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The Wiimote As Yoda Intended - A Lightsaber
An anonymous reader writes "So what if the Wii can't handle the awesome 'next-generation' physics engine the other consoles will enjoy when Star Wars: The Force Unleashed is released? LucasArts announced today that Krome Studios is developing a version of the game for the Nintendo console, and players will finally get to use the Wiimote for its intended purpose — as a lightsaber. 'The sword-swinging action will be exclusive to the Wii version, and even then, it will only be available in an exclusive "duel mode." The description in the release says that this duel mode will be a multiplayer affair.'"
to welcome our wiimote toting sith overlords.
Under the influence of Post-Cyberpunk Gonzo Journalism
Arrr! I be thinking it be more fun to have an actual lightsabre, be it plastic I don't be carin', with the Wii controller attached some way, so ye be hackin' and slashin' (and no small bit o' swashbucklin'!) to the dulcet tones of sommon bellowin' 'Hey, you could poke an eye out with that thing!'
We be needing cutlasses and some fing piratin' adventures, too. oX|P-)
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
It's not the size of your swartz but what you can do with it!
So will the rest of the game rely on poorly coded waggle controls to get by? I like the concept, but this has got to be hard to code, and if it is not handled correctly, we are only going to end up with another crappy Star Wars game. Instead of giving us Wii owners bad ports with waggle controls added, I think LucasArts has two options. 1) Make sure the controls work, and work well. 2) Stop the bad ports, and give us updated versions of classic LucasArts games, like Monkey Island, Maniac Mansion, and others.
'... and even then, it will only be available in an exclusive "duel mode."' Err, isn't that a bad thing?
This is a great move, but it still treats the Wii as an afterthought, with a unique multiplayer module tacked on to the core game. I'll still be pining for a real lightsaber game.
Always someone has power over you. The thing to consider is this: Is the power good, or bad?
Both the nunchucks and the normal Wii remote have a motion sensor.
Sure, using the nunchuck to use the Force is a cool idea, but being able to play as Darth Maul has its attraction as well.
My prayers be answered, mateys! An' as surely as the Pirates o' tha Carribean game be flawed an' misguided, truly this will lead ya scurvy Wii-dogs to the promised land o' riches!
Militant Agnostic: "I don't know, and damn it, neither do you!"
How long before something similar could be put to use on a PC, for 3D/CG manipulation?
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
A killer ap? I think so.
How do you get force feedback on those things?
You'll never know if you hit something. I'm a sword fencer (2 kg bastard sword) and the experience is much more tactile then visual. Even if you consider that light sabres are much lighter than a real sword and don't have bars to protect your hand I doubt if fencing with a light sabre wii control will live up tu the experience of real fencing - even if it's just for show.
-- Put crudely, the world is an extremely large problem instance. (Russel/Norvig Artificial Intelligence)
Ok... ignore that... Seriously - how will it handle? Any Wii owner will tell you they were very disapointed with Red Steel, so is the light saber action only going to have 3 or so programmed swings or is it going to be 100% interactive?
That is what will make this "cool".
The logistics of lightsabers always intrigued me... some possibilities:
- How fast can they turn off and back on? By timing it right you could bypass a parry but turning it off...
- Lightsabre trap... to stop others from using it, make it look like the other end is the business end.
- While most other forms seem silly (especially the two-ended staff), putting it on a long pole would be of definite advantage in some situations. But why stop there? Can you imagine a pair of light-sabre nunchuku? HOw about a garden rake with one stuck on the end? Or why not a boomerang with twin-sabre action that turns them on a few seconds after it leaves your hand, then back off when it returns... the possibilities are endless..
"Waste not one watt!" - CZ
Avast! I can hardly wait to smite you scallywags and keelhaul ya'.
Just ask the good Jedi how they feel about "Balance" now...
"I have something here for you. Your father wanted you to have this when you were old enough, but your uncle wouldn't allow it. He feared you might follow old Obi-Wan on some damn fool idealistic computer adventure like your father did. It's your father's WiiMote. This is the weapon of a Wii Knight. Not as clumsy or as random as a Joystick, but an elegant weapon for a more civilized age. For over a thousand generations, the Wii Knights were the guardians of peace and justice in the Old Republic. Before the dark times, before the PS3."
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
So, what they are actually saying is that they are adding a tacked on, last minute, third party mode. Then they are going to point to it and say "see we gave everyone what they were yelling for" and when no one is happy with it LucasArts is going to be all smug and start talking about how it shows the Wii was not a viable platform to start with. It is no secret that LucasArts hasn't been a big fan of the Wii because of the less powerful graphics. This is more of a slap in the face than a real attempt to port it to the Wii.
I wonder how they've approached making this work. Physics of swordplay aside, sword fighting is not easy. (Hint, *real* swordfighting doesn't look like the movies, and you can't pick it up in a couple afternoons swinging sticks at your friends.) If their simulation of sword movements is true to how each player is swinging their Wiimote, I think people may get frustrated very quickly by the fact that they're going to suck. On the other hand, if the controls are simplified to allow a preset handful of attacks, I wonder how much depth they can provide to the game.
