This Year's Top Game Design Innovations

Next Generation has one of those end of the year 'top 10' lists we all love so much, with plenty of room for discussion on this one. They claim to have picked out the top 10 game design innovations of 2007. It's hard to argue with elements like Portal's portals or Mass Effect's conversation wheel, but was Metroid Prime 3 on the Wii really as good as a mouse-and-keyboard PC FPS? "When people ask 'How do we make a good shooter on a console' what they really mean is 'how do we make a shooter that feels as quick and responsive as a PC shooter on the console?' Apparently the answer is the Wii mote. I was blown away by this fact. Nintendo had always been the 'family friendly' console to me so I didn't consider the FPS ramifications of the Wiimote but clearly it's the best tool for the job. With some tweaking and some refinement down the line I could see the Wii (or a console with Wii like controls) becoming the platform of choice for hardcore FPSers, even over the PC. If this does become the case it will owe it all to Metroid Prime 3."

Comments

Wii FPS controls

[moderatorrater]

The only reason this is controversial is because the wiimote doesn't have good enough aim. It's often off by an inch or more on smaller tv's. This is hard on hard core FPS fans, but for me this isn't a problem. First, between wrestling with the auto-aim feature on a lot of shooters and using two analog sticks to control my movement and aim, I find correcting for the wiimote's bad aim to be easy by comparison. I'd rather have faster, more responsive aim that's off by a consistent amount than have to use a regular controller.

Re:Wii FPS controls

[Gravatron]

Controlling with the analog sticks in indeed something of an annoyance, but its not a game ender if done right. Autoaim can be just as bad at time. A happy medium between the two often works well though.

Of course, you could also pull a Sony and just let the developers code for keyboard/mouse support, like they allowed with the ps2 and ps3. It seems alot of developers aren't making use of that functionality for some reason, beyond UT3's use of it. Why? No idea.

Re:Wii FPS controls

[G Fab]

I completely disagree, my friend.

"was Metroid Prime 3 on the Wii really as good as a mouse-and-keyboard PC FPS?" This is an absurd question. The wiimote is twitchy as all get out. I know a bunch of people love Metroid 3, so I have to acknowledge that, even if I hate it, it's a successful and good product, but man that game is just not that good. I prefer the dual analog sticks, slow as they are, for moving about a 3d world, if I can't have a mouse. Also, the graphics on Metroid just seem pretty weak to me (and yeah, I know a lot of people think they are excellent).

I guess I may just have weird tastes in this, and more power to Nintendo for the new ideas, but I own Metroid 3 and most other major wii games (well, my kids do), and I really don't like them that much. They are basically obvious motion adaptations of well worn and nostalgic Nintendo greats. That's a solid biz model, but top design innovation? Well, ok, maybe it is, but only because there aren't many real innovations out there. This is like including the powerglove with all NESs. yeah, it's different.

And is a wiimote better than a sixaxis (granting that Sony gets no innovation points for knocking off the wiimote)? I guess. If you point it at the TV, it aims and twitches, and that's a feature only teh wii has, but is this a good feature or just a unique feature? Games like HVB are showing that the sixaxis can be pretty damn nice in the hands of a competent programmer (so sad that this is one of the best PS3 games, huh?).

Wii mote in first person shooters

[Lazerf4rt]

There's no way the Wii mote compares to a mouse and keyboard for shooters.

The only reason it's usable at all in Metroid Prime 3 is because the Z button auto-locks your view onto the target.

If it wasn't for that feature, the controls would be hopeless.

Re:Wii mote in first person shooters

[HalAtWork]

You're way off base here. The way I play Metroid 3 is on the most sensitive setting with no lock-on targetting... The only time I ever use the lock-on button at all is because when you hold that button down, it locks your movement into strafe, which makes it simple to walk across straight and narrow areas like tiny bridges or whatever... or if I want to jump a lot but still want to be facing forwards. Even then, when lock-on mode is turned on in this way, you can still move the targetting reticle around to aim at different areas of the screen, all it does is it freezes the screen in the direction it was in when you pressed the button... you still have to aim at what you want to shoot at.

Re:Wii mote in first person shooters

[edwdig]

On the default "n00b setting", yes it does this. On "Advanced" the Z button locks the camera on a specific target, but gives you free range shooting ability anywhere. This is the way it should be played.

Advanced sensitivity + Z lock for me. It's an adventure game, not a shooter. Why make disposing of the wildlife time consuming when the terrain is your real enemy?

