Great Preview Video of Mario Super Sluggers

Kotaku has what looks to be a great preview video of Mario Super Sluggers, seemingly ripped from the Japanese Nintendo Channel. The video is quite long and does a great job of showcasing the game's control set. While the controls look relatively limited (especially the pitching), haven't we all wished for a few bombs to throw on those unfortunate pop-ups?

Comments

Re:When are the real Wii Games coming?

[Cerberus7]

Nintendo has spent 20 years establishing brand recognition for a large quite of characters, headlined by Mario. They're never going to drop him as their primary star. They do have lots of games, most of which don't star Mario.

Re:When are the real Wii Games coming?

[tepples]

So... when are the Wii games coming that don't involve Mario & Co.? Twilight Princess. Wii Fit. Or are you looking for a game that doesn't have even a cameo of Mario?

Re:ugh, this again?

[Von Helmet]

I invite you to explain to me exactly what a "hardcore" gamer is. In addition, please explain why I - being a person in possession of a Wii and a DS, who plays approximately an hour on the former and half an hour on the latter each and every day - is not within your arbitrary definition of "hardcore".

Ugggggggggg WHY WILL NO ONE USE THE WII

[Robert1]

Why does absolutely no developer actually use the damn wii-control in the way people want/expect. Take Zelda - you expect Link to mimic your slashes in how you move the wiimote, instead you just shake it to get it to attack. It just serves as a funky way to push a button - shake = B.

Take this game and its pitching, from the video, - how would you expect to pitch with the wiimote. Obviously, how you pitch in real life. It would take the velocity of your swing, the twist of your hand, the motion and direction into account for a pitch. Instead we get the same fucking motion-equivalent-to-button-push bullshit. Watch the video, you pitch by tilting your hand down. Who the fuck pitches by tilting their hand down. The tilt down can easily be replaced by a button press, since they serve the same purpose. If you want to immerse people in the game with unique controls, why the hell don't the actually do it. How is tilting down a controller to pitch any more immersive than pressing a button.

I have been very, very disapointed by the Wii, since it seems that no one, apparently not even Nintendo, cares to make a game that actually uses the wii-mote in any meaningful way besides as a crosshair or as simply being another way to push a button (shake to attack!). The game that came closest to something like this was Boxing in Wii Sports. Sure it was flawed, but it gave a hint about how to make immersive gaming by showing how to use the controls to that effect. Everyone waited for a boxing-like game to come out, one that was more polished and really responsive - basically just improve upon what seems like a tech demo in Wii Sports. But it doesn't exist, hasn't been made.

At this point I'm beginning to wonder about the limitations of the wii-mote. It seems to me that the lack of games that we expect for the system - those with immersive, direct controls - may be fueled not by developers simply being lazy, but by the limits of what the wii-mote can do. Maybe we can never have a Zelda where the player directly controls his sword because its simply not possible with the wii-mote. Maybe we will never have a responsive boxing game because the wii-mote simply isn't responsive enough to do it. These are the things I and everyone expected from the system. Instead we have games that simply use the motions as buttons (does spinning in Mario Galaxy by shaking the wii-mote offer any benefit over a button?) or others that straight-up tell you to use a regular controller - Smash Bros. The only games we can say successfully used wii-mote it were RE4 and Metroid Prime as they actually used the aiming ability for it. Still, no actual games exist that actually uses the motion to any great benefit.

Sorry for the rant, but seeing yet another game completely miss the point of what the Wii SHOULD be just pissed me off.

Re:Ugggggggggg WHY WILL NO ONE USE THE WII

[RaceProUK]

Two words: Wii Sports.

Re:Ugggggggggg WHY WILL NO ONE USE THE WII

[skeeto]

Well, the hobbyists did something very interesting that uses the Wii remote for more than "press a button by shaking it". Some guy implemented a system that turns a Wii into a sort-of VR display. A video on YouTube demos it.

