For thousands, maybe even millions of hungry gamers, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess is the big enchilada. Not only is it the Wii's flagship launch title, but it's also the first true "mature" looking Zelda game, a fact that's bound to entice those who were disgusted by The Wind Waker's superb (but ultimately childish) appearance. Nintendo's certainly delivered on the visuals as it almost always does. This Link is a far cry from the cute cell shaded pipsqueak that sailed the high seas and frolicked with the strange little man called Tingle. He's stronger looking, and to an extent much deadlier. He has to be. Otherwise, the dark and sinister world he wanders through would swallow him whole. Yes, Twilight Princess appears to be the Zelda game most have been waiting for, which makes the shoddy demo Nintendo recently unveiled all the more puzzling.

To be fair, this game was never supposed to be a Wii title. Originally planned for the ailing GameCube, it was ported to Nintendo's newest machine for a plethora of reasons, one of which may be the company's inability to have Super Mario Galaxy ready for launch. And to their credit, the developers have done a great job adapting the game to the Wii's unique controller. Actually, the biggest problem I encountered was with the bow and arrow. In previous demos, the weapon was controlled using the d-pad, which was both cumbersome and simply nonsensical. This time around, arrows are fired with the B button, which is located underneath the remote. And each time one of the little suckers is fired, the controller will let out a slight rumble to further authenticate the experience.

On paper, it's a grand design. All you've got to do is point and shoot, sit back and watch mass death ensue, that is if you can get the pointer to actually work. Nintendo, in order to highlight this most special of games, had it running on a big screen TV in its own special space, and as I adjusted the camera to check my targets (and subsequently aimed the remote in their direction, close to a 45 degree angle), the bow and arrow wouldn't engage. Little did I realize that the Wii, its sensor bar, and the remote are temperamental devices, at least when it comes to Zelda. After watching me struggle for several moments while subsequently ruining people's video footage, a rep leaned over and informed me that in order to make things work, I had to lower my arms and hold them almost parallel to the sensor bar. Sure enough, he was right, much to my dismay.

Using this more reserved posture, I made short work of my foes, three lizard men armed with bows of their own. And all the while I did this, plunged arrows into their eye sockets, hearts, and legs, I couldn't help but wonder if Nintendo truly has a handle on its biggest Wii game of the year. This experience went against the system's very nature. It even looked bad compared to other games, titles such as Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz and Trauma Center: Second Opinion, games that allow for more exaggerated body movements.

Then there was the matter of the camera. Whenever I locked on to an object I had great difficulty getting a good view. This wasn't a problem during sword combat, but I recall a puzzle that was made especially difficult because I couldn't see the wooden posts that I was supposed to be targeting.

Thankfully, the sword fighting works just fine. Link's arms aren't synched to the player's, so slashing upwards may still cause him to swing horizontally, but I had fun frantically flailing my arms about, then moving the remote forward to make him thrust. Left to my own devices, I eviscerated my foes in no time.

Disappointing adventure controls aside, I really enjoyed fishing. There's a portion of the demo where Link and a mysterious female companion are gliding across a lake in a canoe, and you can either continue canoeing, or whip out his fishing rod and catch a few whoppers. To bring out the rod, you press B and then to cast it, you bring the remote back and fling it forward as you would a normal fishing rod. And what's especially cool about this is the remote's ability to detect force, so a stronger cast will result in more line going out.

To attract fish (which can be seen swimming about), you wiggle the remote back and forth, and when one bites, you pull back the remote and then make reeling motions with the nun chuck. It's just a very intuitive set up that actually feels like it was specially designed for the system, as opposed to the rest of the demo.

The bad thing is, after my all too brief play session (that probably covered less than .0003% of the adventure), I'm not looking forward to buying this game. Nintendo has to release a much better demo in order to entice me. But beyond my own likes/dislikes, I've been wondering if releasing Twilight Princess alongside the Wii is truly a smart business decision. The Wii is a unique machine that's been designed to appeal to all types of people, particularly the non gamers, the people that are going to slowly adopt gaming because of titles such as Wii Sports and the aforementioned Banana Blitz. With that being said, Twilight Princess goes against the strategy. It's the system's biggest game, yet it may wind up being the least accessible. Core gamers are going to flock to it. That's a given. But the same cannot be said of this large, untapped mass of people that Nintendo's trying to get a piece of. Zelda will go on to sell hundreds of thousands (possibly millions) of copies, but looking at the rest of the line-up, it may not be the most significant game.