Wii Controls are already better than PC.

[trdrstv]

The only reason this is controversial is because the wiimote doesn't have good enough aim. It's often off by an inch or more on smaller tv's. This is hard on hard core FPS fans, but for me this isn't a problem. First, between wrestling with the auto-aim feature on a lot of shooters and using two analog sticks to control my movement and aim, I find correcting for the wiimote's bad aim to be easy by comparison. I'd rather have faster, more responsive aim that's off by a consistent amount than have to use a regular controller.

I didn't have that issue with a big screen. I wonder where that line really diverges, is it bad on say 19" TV, but Sweet at 42"+ ? Dunno. It was pretty easy for me to pick off people in the distance on my projector and I have a 92" screen on that.

I know I'll get flamed to hell for this, but unlike the article I think the Wii Controls are already better than the PC's (and there is still room for improvement*). The Advanced sensitivity on Metroid Prime 3 is "Nearly, but not quite as sensitive as a mouse", but for what little sensitivity is lost, the Analog on the Nunchuck kicks the shit out of WASD, and there is simply nothing that can compare on the PC with the visceral immersion of the Grapple gun.

Using your left arm to throw a grapple on you're opponent's shield, then jerking your arm back to pull the shield out of their hand so you can blast them with your arm cannon is something you can't get elsewhere. Add that with full analog movement, and you have an experience that not only rivals, but betters the competition.

*Games are already improving on the design, play Medal of Honor Heroes 2 and customize your aim sensitivity to achieve mouse level precision if you like.

Re:Wii Controls are already better than PC.

[trdrstv]

*Games are already improving on the design, play Medal of Honor Heroes 2 and customize your aim sensitivity to achieve mouse level precision if you like.

almost every PC shooter allow you to customize your mouse sensitivity, from Quake to Counter Strike... Dont know what PC gamers would ever do without that. But Medal of Honor did innovate upon the shooting scheme but allowing you to manually look over covers at the direction you want.

Sorry if I was unclear. I was not commenting on customization as an innovation in this particular game, rather I was commenting on how MoH Heroes 2 (with its' customization options) can actually reach mouse levels of sensitivity on the Wii, and how that was an improvement on the Metroid Prime 3's (Still wonderful) controls.

Thanks.

Re:Wii Controls are already better than PC.

[grumbel]

By that definition an aim-bot is by far the best controller you can get.

Re:Wii Controls are already better than PC.

[vux984]

but if it doesn't make you a better player it's crap

Except that the controller doesn't exist separately from the game, and games are designed around controllers.

Consider how you move, jump, and climb, in an FPS with wasd? Its all *automated*! You run to a ladder and push forward and your avatar slings his gun and climb upwards. The designer removed all sorts of things from having to individually move your feet and arms and coordinate those actions, to having to sling your gun.

The holodeck sim has let the designer put all that stuff back in, and made the experience more immersive. So now if you pit a holodeck player against a keyboard and mouse player, but forced the keyboard and mouse player to individually move hands, feet, fingers, torso, etc, they'd be almost unable to move.

So, the keyboard and mouse is only a "better" controller if the game **compensates for the controller** and automates moving, running, climbing, etc.

But its a pretty arbitrary place to set the automation. And its set there because it creates 'reasonably easy control while allowing for reasonably challenging play', and that's a game design choice. Some games make you push a key to climb, some make you put your gun away, some games have auto-run, some games simulate fatique and have it affect your reticule size etc...

The keyboard/mouse could have even more automation, and do auto-aiming, auto-headshot, and auto-jump, auto-run (oh wait... autorun is already an option on most titles, and auto-aim is pretty common too...) that would make the game even easier to win than it already is; would that make it a 'better control scheme'? Does it make you a "better player"?

Alternatively if the keyboard mouse scheme did LESS compensation then the holodeck guy would suddenly start winning. If the keyboard mouse scheme does NO compensation, and you had to use the keyboard/mouse to articulate all your limbs then the only way you'd beat the holdeck player is if he laughed himself to death watching you try to aim your gun at him.

The point is that the 'controller' isn't just the hardware, its the software that interprets the controls, and the software part is pretty arbitrary. If a console player has dual analog sticks but the game auto-aims while the keyboard/mouse player has to cope with a reticule that floats around trailing the cursor instead of being the cursor... would keyboard/mouse still be superior?