Re:Ugggggggggg WHY WILL NO ONE USE THE WII

[Kimos]

You should try Boom Blox. The game is basically a physics engine and a whole lot of little games that use it. The throwing physics are extremely realistic, to the point of exhausting your arm if you play for more than a few minutes. The jenga-like levels use extremely sensitive Wii controls to let you delicately pull blocks out of towers in all directions.

Nintendo may not be taking full advantage of the controls, but someone is...

Re:Ugggggggggg WHY WILL NO ONE USE THE WII

[quantumplacet]

you're completely right, and expect to continue to be disappointed. the wiimote does offer possibilities for interesting control schemes, but ultimately a true 1:1 motion to onscreen action correlation is not possible given the wii and wiimote hardware. everyone bought a wii and thought it was going to be amazing because wii sports gave the impression that such a 1:1 ratio was possible, but if you really examine how wii sports interprets motion controls, it's ultimately just a cheap trick to emulate 1:1 controls, which it only gets away with because the games are so simple. I do fully agree with you in being disappointed with the wii. my girlfriend and i bought one about a year ago, played it like crazy for a few weeks, bought 3 games within the first month, and haven't really touched it since.

Re:Ugggggggggg WHY WILL NO ONE USE THE WII

[Rydia]

You do realize that you can't have players directly control the sword in Zelda, or any other control scheme people keep ranting about, because your controls aren't the only factor that determines what happens.

Let's use zelda. You swing your sword. The enemy blocks it with a shield, and Link gets thrown back a bit. But you do not. You arm is down, but the fact that you were blocked necessitates the sword to be up in the air, reeling backwards. How are you going to reconcile the two? You could disable user control for a bit as Link reels, but where do you pick up afterward, provided the remote doesn't move? Link's sword teleports from being up to down, and you've just confused your player.

Another additional concern that is less prevalent in zelda that it would be in other games, that a large part of balancing a game (not to mention setting a scene) is controlling what the player is able to do. The remote is nearly weightless, it would be simple to just run at enemies swinging the remote back and forth as quickly as possible (very fast) to have link swing his sword as superhuman speeds. This destroys the scene (ridiculous physics), but it also screws up balancing; does the developer assume everyone will swing like a madman and make it really difficult for those who choose not to, or make it really easy for those who choose to do so by balancing the game toward those less inclined to flail their arms wildly?

Re:Ugggggggggg WHY WILL NO ONE USE THE WII

[Sciros]

Wii Sports is a tech demo at best, given how little content there is. It was fun for like two days.

I agree with the OP that the Wii has really not been used to its seeming potential. Either it really is just a rubbish console, or developers are just too lazy. I submit it's both (developers too lazy to make the most of a rubbish console). I'm not an uninformed hater, either. I have a Wii, but the games I like on it are Mario Galaxy and Smash Bros -- both basically Gamecube games. (I have Twilight Princess, but actually *for* the Cube). That is, the Wii's good games are IMO ones that have no need for the gimmicky wiimote. Just like my fav games on my DS have no need for the gimmicky touchscreen (though they desperately try to incorporate it, such as with Castlevania).

Re:Ugggggggggg WHY WILL NO ONE USE THE WII

[Darth_brooks]

The Wii is / was a gamble. Nintendo tried a new direction with controls and succeeded.

What they didn't do was invest heavily in the hardware. I agree with you in that the Wiimote, for all the potential it encompasses, sucks as a precision sensing device. The system doesn't even use a DVD drive, let alone a HD-DVD or Blu-ray drive and the console's internal memory has been surpassed by most smart phones. All of those things were, however, cheap off the shelf hardware. Nintendo made money on a new console with new ideas, how much did Microsoft and Sony make on their glorified Xbox and PS2?

Building on that, making a game for the Wii is still a huge gamble. If you're a third party developing for the system, you have to develop for a platform that is still feeling out the general game controls. You can make the mistake of dumbing down the controls too much (e.g. almost every sports game so far) or you can make the controls silly, cryptic, and horribly delayed (MLB the bigs).

