Wii Are the Future

[jnikos [deprecated]]

The bow in TP doesn't require "true to life" motion to execute a shot. It uses the pointer to aim.

I remember reading at some point that firing a shot involves physically pulling the nunchuck back from the wiimote. Did that not turn out to be the case?

Also, to your point about a future catalog of games full of worthy titles, my thinking is that either these games will rely on the uniqueness of the Wii control scheme, in which case I just can't seem them ever rising above the level of gimicky, or they will not rely on said scheme, in which case they probably would have been better off coming out on one of the other consoles, or at the very least that they don't gain anything from being on the Wii

However an important upside to mention when thinking about all of this is that I've heard it said that the Wii is markedly cheaper to develop for than either of the other two. Depending on how true this turns out to be, it could definitely open up some exciting channels for more indie developers getting their products onto a platform other than the PC.

 

[Blaxton]

Yeah, originally they showed people doing the draw back motion in TP, but its not in the game. I suppose you could still do it if you want, but it wouldn't do anything.

Also, I had to look up the info on the power glove, haha.

Wind Waker was unfortunate because it just... looked so stupid. I tried to play it once and couldn't get through it for the same reason that you couldn't, LordCancer. I found out too late in the game that you can teleport places if you shoot this wind-god type thing with the bow. I played the game a second time years later, and I was able to complete it. Knowing about the teleporting made a big difference for me.

Metroid Prime was amazing, though. Except for a couple of control gripes, I thought it was amazing. It was, for me, the best game on the Cube.

And, yes, Jinikos, its been said that its a lot cheaper to develop for the Wii, you are right about that. That’s another reason why I'm hopeful that 3rd parties will do well with it.

I guess I just have a strong hope and belief that Nintendo is actually serious this time. They are actually trying to change a number of things that have made them perform poorly as a company as of late. But, they really are still that "other console". PS3 and Xbox 360 will have a lot of shared titles, but Nintendo is out of luck with that. Who knows, they are doing well now, but what’s coming up the next couple of years will really determine everything. I will maintain hope for them, though.

 

[Goofonian]

Depending on how true this turns out to be, it could definitely open up some exciting channels for more indie developers getting their products onto a platform other than the PC.

The biggest problem with this is that nintendo doesn't give indie developers dev kits. Or so I've heard. I imagine this probably has to do with quality control and all that BS that nintendo likes to have too much control over.
What I'm hoping will happen is that someone like valve will go to bat for the indies and convince nintendo to bring in, say, a steam shopping channel where you can go and buy and download indie games for cheap, and then valve can assist with filtering through the games to prevent it from becoming a dumping ground like the PC.

Developing for the wii is certainly less expensive then the alternatives, what do you think about the comments made by the spore developer during gdc, you know the wii is a piece of shit rant? Between the profanities he seems to express disappointment with the under powered cpu and the ability to implement advanced ai. How do you think this will impact what developers are fundamentally capable of doing with the wii beyond just the simple interface device the wii mote, does the under powered cpu prevent the devs from creating smarter games or will the games themselves be as simple as the wii-mote?

You know I actually think this guy had a point, its a shame he was forced to publicly apologise for it. Some of the new AI routines going around look like they would be amazingly processor intensive, and the processor in the wii is just not enough to keep up.
I mean, the graphics I'm not really fussed about. God of War 2 and Resident evil 4 look amazing on the old hardware, and wii is much more powerful than either of those. But what nintendo didnt seem to realise was that a new control scheme is not the only way forward for the industry at this point. Some of the new physics and AI coming along with the next generation of games is just as, if not more innovative than actually swinging the controller to hit a tennis ball. My opinion is that nintendo's decision was more based on it making good business sense for the company than it being the best way forward for the industry. After all, we are all in agreement that they weren't going to be able to compete with sony and microsoft if they continued the way they were going.

Fortunately, there is nothing stopping most of us from (wait for it) buying more than one console and experiencing ALL of the goodness that is gonna come out of the different directions that video games are heading in. Variety is, of course, the spice of life.

 

[Blaxton]

I think the guy was right, but he didn't really say things properly. He made claims that Nintendo did not take games seriously. There are many advances that games need to make before the average person will consider them art. I think an important step will be getting the average person to play games. I'm pretty dissappointed at the specs myself, but I think Nintendo is taking one of the many important paths that need to be explored before video games can gain respect from a wider audience. I take the Wii for what it is, not for what it isn't.

