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[Nintendo] The best January the Wii U has ever had

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Posts

  • ElJeffeElJeffe Moderator, ClubPA mod
    edited April 2011
    WMain00 wrote: »
    I wonder how much support they'll get from 3rd party developers if it's released quite early?

    Depends on what it does.

    If it's basically a Wii with pretty graphics on par (or even slightly better than) the 360 and PS3, probably close to nil.

    I don't think anyone is really looking to upgrade their systems at the moment. While current gen graphics are not perfect, or anything, they are to the point where they're good enough to pull off any graphical look you want for your game and look damned nice. And if your game isn't going for photorealism, I'm not seeing much room for improvement at all. I mean, look at a game like Ratchet & Clank. If you were to improve the look of that, how would you do it? What would you really target? Okay, maybe some better lighting and shadows, sure. Maybe slightly higher res textures. But those are all things that, in the midst of gameplay, you're honestly not going to notice much, if at all.

    Basically, games are pretty enough these days that nobody is going to give a shit if you bring out something that looks better, at least not enough of a shit to drop a few hundred bucks on a new system when the games for the current systems are still doing great. The things people are really going to care about are things that require not so much better hardware as more time and money - bigger worlds, more detailed worlds... basically, bringing out new hardware would just highlight how are biggest limitations these days have little to do with hardware.

    So if Nintendo can't sway us with prettier graphics, that means they're going to have to get at us with something genuinely innovative and revolutionary. And I have no idea what that could be, or even if there is such a thing.

    But if the hook is just "Now the new Mario and Zelda games will look nice and be in 3D," I don't seem many people biting outside the group that already laps up every Nintendo game that comes down the pike. Which is enough for Nintendo to turn a profit, but not enough for them to take the world by storm again.

    Basically, I'm very curious.

    ElJeffe on
    I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
  • NaromNarom Registered User regular
    edited April 2011
    Narom wrote: »
    I really have to take issue with the idea that the innovations they've offered were done without an overarching sense of strategy or purpose. It was very clearly part of a larger push to expand their demographic. The key word being expand.

    "To make more money!" isn't a reason to create a thing, it's reason to sell a thing.
    No, I'm not saying the controller was a marketing ploy, I'm saying it was part of a push to make a gaming experience that had broad appeal. And ideally, to offer new gaming experiences to traditional gamers.
    I don't know if I'm misreading some people here, but I keep getting the vibe that there's this belief that Nintendo is intentionally ignoring traditional games, and that they aren't interested in competing on that front with MS and Sony. Of course they're competing with MS and Sony. That they haven't done it successfully is no reason to assume a lack of interest.
    In a very literal sense, you're right, especially in terms of sports games. But in practical terms, Nintendo is a first-party system; that's where they make their money, and that's seemingly all they care about as far as development goes. And that's why all the AAA developers pulled up stakes.
    That they haven't done it successfully is no reason to assume a lack of interest.

    Narom on
    <cursive>Narom</cursive>
  • CptHamiltonCptHamilton Registered User regular
    edited April 2011
    Narom wrote: »
    Which is why I said it wasn't what the industry was interested in. A larger portion of the industry seems to be getting interested now, some years after the fact, but at the time nobody knew what to do with motion control. There were not developers sitting around thinking, "Man, I have a great game idea... if only there were a system with motion control I could develop it for."

    Integrated online services and high-def video were things that the industry was apparently ready for when current gen consoles came out, so we have tons of big-name, AAA titles that use those. Enough so that it seems weird now that those things were new or could be considered innovative 6 years ago. Motion control wasn't, so we don't, and 6 years later it's still 'the coming thing'.
    That the industry wasn't actively interested in motion controls preceding the Wii, doesn't mean that their introduction wasn't important to the gaming industry as a whole (which is what I had originally thought you were proposing).

    Whether or not it was import is, I think, something that still remains to be seen. There are a small handful of motion-controlled titles that legitimately could not have been done as well without it but by and large it still feels like the new 3D craze, to me. Is it something that we're going to look back on in 10 years and say that the Wii changed the kinds of games we play? Or will we look back and wonder what we thought the big deal was?