You've also got to balance gameplay factors. Maybe you can make an amazingly real swordplay engine using the wiimote, but I don't think that's going to make LEGO Star Wars that much more fun, especially since the master fencing / wii player demographic isn't all that big.

The Wii has been fun, it's been a nice way to get off the grinding of button smasher games and into something that's been both fun and different. I think the overall success of the console (Which from a tech standpoint is basically N64 V2.0) has opened the door for a Wii 2.0 that has the things that real gamers want.

Don't forget that Nintendo has carved out a nice slice of market for themselves. They've shown Mom and Dad that video games can be fun, now Nintendo is in a position to show that same segment that games can look as good as movies and have stories that are just as immersive.

Re:Ugggggggggg WHY WILL NO ONE USE THE WII

[JonathanBoyd]

The trouble is that if you matched controls and actions 1:1, you'd be putting the game out of reach of people who have no talent for the physical game. One reason to play a sports game is to achieve things you cant necessarily do in real life. The instant you require real life skills, you're taken that away from people and they won't want to play your game. Obviously as you say,t he argument can be made that the actions aren't similar enough to real life to be immersive, but make it too similar and it wont be immersive because you'll suddenly have supposedly star players absolutely sucking because the gamer isn't a professional player themselves.

Re:Ugggggggggg WHY WILL NO ONE USE THE WII

[Cerberus7]

The Wiimote is not an abomination, it just isn't being used as effectively as it should. Mario Kart Wii makes great use of the Wiimote, and I find the game to be massively superior to its standard-controller counterparts.

I agree on its mis-use in Twilight Princess. It's blatantly obvious that it's a Gamecube game that somebody said "you must make this use motion controls!"

Re:Ugggggggggg WHY WILL NO ONE USE THE WII

[El Gigante de Justic]

I can only assume you somehow forgot about all the idiots that broke their flat screen TVs by trying to pitch and swing as hard as they good in Wii Sports baseball.

  The main reasons you can't do true 1:1 action have already been laid out and are pretty obvious:
1) No physical feedback, other than maybe a vibration. There is no known technology that could actually give true force feedback for something like the WiiMote

2) By having the controls generalized, you don't actually have to be facing the TV straight on, which helps when you have 4 people playing. Also, in a confined space, it keeps people from whacking each other in multi-player.

3) 1:1 action would make it impossible for the physically infirm, or just physically clutzy to enjoy playing. Part of the point of Wii design was to simplify video games for new players, as opposed to something like the potentially intimidating PlayStation controller (10 buttons plus a control pad and two analog sticks which also double as buttons, and some buttons are pressure senstive)

4) 1:1 action would also be much more physically tiring and could eventually lead to a lot of physical ailments like tendonitis or joint injuries (such as the Wii-itis reportedly caused by Wii Sports Tennis not long after release). Since there isn't full weight resistance on the end of your arm, you can move your arm too quickly and are more likely to cause injuries.

5) To get perfect 1:1 action would likely have increased the cost of the system too much.
There are a few games that have gotten pretty close to 1:1 action, but generally in puzzle solving situations, not in fast paced action; a good example would be Zack and Wiki

Re:Ugggggggggg WHY WILL NO ONE USE THE WII

[i.of.the.storm]

Err, that's inaccurate, the Wii does use a standard dual-layer DVD drive, that's why modchips let you play burned games.

Re:Ugggggggggg WHY WILL NO ONE USE THE WII

[dorath]

I had the exact opposite reaction to Mario Kart Wii. I find the Wiimote klunky, imprecise, and unresponsive. After a couple of days trying to use the Wiimote I switched to the Gamecube controller. My son, who usually loves using the Wiimote (mostly for Sports), gave up after only 1 play session and will only use the Gamecube controller.

Until picking up Mario Kart for the Wii, I hadn't played any of the MK games for nearly a decade. If I had played any of them more recently then I'm sure that I wouldn't like the Wii-Wheel control scheme either. However, because it has been so long I don't miss the old controls, and any muscle memory I had for the old controller is long gone.