I like your closing point, Goofonian. I think that there would be less arguing over the downsides of each if everyone owned two, or perhaps all three, of the available consoles. I was reading, perhaps here at the escapist or perhaps another site, of a theory that suggested that video game fanboys are often created by an inability to own and play more than one console. It is an interesting point, to suggest that we try to put down the "grass is greener" feeling by suggesting that the systems we don't own aren't up to snuff with the one that we do. Personally, I only own a Wii right now. Depending on Mass Effect, BioShock, and a couple other key titles, I might end up buying a 360 at a later date. The PS3 is just out my price range. I can't justify spending that much on a console. When push comes to shove, I don't like to think of one as being better than the other, just different.

 

[TheBlaze [deprecated]]

Wii Are the Future

It wasn't designed for the Wii, and therefore feels like a misfit, in spite of it's shiny bits.

Permalink

That's the problem. It wasn't designed for the Wii. It was built for the Gamecube and basically a port to the Wii. Zelda: TP isn't the perfect example of how action games will handle the Wii control scheme. It's merely the first attempt at it's mechanics, and one that may not have had enough time to weed out the glitche before it was released.

Up until I believe 6 months to a year before the Wii was released, Nintendo was saying the game was going to be out for the Gamecube only. That means within that timeframe something changed, and within that timeframe they have to reconfigure the controls to make it work for the Wii. There just wasn't enough time.

 

[Bongo Bill]

Nintendo launched the console with a library whose intention it was to appeal to people for whom games, themselves, are a novelty. While that's a good way to go about expanding your market share, it means people who already know how to play are only going to find the controls novel - and the games themselves shallow and uninteresting. We've done it before, and the difference is that now we're doing it with controls that take ten minutes to get the hang of instead of... well, does anyone even know how hard it is to figure out how to use a Dual Shock from scratch? So of course we're not going to be pretty underwhelmed by the launch. Especially when the one title most designed to appeal to us was sort of welded onto the control scheme in the last four months of development.

The problem, for us, is a combination of factors. It's true to some extent that many developers haven't figured out a way to make a really deep game that plays well with the remote, but that doesn't mean that they've forgotten how to make deep games, period. Nintendo wanted the launch to focus on the party-games, because they are crazy enough to risk alienating the early adopters. And you certainly can't forget the launch-window doldrums that happen on every console. It's an exciting time to be a person just starting on a Wii, but a person who already knows how to use a joystick, less so.

The control scheme has not matured, yet. Games with mature design (which is what we want) will have to wait until the developers get familiar with the controllers as well. Fortunately, nobody's more familiar with them at this point than Nintendo's own first-parties, who, with the rate of their releases and development, look like they're trying to lead by example.

Next month we'll be seeing another Nintendo-(first-party-)made game that is mature in design, Super Paper Mario. This, at least, looks like they've done a much better job of adapting it to the remote than they did with Zelda. And not much longer after that, the first deep game designed from the ground up for Wii control, Metroid Prime 3. In the mean time, I'm not sure it's fair to judge a console by its launch lineup.

Since this seems to be the place to complain about Zelda, I'll toss in my two cents. Nintendo's said they don't want to leave the capital-G Gamers behind with the Wii, and, to that end, they've demonstrated (with Smash Bros. Brawl) that they're willing to make games that completely toss aside the remote, understanding that not all games work with any interface. So why, then, wasn't there at least an option to use a Gamecube controller with Zelda, if we preferred? Aiming with the remote was great, but a flick of the wrist to swing the sword does get old after a while, and it'd be nice to be able to change things up whenever I want. I felt that I had completely insufficient information on which to base the decision of which version to get.

 

[Blaxton]

Interesing question at the end, Bongo Bill. I wonder how that would have impacted Wii sales. Would people have compared the two and deemed them too similar to bother upgrading the console? I wonder. I would have liked the option, intent on a Wii anyway.

I think it would have been better if they used the pointer more and the motion sensing for different things. I thought that I would be able to control the fairy and use it for Z targeting, but you can't. I found myself using the A jump attack a lot more than swinging the remote.

I think that we are going to have to wait a while before we see it being used "properly". Good post, Bongo.