On Fine-Tuning Wii Controls

MTV Games has a great article looking at how developers are refining Wii controls, now that they've had most of a year to work on them. The game cited is the Wii version of Marvel: Ultimate Alliance; the Wiimote is used to represent Thor's Hammer, Spidey's webshooters, and Wolverine's claws, among other things. From the article: "'Now in some cases people will do something that's not going to work right, and in that case they're probably going to have to adjust the way they do it,' said Chrzanowski, a black Wii development controller in hand. 'But that's a rare case.' He wasn't talking idly. He said a system developed by a Vicarious colleague, Jesse Raymond, a few weeks ago has been crunching the data of dozens of players who have tested the game on the Wii, analyzing the results of requests for players to do 10 swipes in a row or 10 stabs in a row, recognizing which moves the current version of the game fails to recognize as the intended gesture, tweaking the code, checking the pool of data from the gesture trials again for any new misunderstandings, repeat and recode, again and again."

Comments

Pah.

[jb.hl.com]

I can control where my Wii goes perfectly. Don't need no fine tuning here.

(I've stooped to making a urine/Wii joke on Slashdot. This is truly the stuff of suicide notes. :P)

I am in heaven

[UbuntuDupe]

Not only are they going to have lightsabers, but now:

Spidey's webshooters, and Wolverine's claws

Seems there's no limit to the possibilities. You can act out whatever superhero or whatnot fantasy you've had. Hack up zombies with chainsaws holstered to your arms? Have a Wiimote strapped to the back of your wrist to operate like Boba Fett's cord launcher? "Punch enemies" realistically? Have a Wiimote on each limb for a more complex version of DDR that can detect 3D body motions? Why not!

I'm really interested to see what developers will put on the market. (of what they'll let hobbyists do...)

Re:I am in heaven

[MBCook]

DDR nothing, I can't wait for Punchout Wii. One in each hand, REAL boxing type moves. You can block, punch, uppercut, jab, etc. That would rule. Also, have you seen the Madden video going around? Neither of those tends to be my kind of game but I'll have to try 'em out anyway.

Re:I am in heaven

[Rude Turnip]

I'm waiting for a Wiimote-enabled 3D version of Joust, where you have a Wiimote in each hand and have to flap your arms and run around the room. The real value would be in watching someone play the game.

Re:I am in heaven

[7Prime]

Fuck Harry Potter... this would actually make the Wind Waker FUN!!!

It's like the DS.

[Lave]

Initially, with it's relatively weak graphics, and the difficulty for developers to craft new games that utilised the touch screen the DS looked to flaunder next to the much stronger graphical power of the PSP. However the unoriginal content and expensive disk medium that was crippled with bad load times (let alone battery life issues) held the PSP back.

To me that sounds prophetic. I think the Wii will get a bad reception - based on the graphical inequality of the software and the (percieved) difficulties 3rd parties will have utilising the Remote. But as that experience grows believe developers will be able to create a catalogue of games that can't be acquired anywhere else - and the Wii will really shine.

Re:It's like the DS.

[grumbel]

I'm pretty sure all of them are using the Wiimote in interesting ways.

Some will use the Wiimote in interesting ways, but all of them, no way. I wouldn't be suprised if half the launch titles turn out to be rather shitty normal-gameplay games quick&dirtily adopted to the Wiimote. For example Tony Hawk Downhill Jam only uses the Wiimote as analogstick replacement, not for anything exciting, which might mean that it actually plays worse with Wiimote then with a normal controller (Wiimote doesn't auto-center like analogstick, so controls could get pretty imprecise).

We will for sure see lots of interesting games on the Wii, but we will for sure also see a lot of bad ones. DS had its fair share of junk and the touchscreen is a lot easier to manage then a 3D Wiimote.

Zelda: TLP & Red Steel

[ShadowsHawk]

It will be interesting to see the difference between a Nintendo game and an Ubisoft game. I expect that it will shed a bit of light on how well the 3rd party studios handle a new style of development.

Can't Wait to see the cheat codes

[Anonymous Coward]

After playing through a game it is often fun to fire up gamefaqs and see just what stupid things you can do with cheat codes, now I just can't wait to see how you input them!

"Ok, to turn on god mode you need to hold down "B" and "Z" draw a pentacle, a hexagon, and then flip the controller back and forth 5 times"

hehe

Re:Can't Wait to see the cheat codes

[Khyber]

My head a'splode thinking of trying to do Konami's new version of "up up down down left right left right b a start" already. I have the feeling I'd end up looking like I'm playing with myself the wrong way.

And what's more...

[RyoShin]

I can't for the life of me remember which article stated it, but I read an article talking about the differences in multi-platform games. Apparently, on the 360/PS3, you can map certain actions to certain buttons, but you never have full immediate access to all moves for all characters.

With the Wii, where every movement in a different direction is a mappable button unto itself, you have immediate access to every move for every character based on the motions.

Too bad Nintendo's so family oriented...

[murphotronic]

I'm sure the porn industry could do quite well with interactive motion controllers...