    Anyway, that wasn't my point. My point was that Nintendo has a tendency to come up with neat ideas that they have a plan for supporting, but which nobody else knows what to do with. You can go back all the way to the NES and the light zapper. How many good zapper games were there that weren't made by Nintendo? Were there even any games that used the NES power pad besides Track & Field? How about the power glove? The weird shoulder-gun thing for the SNES? The microphone for the gamecube? How many developers used the Wiimote for something you couldn't have just mapped a button to? Is there a Wii Fit game that doesn't suck?

    The only Nintendo peripheral innovation that has really caught on and become something that enables 3rd party developers to make great games which could not have existed otherwise is the touch-sensitive DS screen. Maybe now that the Move and the Kinect exist there will be more major publishers thinking about what to do with motion control, but so far I think you can pretty definitely say that most publishers looked at it and said, "Meh. Whatever."

    CptHamilton on
    PSN,Steam,Live | CptHamiltonian
  • Irond WillIrond Will WARNING: NO HURTFUL COMMENTS, PLEASE!!!!! Cambridge. MAModerator mod
    edited April 2011
    Nova_C wrote: »
    My point was that lots of companies do what Nintendo does with regards to software, but they all get free passes, I guess. Nintendo does innovate, just not with every single title. And it's unfair and unreasonable to expect them to.

    i think the bigger issue is that there's really nothing significant to hang the Wii on besides the small handful of first-party titles, all of which were franchises. When the 360 has - yes - the sequels but also quality new series and breakouts and the Wii is defined by the pack-in sports title and then the metroid-zelda-mario trinity, you start to feel like the Wii offerings are stale.

    and i do give them credit for trying to innovate via hardware. the wiimote was a pretty courageous approach and it seems to have paid off in the broad marketplace. it just turned out that it was lousy for playing the sorts of games that gamers were used to.

    Irond Will on
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  • enlightenedbumenlightenedbum Registered User regular
    edited April 2011
    So something that drives me nuts is this idea of "traditional gamers" vs. whatever it is "traditional gamers" call people new to the hobby to look down upon them. Elitism drives me nuts, and it hurts the hobby overall when the people currently enjoying it look down upon those new to it. And this has driven skepticism towards Nintendo in particular for years.

    enlightenedbum on
    Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
  • AtomikaAtomika Live fast and get fucked or whatever Registered User regular
    edited April 2011
    The only Nintendo peripheral innovation that has really caught on and become something that enables 3rd party developers to make great games which could not have existed otherwise is the touch-sensitive DS screen. Maybe now that the Move and the Kinect exist there will be more major publishers thinking about what to do with motion control, but so far I think you can pretty definitely say that most publishers looked at it and said, "Meh. Whatever."

    And like I had said earlier, there is very little even in Nintendo's first-party releases that justifies the existence of the Wiimote. The fact that Nintendo has been able to best implement the device (which, hello, they're who created it) doesn't mean that the device demanded implementation to begin with.

    Atomika on
  • AtomikaAtomika Live fast and get fucked or whatever Registered User regular
    edited April 2011
    So something that drives me nuts is this idea of "traditional gamers" vs. whatever it is "traditional gamers" call people new to the hobby to look down upon them. Elitism drives me nuts, and it hurts the hobby overall when the people currently enjoying it look down upon those new to it. And this has driven skepticism towards Nintendo in particular for years.

    Is anyone in this thread doing that? I've only used the terms to talk about types of gamers, not to establish an inherent value.

    Atomika on
  • MKRMKR Registered User regular
    edited April 2011
    So something that drives me nuts is this idea of "traditional gamers" vs. whatever it is "traditional gamers" call people new to the hobby to look down upon them. Elitism drives me nuts, and it hurts the hobby overall when the people currently enjoying it look down upon those new to it. And this has driven skepticism towards Nintendo in particular for years.

    I've been gaming since my hands were big enough to hold an NES controller, and it seems like I don't fit into this "traditional gamer" model that has emerged.

    MKR on
  • NaromNarom Registered User regular
    edited April 2011
    Anyway, that wasn't my point. My point was that Nintendo has a tendency to come up with neat ideas that they have a plan for supporting, but which nobody else knows what to do with. You can go back all the way to the NES and the light zapper. How many good zapper games were there that weren't made by Nintendo? Were there even any games that used the NES power pad besides Track & Field? How about the power glove? The weird shoulder-gun thing for the SNES? The microphone for the gamecube? How many developers used the Wiimote for something you couldn't have just mapped a button to? Is there a Wii Fit game that doesn't suck?

