Slashdot Mirror
Wii-mote In Action
Jack Lancer writes "Gameworld Network (which is either a network of gameworlds or a gameworld of networks) has
posted an epic collection of streaming E3 videos which clearly depicts each and every playable Wii game and how exactly one has to swing, wave, shake, point, wiggle and/or jostle the Wiimote in order to play." And once again this poses the question — is this the future of gaming UI? Sure seems like a great idea for a FPS.
Umm...the part where it can detect motion in three-dimensions and replicate them in the game-world?
Did you watch the videos? The movements look pretty fluid and definitely not overcompensated.
I was lucky enough to get to try it out on Metroid Prime in NY on a modified GC, and I can honestly say the control is great. All the FPS fans who were bagging on the Wii in favor of their favorite console Sony or MS will be in for a real surprise.
I will say however, at E3, that there were no real standout games or "must haves" from what I have seen and played so far. Excitetruck is fun, but nothing new, and Mario Galaxy controls like a dream but is a bit too gimmicky. Red Steel is an ABSOLUTE DUD. Don't buy into the hype, it is pure crap. Zelda is a mess to control, the aiming and controls seriously need tweaked and made to be a shitload more forgiving especially aiming the bow and arrow. Wii Sports and Hudson's flying game are the two main games so far that have me interested.
These are just my opinions and based on unfinished and beta games/hardware. So are everyone elses, take them for what they are and realize that I'm being as fair and honest as possible.
http://teasphere.wordpress.com - A little spot of tea
the biggest FUD about the Wiimote is that people NEED to make big movements.
When people play the tennis game, for example, for the first time and are told to move as if it's real, that's because it's the simplest and most intuitive way of explaining the control mechanism to them. It doesn't mean you have to play with big realistic motions. They can play instantly, whereas if you start saying things like "to do a backhand with topspin make a curving motion with the controller tilted inwards" it just makes things sound complicated.
So don't worry: you can play the Wii sitting down and making small movements just as well as you can standing up and swinging your arms about.
The Metroid Prime 3 demo had 2 sensitivity settings. Most people playing on the standard setting weren't very impressed, but those playing on the higher sensitivity loved it.
Considering the PS3 has a motion sensitive controller too, you may want to go ahead and get the Xbox.
Still IMing in the stone age?
There's always the classic controller and if all else fails, I remember reading that there will be inputs for gamecube controllers on the side somewhere. So don't give up on the Wii yet!
http://www.digifuzz.net
The mouse and keyboard is perfection but it would be cool if there was an alternative even for a more emmersive factor.
6 3&pid=928517
I posted this awhile back on digg on the topic:
What I'd like to hear is just exactly how the wii controller works with a fps.
We all know the venerable mouse/keyboard combo is the superior method for most, with consoles lacking in the precision using a dual analog method.
I'm trying to picture exactly how a fps would work with I assume would be the nunchuck mode.
So the addon part of the controller would replace the wasd, but how would the actual aiming work.
Because what's perfect with the mouse is, you can position it slowly for accurate aiming, or whip it around to do a quick 180'. Now the thing is when one does this quick movement of the mouse, you have to lift the mouse to recenter it, how would that work when translated to the wii?
In one scenario I can picture the motion sensing tracking where your aiming and the onscreen gun actually remains center like a traditional fps and just your view changes.
This works fine when facing one direction, but say you want to quickly turn around? Wouldn't one end up not facing the screen if they simulate a turning around motion? Because the problem is, how do you simulate the lifting of the mouse to recenter?
Or they could make it that the onscreen gun is 'free floating' and can aim at the edge of the screen, and you could use the analog stick to actually change orientation or by aiming at the far edge of the screen, your view rotates. But I could see that being a fixed speed, kind of like rotating in descent.
So even though this controller looks really cool, and might add some truely new styles of gameplay, I'm curious how the nunchuk fairs with a fps. I think it's obvious that it's going to be superior to console's dual analog history of controlling fps's, but can it match a mouse? Or maybe the added 'submersion' by just playing with the controller would make up for any shortcomings?
And someone directed me to this article:
http://www.gamespot.com/e3/e3story.html?sid=61502
A relevant bit:
"Before getting too much further into describing the demo level, we'll talk about how the control scheme is handled in Corruption. The game uses the remote-plus-nunchuk configuration, where you'll want to use the remote in your dominant hand, as that is what handles aiming. Simply point the remote at the screen to aim Samus' arm cannon. The cursor actually moves within the screen, instead of being fixed to the center of the screen as with most first-person shooters. This makes it possible to aim and fire at something you see without moving Samus, but the tradeoff is that your ability to turn quickly is compromised. To turn, you'll need to move the cursor all the way to the edge of the screen, at which point Samus will begin turning. There's definitely a learning curve involved with getting used to how the Wii controller works for aiming, but thankfully you can press on the Z trigger on the nunchuk to lock on to a target, which keeps the interface feeling somewhat consistent with previous Prime games. The lock-on only works if you have an enemy somewhat close to the center of the screen, so it's not exactly a crutch--and lock-on won't work on very fast-moving targets, plus enemies can often break out of target lock by dodging back and forth."