Any plan which depends on a fundamental change in human behavior is doomed from the start.
"I always thought of the wiimote as REALLY intended for something way more sexually explicit..."
You'd better disable the rumble feature before you chip your teeth!
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
"I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in pleasure and were suddenly silenced by some mind numbing device. I fear something wonderful has happened."
or is it going to be 100% interactive?
If, as I hope it to be, it is 100% interactive, will you be able to kill your own character by tilting the wiimote towards you?
This article from pro-g has a better analysis of the news event.
People dueling each other using the Wii remote better be prepared to stand pretty close to each other. The Wii remote range isn't that far horizontally.
The duel area wouldn't include the whole room you're playing in, which would be a really nice feature for a fun duel. In these duels, I can already visualize standing in front of the TV with a limited area in which to duel. I guess the fact it feels like you're swinging a lightsaber makes up for that but still...
Anyone else slightly disturbed how how closely the copy in TFS follows the write up at Kotaku?
I mean, it links to Next-Gen which is fine, but if your summary lifts more than 50% of the phrases word-for-word, maybe you should be linking that, too.
More Twoson than Cupertino
I always thought a wiffle ball bat worked fine for a light saber. Then again, I was about 8 the last time Star Wars seemed interesting.
Fencing has a set of standard moves that could be modeled on the wiimote. These include the foil and epee forms that involve stabbing motions as well as the sabre form which involves cutting motions. The combination of these forms would provide a rich set of moves that would have some basis in real sword-fighting. On the downside, I have yet to figure out how to summon force lightning while fencing.
In soviet Mordor, Han used the wiimote first.
Who is John Galt?
It be what the wii was made for, nay?
SQL programmer goes to a bar. Walks up to two tables and says 'Excuse me, may I join you?'.
They just singlehandedly made 2007 a good year! :)
The Wii remote can do one-to-one motion mapping in 3d space. Look at the bat in Wii sports for an example. When you are ready to swing you can waggle it above your shoulder and the motion is mapped to your on-screen character. Metroid has some motion mapping controls as well when interacting with controls in the game. Your hand is Samus's hand and the control is one-to-one analog.
Also see ExciteTruck. The remote is used sideways and maps two axis of motion to control steering and the attitude of the truck in the air.
There was something like this in that masterpiece film Johnny Mnemonic (whose brain could carry a whopping 80 gigs of data!). The bad guy had this device the size of a ring that sits on his finger, and when he pulls out one end, it creates this laser rope that will cut through anything.
I would love to play this game with the sword tracking the Wiimote...
"There are people who do not love their fellow human being, and I _hate_ people like that!" - Tom Lehrer
A perfect advertisement for this is to show what you might look like while playing this game.
There was a time when Lucas made games of striking individuality and imagination. Maniac Mansion, Monkey Island, Grim Fandango. The spaghetti western shooter Outlaws. There is a generation of gamers coming of age - already of age - whose fantasies have been shaped by J.K. Rowling. The Phoenix Wand and the Deathstick.
I hope they mean offline multiplayer. The Wiimote latency is bad enough. If I have a lightsaber I dont want it going through a plastic straw.
http://siokaos.org/
My first thought is I wan to wield two at once. Wondering if Wii supports 4 remotes? I'm sure this isn't built into the functionality of the game, but hey it can't stop me from "dueling myself". Also I would really like the ability to kill yourself with the Wii-mote. Hari-kari anyone?
You know what they say about the Wiimote. Swinging leads to strap breaking, strap braking leads to throwing, throwing leads to Injury. I see many injuries in the future of this game.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NE5elL30w4
Not sure if this is a joke or not, but yes, the Wiimote is tracked in 3D space. The Wiimote uses the sensor-bar (a bar containing multiple infrared beacons that you place on top of, or underneath, the TV) to determine its approximate location, and sends this information back using Bluetooth to the Wii. The only issue with this is you have to point the Wiimote towards the bar (and clear line of sight must be maintained between the Wiimote and the bar.)
I remember being fairly impressed by an early video of the Wii which, uncharacteristically given its more recent family friendly publicity, included a shot of a gamer holding a sword to a victim's throat. As the Wiimote was moved, so was the sword.
It's an extremely impressive device. Oh, and if you can get a sensor bar (third party models exist), there are drivers to get Wiimotes working on PCs, albeit experimentally at the moment. In the medium term I can see PC games being released that support them.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
I am skeptical. The biggest red flag is that this is a multi-console game with extra features tacked on for the Wii. But I also have doubts about their ability to create a satisfying light saber experience with the Wiimote. When you have only accelerometers at your disposal, you won't be able to precisely wave the light saber left and right. Instead you'll only be able to register tilts and forces. This means that while it might recognize that you are holding the Wiimote horizontally, it won't ever know the position of the saber in relation to your body, and it won't necessarily have enough information to make a smooth transition to that point. There's a reason a lot of games have glitchy Wiimote support. For things like sword fighting, it really needs some gyroscopes.