    The only Nintendo peripheral innovation that has really caught on and become something that enables 3rd party developers to make great games which could not have existed otherwise is the touch-sensitive DS screen. Maybe now that the Move and the Kinect exist there will be more major publishers thinking about what to do with motion control, but so far I think you can pretty definitely say that most publishers looked at it and said, "Meh. Whatever."
    Keep in mind, a lot of those were optional peripherals rather than a part of the system. Also, you touched on something with the DS there that I think is worth considering. Had the DS not gotten a lot of third party support, I think we'd be levying a lot of these criticisms at it as well (in fact, it did get those for a time). The Wii's lack of third party support in general is probably what makes the motion controls seem superfluous to most. Had they gotten on board, we in all likelihood wouldn't even be discussing the merits of motion control anymore.

    Basically, I think rather than motion being a cause of it's lack of appeal, I think the lack of appeal caused motion control to be poorly or under-utilized.

    edit: Though for all the focus on motion control, I do now feel obligated to remind everyone that it does still have buttons on it. Because the way some people talk you'd get the impression it didn't.

    Narom on
    <cursive>Narom</cursive>
  • Irond WillIrond Will WARNING: NO HURTFUL COMMENTS, PLEASE!!!!! Cambridge. MAModerator mod
    edited April 2011
    So something that drives me nuts is this idea of "traditional gamers" vs. whatever it is "traditional gamers" call people new to the hobby to look down upon them. Elitism drives me nuts, and it hurts the hobby overall when the people currently enjoying it look down upon those new to it. And this has driven skepticism towards Nintendo in particular for years.

    i'm not really looking down on "new gamers" so much as i'm recognizing that the wiimote is just awful in terms of meeting the complexity and responsiveness needs that most non-wii console games require.

    i mean, it's great that nintendo has found a niche of people who are okay with games that allow for sloppy input and large gestures and stuff. it's undoubtedly made them tons of money and really put them into the middle of a new gaming demographic. but i don't think we are under some sort of obligation to pretend that the wiimote isn't sloppy and unresponsive, nor that the input of even the top-shelf wii games is anything besides sluggish.

    i mean, i play games on my iPad and iPhone. they're often fun and perfectly suited to the context in which they're being played! but they don't have the kind of complexity of input nor responsiveness as my 360.

    Irond Will on
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  • AtomikaAtomika Live fast and get fucked or whatever Registered User regular
    edited April 2011
    Will, you sound like you're implying that swinging your arms in a flailing motion is somehow less-suited to finely-tuned motor activities than using one's fingers and thumbs.

    :winky:

    Atomika on
  • CptHamiltonCptHamilton Registered User regular
    edited April 2011
    Narom wrote: »
    Basically, I think rather than motion being a cause of it's lack of appeal, I think the lack of appeal caused motion control to be poorly or under-utilized.

    edit: Though for all the focus on motion control, I do now feel obligated to remind everyone that it does still have buttons on it. Because the way some people talk you'd get the impression it didn't.

    To address your edit first: It does have buttons, but the buttons mostly suck. The nunchuck is a comfortable, easy-to-use controller that gives me a good experience when I'm playing something. I like the position of the thumb-stick and the various buttons. The same could be said of the Classic joypad. However, neither of those come with the system. The wiimote itself sucks when you use it as anything besides a pointing/moving device. I don't own a Classic pad and I can tell you that playing SSB or New Super Mario Bros with the wiimote (rather than a wiimote/'chuck combo) sucks. The thing is a stick. I've got big hands and it's not easy to hold in a comfortable position. Using the d-pad and 1 and 2 buttons is roughly similar - in terms of ergonomics and experience - to using a classic NES controller. Using any button besides the 1 and 2 in NES-pad-mode is a pain. Holding the wiimote in 'remote-mode' and using anything except the A and trigger buttons is a pain. So if a developer wants to make a game that doesn't use motion controls, he's left with a device that leverages the height of 1985 video game controller technology: a rectangle with a d-pad and two usable buttons.

