Wii as a training tool?

Video games like that build hand/eye coordination. Don't let anyone tell you differently.

Speaking of eye/hand, my motorcycle class instructor a while back suggested we all play more video games to build up the skill.

I agree, can't hurt provided you keep in mind firearms aren't anywhere near the same as a video game.

An excellent training tool if you use a sufficiently powerful caliber or if you ever are attacked by animations. Best of all, if you are sufficiently devoted to that training regime you should never encounter hostile real people, who tend to be three dimensional and often quite nasty. Fantasy is much more fun than reality and so much tidier.

Love the wii. But what's even better is drunken quick draw duckhunt...(the old nes still works!) you miss, take a shot. I wouldn't recomend drunken hogan's alley though, i shoot too many innocents.

I don't think the Wii is good for anything shooting related other than hand-eye coordination. You're not actually aiming w/ a gun/toygun in your hand or a sight mounted on said gun/toygun/controller. I thought the shooting games on it that I played were lousy because of the way the controller controls the cursor w/ no aiming mechanism other than on screen.

I'd think any of the "lightgun" games for the various other systems would be better. Stuff like the older Virtua Cop or old/new Time Crisis games, etc...

Two words: Time Crisis.

P.S.

Bring quarters.

Vast quantities of rolls of quarters.

Like trash-bags full.

On a wagon or wheelbarrow (extra holsters need not apply).

Oh, speaking of Time Crisis, our bowling alley just got this new video game that uses miniature subguns complete with felt recoil and a ratcheting sound as it's fired. Pretty slick.

Here it is...'Ghost Squad'. I see it's available for Wii as well.

Of course it helps, the military uses simulators after all. Airsoft guns can also help, militaries also use bb guns for training. If you can't make the conceptual leap from simulator to real weapon and scenario you're going to lose any violent encounter anyway. It's really funny to hear the way some people object about simulators and training aids not being realistic. Yeah, sure. In their day they did force on force training against live opponents with live ammo. Oh, and I'm also sure that having no training outside square range marksmanship is also a real boon when you find yourself in your first real life and death violent encounter.

It's a shame that lightgun-based games aren't more well developed for home systems. If they were I would probably buy a gaming console. You can buy arcade style multi-game lightgun systems but they cost a few thousand dollars. The simulator aspect would still be fun and useful but it would take a long time for ammo savings and convenience to defray the cost. It seems like a no-brainer in this age of expensive ammo, limited free time and cheap electronics to make a lightgun-based console and series of games specifically for the shooter community. It would be trivial to make modular lightguns that have realistic weight and controls that correspond to any real firearm imaginable. Realistic trajectories and even terminal ballistics to some extent would be possible.

I've tried a few of the LEO shooting simulators, and it always annoyed me how poorly the shot-registration system worked. On one simulator I fired a three-round burst at nearly point-blank into an enemy, and achieved nothing. On others, you'd clearly see your shots hitting randomly throughout a huge circle of error.

The Army had a pretty good one based off the Super Nintendo to help teach BRM. It was called the multipurpose arcade combat simulator as I recall and it worked quite well.