The vast majority of FPS combat is fought on a plane. That is to say, while you'll be constantly spinning around to aim at targets behind you or to your sides, you typically won't be aiming a significant distance above or below you. Even when you do find yourself in a situation where you need to aim above or below you, you're only operating within 180 degrees (ground to ceiling). Horizontal aiming, on the other hand, routinely operates on a full 360 degrees.
The idea is to develop a bounding box that fits that need. You'll need a box that is thin, so you'll start to turn quickly when you angle to the sides. You'll also do better with a box that is very tall, as vertical pivoting is rarer. The main problem with a large bounding box, after all, is that it hampers your ability to quickly turn around. Since aiming on the vertical axis isn't an operation that's tied to physical turning, you can still keep and benefit from a large vertical box.
Using a thin box also maintains what I consider to be an important design rule for FPS games in general: the cursor should always be in the middle of the screen (horizontally). If you have an enemy on the far edge of the screen that you try to aim towards with a wide bounding box, you'll have to actually aim your cursor significantly PAST him in order to center the action on him, after which you'd then need to backpedal a bit to target him with your cursor. For groups of weak enemies, the player might just aim far enough to the side to get their cursor on the guy, not worrying about getting him squarely in their sights. If you're facing a single strong enemy who's strafing around you, however, you'd find yourself either getting shot up a lot while trying to center on him, or constantly battling him on the fringes of your screen.
There's one final piece to this potential control scheme, though it's not one directly tied to bounding box logic. If you picture an individual holding a gun out in front of them, it's kind of silly to imagine them flailing their body all over the place just to look around. In fact, there are quite a few circumstances when you'd want to keep your weapon centered on target, while at the same time glancing around to survey your surroundings. The motion-sensing functionality in the Nunchuck makes this desire a possibility.
Via a swift jerk of the Nunchuck, your character would turn their head to survey the environment. For example, a quick jerk to the left would cause your screen to pivot approximately 45 degrees in that direction, and then quickly pivot back. What separates this motion from a standard bodily pivot is the fact that your cursor, and the bounding box, would be unaffected. They would stay fixated on whatever you had them pointed at, while your view of the screen pans away from them momentarily. You'd also be free to move your cursor during the head pivot if you so chose, so you could quickly train your gun on a new target you noticed along the way.
Other interactive motions with the Nunchuck, such as the grenade throwing in Red Steel or the grappling hook in Metroid Prime 3, would still remain mapped as they currently are. The only difference would be the need for a "toggle" button, likely the C button, that you would hold while inputting your motion-based commands. Many of these commands already use this kind of toggle, and it probably wouldn't hurt the ones that currently don't.
If there's anything that should be easy to agree upon, it's that the bounding boxes being used in Wii FPS games so far are simply too large. While a simple shrinking of the box would definitely improve things greatly, I really do think that a tall and thin rectangular box would produce the most ideal results. It may be too late to save the games that are scheduled for launch this November, but I can only hope that developers take note of these ideas for future titles. It would really be a shame for the Wii's FPS potential to be hampered by sub-par execution.
The idea is to develop a bounding box that fits that need. You'll need a box that is thin, so you'll start to turn quickly when you angle to the sides. You'll also do better with a box that is very tall, as vertical pivoting is rarer. The main problem with a large bounding box, after all, is that it hampers your ability to quickly turn around. Since aiming on the vertical axis isn't an operation that's tied to physical turning, you can still keep and benefit from a large vertical box.
A bounding box more grounded in reality
Using a thin box also maintains what I consider to be an important design rule for FPS games in general: the cursor should always be in the middle of the screen (horizontally). If you have an enemy on the far edge of the screen that you try to aim towards with a wide bounding box, you'll have to actually aim your cursor significantly PAST him in order to center the action on him, after which you'd then need to backpedal a bit to target him with your cursor. For groups of weak enemies, the player might just aim far enough to the side to get their cursor on the guy, not worrying about getting him squarely in their sights. If you're facing a single strong enemy who's strafing around you, however, you'd find yourself either getting shot up a lot while trying to center on him, or constantly battling him on the fringes of your screen.
There's one final piece to this potential control scheme, though it's not one directly tied to bounding box logic. If you picture an individual holding a gun out in front of them, it's kind of silly to imagine them flailing their body all over the place just to look around. In fact, there are quite a few circumstances when you'd want to keep your weapon centered on target, while at the same time glancing around to survey your surroundings. The motion-sensing functionality in the Nunchuck makes this desire a possibility.
Via a swift jerk of the Nunchuck, your character would turn their head to survey the environment. For example, a quick jerk to the left would cause your screen to pivot approximately 45 degrees in that direction, and then quickly pivot back. What separates this motion from a standard bodily pivot is the fact that your cursor, and the bounding box, would be unaffected. They would stay fixated on whatever you had them pointed at, while your view of the screen pans away from them momentarily. You'd also be free to move your cursor during the head pivot if you so chose, so you could quickly train your gun on a new target you noticed along the way.
Other interactive motions with the Nunchuck, such as the grenade throwing in Red Steel or the grappling hook in Metroid Prime 3, would still remain mapped as they currently are. The only difference would be the need for a "toggle" button, likely the C button, that you would hold while inputting your motion-based commands. Many of these commands already use this kind of toggle, and it probably wouldn't hurt the ones that currently don't.
If there's anything that should be easy to agree upon, it's that the bounding boxes being used in Wii FPS games so far are simply too large. While a simple shrinking of the box would definitely improve things greatly, I really do think that a tall and thin rectangular box would produce the most ideal results. It may be too late to save the games that are scheduled for launch this November, but I can only hope that developers take note of these ideas for future titles. It would really be a shame for the Wii's FPS potential to be hampered by sub-par execution.