    To address the other part: I don't think you can split out the motion control from the Wii and have anything to say about the Wii. It's a gamecube, basically. There were some fun Gamecube games. There were certainly fun ps2 games and the Wii is entirely capable of anything the ps2 did, hardware-wise. The system has had a huge install base since launch day. Ignoring the control system, there's no reason it should be unattractive to developers. No, they can't port their 360 games to it, but it also costs a lot less to develop a game with ps2-era graphics that's not in HD than it does a game that leverages the greater hardware capabilities of the 360 or PS3.

    CptHamilton on
    PSN,Steam,Live | CptHamiltonian
  • NaromNarom Registered User regular
    edited April 2011
    Wait, yours didn't come with a nunchuk? Why the hell not?

    edit: But to address your point, I think there is an interesting discussion about what could have played in to it's difficulties with traditional gamers. Graphics haven't normally been a huge factor for previous generations, but honestly this was probably a much larger gap. That and the Xbox 360 had like a year to itself on the market, which ironically could have helped the PS3 as well (what with cross platform stuff). I can understand how motion controls might seem like the only differentiating factor, but I think one could build an argument that various market forces and such played a large role in the Wii's performance. I gotta go to the grocery store right now though, so I'd have to expand on it later.

    Narom on
    <cursive>Narom</cursive>
  • TechBoyTechBoy Registered User regular
    edited April 2011
    Except there's more than a decent amount of fault to be laid at the feet of Nintendo itself for its limited scope. Nintendo, for 20 solid years, WAS video games. They had the power, and money, and clout to expand their portfolio; right now we could be talking about the Nintendo Phone or Nintendo TV or whathaveyou, instead we talk about the latest new gadgets from Apple, who 20 years ago was basically dead in the water.

    And yet still, Nintendo refuses to commit to these emerging markets in home & personal entertainment, often sternly refusing any entreaty as some kind of adulteration of their mission. As well, Microsoft and Sony's success in the home console market wasn't a given, and there's a massive console graveyard out there filled with 3DOs and Dreamcasts; Sony and MS found the niche that the market was looking for, and it was a market that Nintendo simply abandoned.

    Sony, Microsoft, Apple were all companies originally founded in different markets, got big, and then decided that they wanted a piece of the gaming pie. It is very much a case of those companies coming onto Nintendo's turf and bullying it off. They very literally outcompeted Nintendo at it's own game, I don't think you're giving those companies enough credit for what they've done. As you say, many others tried and failed.

    Nintendo didn't abandon anything or anyone, they were ousted from their comfortable throne. What they could have, should have done to prevent that is a moot point now.

    The smartest thing that Nintendo did was pivot and avoid being the next Sega. What the Wii and (3)DS represent isn't a more casual-focused zany gimmicky Nintendo. No, Nintendo isn't about these things anymore than old Nintendo was about sidescrollers and 8-bit music. Nintendo now is all about being different, separating itself from the others. Nintendo now is all about reaching people who didn't used to play games with games that don't play like games used to play.

    I got a feeling a lot of people here won't like this, but on Nintendo I fully expect that crafting games that play in the traditional style will be increasingly niche. I think things like Wii Sports and Wii Fit are increasingly telling of what Nintendo sees as the next era of gaming. They aren't motion-controls shoe-horned into an otherwise traditionally playing game, they're games that otherwise couldn't exist at all.

    TechBoy on
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  • Irond WillIrond Will WARNING: NO HURTFUL COMMENTS, PLEASE!!!!! Cambridge. MAModerator mod
    edited April 2011
    TechBoy wrote: »
    I got a feeling a lot of people here won't like this, but on Nintendo I fully expect that crafting games that play in the traditional style will be increasingly niche. I think things like Wii Sports and Wii Fit are increasingly telling of what Nintendo sees as the next era of gaming. They aren't motion-controls shoe-horned into an otherwise traditionally playing game, they're games that otherwise couldn't exist at all.

    i don't know about new paradigms of games completely supplanting traditional gamepad-from-the-couch games, but i definitely think you're on to something here. even MS and to a token extent, Sony have gotten into the thrashing-around family game paradigm and it sounds like MS has been pretty successful with it. Add in the ipad/ iphone/ android market and you're really seeing whole new paradigms of games being introduced and being quite successful.

    now, in large part because these are such new concepts of control and gameplay, most of the games are either really simple and kind of unsophisticated when compared to traditional games, or else they just kind of map over the kind of game that only requires simple controls. i expect things to get better, though, as long as there's a marketplace for it.

