-center to shoot them. Luckily, the creatures aren't very good shots and a warning pops up when they get a little too close for comfort, but the issue becomes more apparent on advanced levels. The flaw definitely shows during the fireworks sequence, where players shoot targets to make them explode into entertaining light displays. New targets will sometimes appear slightly off screen, making it difficult to see them, much less reach them in time.

Later levels have Link shooting creatures while moving down river on a boat, wind blowing his cap in all directions. He'll also defend a castle against flying creatures, along with more aiming and reflex tests. There's a slight lag between actual movement and the targeting reticule's response on-screen, which gets a little annoying during the more reflex-oriented stages.

Overall, Crossbow Training shows off the Zapper's capabilities nicely and makes the perfect companion. We just wished the Zapper came with a few more attachments.