"We did have some trouble here and there when the sensors seemed to have trouble reacquiring the signal whenever we put our hands down--finding that invisible plane where the sensor wants your hands to be can be a little tricky or frustrating if you put your hands down for any reason."
That certainly doesn't sound like a revolutionary way to play a fps, esp if it has a need to give the player a button to lock on to enemies. Sounds like it getting around the same old limitations that console controllers have when playing a fps.
And I haven't seen the vids yet, I'll check them out now, but I don't think the wii will revolutionize the fps.
You also have to take into account that the Wii dev kit is $2000, compared to the 360's $20 000 price tag. As such, poor media arts students like me can afford to use it as a practical application of their class work.
Actually, you can end a sentence with "off" and other prepositions. The idea of not ending English sentences with prepositions is a relatively new one, as opposed to being "classical" grammar. Moreover, it was simply imported from Latin into modern English without any reason other than the belief that Latin was more erudite somehow.
Of course, besides that, your sentence "...finally paying off." actually isn't ending on a preposition at all: it's ending on a verb-phrase. "Paying off" is a single unit, a verb-phrase that sits in a sentence as a normal verb. You can see this because you can seamlessly replace this verb-phrase with a synonymous single verb (e.g. "succeeding"), resulting in an equally clear and identical in meaning sentence ("...finally succeeding.").
"Stumble before you crawl"
3 dimensions, 6 degrees of freedom. More than 3 dimensions would require the manipulation of time and/or some string theory dimensions.
Unless they're playing Wario Ware Twisted!...
IF Nintendo sticks to what they were talking about, each Nintendo game avalible for download on there will be upgraded aswell.
If you ever played them, think of Super Mario All-stars on the SNES or the Super Mario Advance titles on the GBA, updated sprites, updated sounds maybe even some improvments and changes to stages just so it feels new.
The one's on XBLA are just ports of arcade versions to the xbox with online play added, that's it.
Now as I said, that's IF Nintendo does what they said they are planning on doing.
Two Points:
All it takes is a serious price drop in the PS3 and a "similar" controller to take away two of Nintendos strongest advantages
There has never been a major add on for a console that has done particularly well; best case is that 10% of people who own your system will buy the add on, thus after a system has left the store it is complete. Also, expect the PS3's first price drop to put it in the $400 range, and their second price drop to put it in the $300 range; thus it will be 12-18 months before it is an expensive console, and 24-36 months before it is reasonably priced (they will never compete on price with the Wii because by then the Wii will probably be $99-$149).
The HUGE disadvantage it has is its performance compared to a year old 360 and even more to the PS3.
Honestly, how do you know there is a Huge performance disadvantage? When the XBox 360 was at E3 last year most of their games looked as bad as anything we've seen on the Wii (even most PS3 games looked pretty plain this year); what sold the power of the PS3/XBox 360 was videos of games that have yet to be released.
What we do know about the Wii's hardware is that it has a Custom Power PC based CPU and a Custom GPU that are both produced using a 0.09um process (as compared to the 0.18um process used on the Gamecube). Being that I don't think Nintendo through away a bunch of money to IBM and ATI you could make conservative estimates that the Wii has a CPU in the 2GHz range, that it handles 2 threads at a similar level (performance per cycle) as the Gamecube did, thus the CPU would be about 8 times as powerful; you could assume similar theoritical performance gains from the Wii's GPU. A rumor I have heard from reliable people is that Nintendo does not believe that games should be too focused on photorealism and that building complicated shaders for that purpose is a waste of money; thus the rumor implies that the Wii's shader performance is only about twice what the original XBox's shader performance is. Basically, you'd have enough power to do some cool shader effects on items but would not have the necessary power required for full normal mapping and material effects through-out a scene.
The FUD originiates because when Nintendo gives the basic explanation, people think that the only way to control the tennis game through fluid movements. Nintendo's PR department actually feverishly denies that this is the only control method. They want to emphasize that all games save for things like WarioWare can be played with ver conservative moements, so that you don't get exhausted playing zelda for 18 hours straight- well, any more exhausted than you did with OOT anyway...