    Irond Will on
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  • HappylilElfHappylilElf Registered User regular
    edited April 2011
    ElJeffe wrote: »
    I'm sorry, I'm still trying to get over the use of Final Fantasy as a series that knows how not to blow the serious vibe with silliness.

    I have yet to play a FF game that is not pocked with silliness, slapstick, and lighthearted humor. Heck, FFX-2 had cutsie camp as its entire raison d'etre. Good adult story-telling is not afraid to use more whimsical elements at times, and often it makes the darker moments more poignant.

    Anyway, the best Zelda game ever is clearly Wind Waker.

    This is incontrovertible fact.

    Final Fantasy IV and especially VI had some pretty dark moments.

    I mean, yes, they both had comic relief too but in IV you had moments like
    the one where Palom and Porom turn themselve to stone and Tellah tryes in vain to save them
    and in VI
    Kefka poisons and entire city and goes on to nearly destroy the entire planet.

    The final Fantasy series has some really goofy comic relief at times but it definitely has it's share of dark moments as well.

    HappylilElf on
  • LockedOnTargetLockedOnTarget Registered User regular
    edited April 2011
    And in FF7, one moment you're on a magical crossdressing adventure, the next you're wandering the bloody, massacred halls of the Shinra HQ.

    LockedOnTarget on
  • NuckerNucker Registered User regular
    edited April 2011
    Irond Will wrote: »
    i don't know about new paradigms of games completely supplanting traditional gamepad-from-the-couch games, but i definitely think you're on to something here. even MS and to a token extent, Sony have gotten into the thrashing-around family game paradigm and it sounds like MS has been pretty successful with it.

    The way people talk about the Kinect, you'd think it was the Second Coming of Video Game Jesus.

    What I hope to see from Nintendo is a successful, next-gen reboot of the Virtual Boy. That will be the next step in video gaming--your graphics can only get so hyper-realistic until you actually need to start putting people into virtual reality. I also want to be able to play that Donkey Kong game again.

    Nucker on
  • AtomikaAtomika Live fast and get fucked or whatever Registered User regular
    edited April 2011
    Irond Will wrote: »
    i don't know about new paradigms of games completely supplanting traditional gamepad-from-the-couch games, but i definitely think you're on to something here. even MS and to a token extent, Sony have gotten into the thrashing-around family game paradigm and it sounds like MS has been pretty successful with it. Add in the ipad/ iphone/ android market and you're really seeing whole new paradigms of games being introduced and being quite successful.

    If that is the new paradigm, it seems that Sony and MS have really gotten the benefit of following up the Wii on this issue, as it seems that gaming has become a two-tier construct, where on one hand you can appeal to the traditional console crowd, and on the other you can appeal to the newer motion/family/party-gaming crowd.

    And if Sony and MS can successfully join in that latter market, or (eep!) take it over through more appealing technology/games/economic factors, Nintendo is going to have to bust its ass to keep up.

    Atomika on
  • FyreWulffFyreWulff YouRegistered User, ClubPA regular
    edited April 2011
    Ego wrote: »
    I think the main issue with the power of the Wii was not being able to take advantage of 720p/1080p. That was a real shame.

    This was due to a design decision by Nintendo in how much VRAM they put into the console. It wouldn't have mattered if the Wii had the power of the 360, you'd still be stuck with maximizing out at 480p Widescreen, because there's only 3MB of VRAM.

    For comparison, the 360 has 10MB. It was originally going to have 4-5MB. They only bumped it up to 10 (at great cost) after the developers all piled on MS and asked for it.

    Now, it's technically actually possible to do HD on the Wii - you could do up to 720p. The issue is that 3MB is only enough to have a single buffer of video - which means games in 720p on the Wii would have screentearing out the ass.

    tl;dr the 360 was this close to not being able to do HDR or 1080p at all. The 360's 10MB was/is the reason you see all those "sub hd" games on 360 like Halo 3 - which runs at 640p because they wanted to do full range HDR, which requires 3 buffers (high end, low end, the final), and they can't fit 3 720p buffers in that.

    Reach runs at 720p because they sacrificed the range of the HDR. It's not as wide as 3's, hence certain areas/spots in the game now "blow out" when you're taking screenshots.