Force feedback is not necessary if you simply reward the player for "following" the movements of the lightsaber and punishing them when they don't. (This includes coming to a stop when it hits something like another lightsaber.) The reward/punishment can take the form of greater responsiveness. For example, if the player doesn't stop their follow-through when they are blocked by another lightsaber, the game could have the avatar pause for a fraction of a second. (In some Star Wars content, Lightsabers are supposed to have some sort of "gyroscopic" effect, so there is some resistance to swinging them.) Part of a character's leveling up could be an increase in the speed the lightsaber is allowed to swing. Or, you could use this as another form of feedback for the player -- the better the player "follows" the lightsaber being blocked, the faster the avatar and lightsaber follows the user's movements.
Just reward the user with greater responsiveness if they don't follow-through when they are blocked. Cause the avatar to "pause" when the lightsaber is blocked, and make the pause more pronounced when the user really gets out of sync. Conversely, give them more responsiveness the more they "play nice" or follow what is happening on screen. You can also use this technique to enforce a "speed limit" on how fast the user can swing the Wiimote around, which makes playing safer, and might even improve gameplay. Fights will be more tactical and less twitch. Raising this "speed limit" would be one way of leveling the avatar up.
Building this into the training stages will be easy, and would even improve the narrative of lots of Star Wars and fantasy genre games.
Okay. You're wrong.
It's not like the wiimote is being tracked in 3 space with 6 degrees of freedom. You can't map the game lightsaber position to the position of the wiimote as you are holding it.
No, it's exactly like that.
Yes please.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I'm not as interested in fighting another sword (tho that is sort of cool) as I am in the aspect of blocking blaster shots. I wonder what kind of UI they could give you that would allow you to do that and feel like you were really doing it. In the film world a blaster shot is slower than light (maybe even slower than a bullet) but still extremely fast.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
The Smoker?
No, I think it's you who needs to spend more time on wikipedia, reading this page...
The AACS key is NOT 0xF606EEFD628B1CA427BEA93A9CA9773F
I have a bad feeling about this.
...as if millions of overweight fanboys jumped for joy and then landing very heavily all at once.
*runs*
...Asajji Ventress. Supposedly the sabre set she was given by Count Dooku had an attachable/detachable cable for hot Nunchaku Sabre action. I seem to remember this showing up in one of the games.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
Mod parent +1 Lame!
the sword to victims throat clip was from Red Steel.
When the game eventually came out, it had sword fighting but NOT 1/1 mapping between the sword and the wiimote - instead you made gestures, and then watched at the character performed predefined moves. The submit move was a predefined animation. It was REALLY not an enjoyable experience.
It's an extremely impressive device. Oh, and if you can get a sensor bar (third party models exist), there are drivers to get Wiimotes working on PCs, albeit experimentally at the moment. In the medium term I can see PC games being released that support them.
I actually use Remote Buddy to control my Mac mini (which is hooked up to my HD beamer) with a Wii remote. It's become my main media box (think TVShows and remote-controlled iTunes via Chicken of the VNC) and gaming console (think MAME). The Wii Remote + Mac mini combination is simply awesome.
The funny part is that you did move your sword 1:1, except when you slashed at the opponent :-(
No but you will be able to commit the most embarrassing death of a Jedi ever by accidentally swinging it through your neck.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
Yup, I can well imagine. It's always awkward moving from the Wii to the DVR, because all of a sudden you go from this fantastic, 100% intuitive, point-and-click interface to a kludgy buttons-on-a-remote thing. The maintainers of MythTV might do well to note this, and fix the mouse issues with mythfrontend, right now it barely works (as in many buttons don't respond, or do the opposite of what they're supposed to if you use the mouse) presumably because they expect everyone to be using button-remotes, but if MythTV users started using a Wiimote instead, it might actually result in a more usable DVR that's better than TiVo's or Dish Network's.
Perhaps Nintendo should encourage TV makers to build in the sensor bars.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
In the Star Wars Universe, even though a lightsaber blade has no weight, there is a strong gyroscopic effect created by the mechanism that produces the blade. Just as the gyroscopic motion of a bicycle wheel prevents it from changing orientation quickly (thereby helping you stay upright once you are moving), a lightsaber exhibits resistance when you swing it around. This gyroscopic resistance simulates the momentum that must be overcome when swinging a heavy blade.
If you'd ever handled a real lightsaber, you'd know. Duh.
I actually switched from an Ubuntu box running MythTV to the Mac mini. I lost the DVR, but I live in Europe, so we get all the good shows a year later anyways, which means I never actually used it once the novelty wore off... I never tried to use the MythTV frontend with the mouse, I had a keyboard hooked up to it.
And yeah, TVs with built-in sensor bars would be neat. It's not like it would be a whole lot of work, and the size of the built-in sensor bar could be adapted to the size of the TV screen.
If they're smart, they'll do a second controller you strap onto your other hand so you can do force push/pull/throw on things.
If they could do a package like that, with a saber and some back-of-the-hand strapon (shut up!) I'd buy it.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
I remember he also used it at a 6 or so inch setting to suprise someone who was holding him from behind. Turned it on at an angle and it went though the guys thigh.
Well I've wrestled with reality for thirty five years doctor, and I'm happy to say I finally won out over it.