What I really wonder

[Moraelin]

You know, some time in 2003 or 2004, I was talking to a gamer coleague about FPS on consoles, and bitching about how much it sucks with twin sticks compared to a good keyboard and mouse. And from there it went into the all time nerd favourite, singlehandedly solving all the world's problems, like Picard. In this case, well, how would _you_ make a console controller that works well in FPS.

So what we came up with was: a trackball. No, really.

Think a standard console controller. Say, a Dual Shock, because everyone knows it. But it's the same principle for an XBox pad, Dreamcast pad, Gamecube pad, whatever, really.

Now think replacing the right stick with a small, thumb-operated trackball.

Think about it. A trackball has much the same advantages a mouse has, because it _is_ a mouse turned upside down. You can turn around 180 degrees at the flick of the thumb, and stop on exact pixel you want to. The problem of joystick vs mouse is really that moving with a joystick can be very fast or very accurate, but not both at the same time. A mouse lets you do both. So does a trackball.

So, really, why doesn't anyone do just that?

Re:What I really wonder

[hidannik]

There are other solutions - including ones that keep the current twin-stick controller setup.

I've written a fairly extensive article on this at my blog: http://hansonvideogaming.blogspot.com/2006/10/levelling-playing-field-mice-and.html

In short, if the graph of rotational speed vs stick deflection looked like a U instead of the more common V, twin-stick players could get both the precision and speed that a mouse provides.

Anyone who's played a shooter on a laptop using the "eraser" pointer stick and with mouse acceleration on will have an idea what I'm referring to. I played through Half-Life that way and preferred it to a regular mouse.

Hans

Super Mario Galaxy - Individual planetary gravity

[lpangelrob]

Super Mario Galaxy might be one of the few games I play again from start to finish. :-D

Video games have played with gravity in the past, but applying the concept of planetary gravity (with slightly non-realistic physics, but when you're orbiting around an ice cream cone, does it really matter?) to a 3-D platformer was the best idea I've ever played.

At some point I'm going to find the smallest, most isolated planet I can find and try to see how many times I can orbit it with a long jump.

That they did this without making me nauseous also deserves some sort of award. I seriously wonder how they did it.

Re:Metroid controls were great

[king-manic]

There's no doubt Wiimote+Nunchuck beats the keyboard part of mouse+keyboard. Precision moving and jumping is far easier with an analog stick than with a keyboard. If like me you rarely play FPS games, the Wiimote is easier to use than a mouse. But my gut feeling is over time, the mouse would be slightly easier to be precise with as it's on a flat surface rather than being held in the air. I strenuously reject this statement. The wiimote + nunchuk are on par for some things but a magnitude worse for responsiveness. there is a notable lag between action of the mote and action on screen. partly due to the wi fi partly due to the slowness of the motion sensors. Given a choice I'd go KB+mouse 100% of the time. Metroid 3, Zelda, Rayman et al have not shown any promise that the wiimote will be better then kb + mouse. Wiimote+chuk is better then dual sticks of course. The wiimote and chuk only beats the keyboard and mouse in catagory: more intuitive to learn. Other then that WASD+mouse has it beat in every way.

Re:Wii Sensor Bar tips.

[trdrstv]

Thanks for the advice. The coffee table is a possibility since it has a shiny finish (it's not glass or mirrored though).

Make sure where ever you have the sensor bar it is at the very edge of whatever it sits. Set it flush with the face of the TV (if on top) or the front of the entertainment center (if on bottom). I had instances where the sensor bar would be obscured by the angle of the entertainment center (If I rested the controller in my lap), and the pointer went crazy until I brought the Wiimote higher so it could get a clean view of it.

Any infrared light source near the TV (or IRsensor on the Wiimote) could be disruptive. Lamps, Candles, and especially the Sun. The WiiMote uses the the sensor bar to triangulate position based on 2 steady points (provided by the sensor bar). If multiple sources are competing with the signal then it will confuse the Wiimote causing jitter. The Sun is the worse as it can blanket the Wiimote sensor with IR light making it impossible to detect the 2 points of the sensor bar among all the noise. So as an experiment you may want to close the curtains, blow out the candles, and turn off any lamps that may be near the TV to see if they are adding interference.

Another issue is distance, if you have a rectangular living room you may have issues with the Nintendo Stock sensor bar after 10 feet or so. (or if you are too close IE: less than 3 feet from it will cause issues)

I hope that helps.