I've been tempted to try racing using the nunchuck controller to steer, but personally I find the wheel to be fun and so I'm sticking with it. My wife certainly doesn't have any problems using the wheel, she blasted right through the 50cc, 100cc, and 150cc classes and never expressed any desire for a different control mechanism.

In the end, your anecdotes vs mine, it doesn't really matter because we're given a choice of four (!) different control schemes: Wii Wheel, Wiimote and nunchuck, classic controller, and GameCube controller. That's a whole lot of choice and I'm glad that we're given the options.

"The video is quite long"

[MagicM]

3 and a half minutes is long? If your attention span when watching video is less than 3 and a half minutes, why are you still reading this comment?

Re:ugh, this again?

[oahazmatt]

I invite you to explain to me exactly what a "hardcore" gamer is. In addition, please explain why I - being a person in possession of a Wii and a DS, who plays approximately an hour on the former and half an hour on the latter each and every day - is not within your arbitrary definition of "hardcore".

That's exactly the problem, and why "hardcore" is in quotes in my post.

The "hardcore" audience itself is poorly defined. I have basically every Ninteo System ever made, a few of Segas, a Playstion and PS2, and an Xbox 360. But I've never spent more than five hours a week playing videogames. Am I "hardcore" because of the amount of systems I have? Or does it come down to game time?

And if it comes down to game time, then there's the stigma of the Wii and that it's for "fanboys and little kids". So, even I spent one hundred hours a week mastering every game on the Wii, there's a chance I will still be mocked and not considered "hardcore" because I'm playing on a "child's system".

Nintendo intended the Wii to target the "casual gamer" demographic, which implies we have at least two demographics, the other being hardcore. One can infer that "casual" is someone who will play a few minutes here or there, when they feel like it. However, that still leaves the "hardcore" demographic horribly ill-defined.

So, in short, I've never found two people who agree 100% on what a "hardcore" gamer is. I was using the comment to relate to the implied branding of the Wii as a fanboy or children's system.

Re:ugh, this again?

[Toonol]

I think it's more accurate to say the Wii is not a machine exclusively for hardcore gamers. After all, a gamer is hardly hardcore if he avoids the Wii.

Incidentally, the Wii game I've enjoyed the most, and put the most hours into, is Fire Emblem... which does not use the Wiimote at all. Other hardcore suggestions: Metroid, of course, and No More Heroes. Resident Evil 4 was terrific, an example of a game transformed from Very Good to Great by the addition of the Wiimote.

Re:ugh, this again?

[Rydia]

Fire Emblem: So difficult it will sterilize you.

Re:ugh, this again?

[OldeTimeGeek]

Hardcore gamers always start new games in "hard" mode - easy is for lamers and n00bs.

Re:ugh, this again?

[alan_dershowitz]

Here are some ideas based on my own experience of myself and my friends during high school/college:

• You play and enjoy true "dungeon crawler" RPGs. Where you just run around and kill stuff and level up and that's it.
  
• If a game kicks your ass, you try harder instead of quitting.
  
• You start the game on "hard"
  
• You play for more than 5 hours a day (this may be too little now because of WoW.)
  
• You own every next-gen system, and not just because there's some exclusive you had to have.
  
• You own one or more Japanese game soundtrack or drama CDs.
  
• There is some classic game from the 80's or 90's that you never actually stopped playing.
  
• You have purchased Japanese import games to beat the American release date (doesn't for European gamers who need to import games so they don't have to wait a year or more.)
  
• You use a Gameshark to make your games HARDER rather than easier
  
• You habitually play games that only let you save at savepoints that are sometimes hours apart (this is a good indicator that a game is for hardcore players rather than casual.)
  
• You will put up with the worst control schemes ever foisted on the gaming market, without complaining.
  
• You can, literally, talk about gaming until you get physically tired before you get bored.
  
• More stuff, possibly involving games with the word "Dragon" in the title
  

If you read this and though "that's stupid" then you are not a hardcore gamer.