So, we’ve known since the January 13 reveal that the Joy-Cons have a bunch of great technology in them that actually makes them quite revolutionary considering their size.
Due to the fact that Zelda: Breath of the Wild didn’t really make use of any of these features and not many people picked up 1-2 Switch, their potential has gone largely unrealised, until now.
This week, we got our hands on Little Inferno, World of Goo and Human Resources and all three of these games use the right Joy-Con in a fascinating way.
When you’re not using the touch-screen on the Nintendo Switch, you’re able to use the Nintendo Switch Joy-Con as a pointer, and it works amazingly well.
When booting up the game, you’ll be asked to place your Nintendo Switch Joy-Con on a flat surface.
You’ll then be asked to pick it up and tap the + button which will bring you a pointer on screen.
You’re then free to use the Nintendo Switch Joy-Con as a literal pointer and it works amazingly well. We believe that it’s using the gyroscope and accelerometer functions of the Joy-Con and not the IR Sensor.
It works incredibly well most of the time. If you point away from the screen, you will lose your positioning a bit as you’re not using a sensor bar, so there’s nothing to keep it tracking on the screen perfectly. This is referred to gyroscopic drift, and it’s largely unavoidable without a sensor bar or IR camera keeping it on track.
But, you’re able to push the + button at any time to recalibrate it to the centre of the screen.
There’s also a little bit of delay which means that for shooting purposes and any quick movements, might mean that it struggles a little bit.
However, for these three games from The Tomorrow Corporation, it works perfectly. I spent a few hours playing Little Inferno last night and it was really comfortable using a single Joy-Con to play through the earlier sections of the game.
I can’t wait to see how Nintendo and other developers use this functionality in the future. It just drives home the fact that the Nintendo Switch is a fully-fledged home console/portable hybrid with all functions available on the go.