    If Nintendo had wanted to do HD on the Wii, all they would have to do is either a) release a dongle that has a scaler in it that outputs natively scaled 720p/1080p images like the 360 does to compensate for everyone's wal-mart TVs that have shitty scalers or b) release a revision with more VRAM for HD.

    The console had the power to do HD - hell, there was a couple of 1080p native games on the Original Xbox that the Wii is at least twice as powerful as - but they didn't feel it was worth the (high) cost to increase the memory area needed.

    So it goes without saying that their next console will be able to do 1080p. I just hope they don't do something stupid like saying "every game is HD!" like MS did and then shortchange the developers on RAM and then the developers catch all the heat for running sub-HD when it was MS that pulled the rug out from under them :3

    FyreWulff on
  • ElJeffeElJeffe Moderator, ClubPA mod
    edited April 2011
    Irond Will wrote: »
    So something that drives me nuts is this idea of "traditional gamers" vs. whatever it is "traditional gamers" call people new to the hobby to look down upon them. Elitism drives me nuts, and it hurts the hobby overall when the people currently enjoying it look down upon those new to it. And this has driven skepticism towards Nintendo in particular for years.

    i'm not really looking down on "new gamers" so much as i'm recognizing that the wiimote is just awful in terms of meeting the complexity and responsiveness needs that most non-wii console games require.

    Depends on how it's used, I suppose. The 360 controller has 2 analog sticks and (effectively) 12 buttons, not counting the START and BACK buttons. Ditto the PS3 controller. (In both cases counting the d-pad as 4 buttons.)

    A Wiimote + nunchuk has 1 analog stick and 12 buttons, not counting the HOME button. (To be fair, the 1 and 2 buttons aren't the most accessible when using the nunchuk configuration, but still.) And then it adds whatever motion controls you might need.

    For pretty much all games, the Wii controller scheme is just fine if it's used as a traditional controller. It's just that a lot of developers swapped out button presses with retarded waggle-movements that added nothing to gameplay.

    Also, in some cases a lack of precision was almost the point. Consider Wii bowling - instead of selecting a bunch of settings and then hitting a button with some sort of timing requirement, you have to actually swing the Wiimote as if you were throwing a bowling ball. It's a little harder to achieve consistency (though very possible), but this is meant to model the dynamics of actually throwing a bowling ball. The lack of precision control makes it more fun, I think, not less.

    ElJeffe on
    I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
  • AtomikaAtomika Live fast and get fucked or whatever Registered User regular
    edited April 2011
    ElJeffe wrote: »
    Also, in some cases a lack of precision was almost the point. Consider Wii bowling - instead of selecting a bunch of settings and then hitting a button with some sort of timing requirement, you have to actually swing the Wiimote as if you were throwing a bowling ball. It's a little harder to achieve consistency (though very possible), but this is meant to model the dynamics of actually throwing a bowling ball. The lack of precision control makes it more fun, I think, not less.

    As I suggested earlier, when used intuitively, the Wiimote is a lot of fun.

    When used perfunctorily, it's a bore. Or worse, like when it can't handle fine-tuning.

    Atomika on
  • HamHamJHamHamJ Registered User regular
    edited April 2011
    The only Nintendo peripheral innovation that has really caught on and become something that enables 3rd party developers to make great games which could not have existed otherwise is the touch-sensitive DS screen. Maybe now that the Move and the Kinect exist there will be more major publishers thinking about what to do with motion control, but so far I think you can pretty definitely say that most publishers looked at it and said, "Meh. Whatever."

    And like I had said earlier, there is very little even in Nintendo's first-party releases that justifies the existence of the Wiimote. The fact that Nintendo has been able to best implement the device (which, hello, they're who created it) doesn't mean that the device demanded implementation to begin with.

    Have you played Twilight Princess or Metroid Prime 3. Having FPS controls that don't suck is reason enough in itself.

    HamHamJ on
    While racing light mechs, your Urbanmech comes in second place, but only because it ran out of ammo.
  • ElJeffeElJeffe Moderator, ClubPA mod
    edited April 2011
    HamHamJ wrote: »
    The only Nintendo peripheral innovation that has really caught on and become something that enables 3rd party developers to make great games which could not have existed otherwise is the touch-sensitive DS screen. Maybe now that the Move and the Kinect exist there will be more major publishers thinking about what to do with motion control, but so far I think you can pretty definitely say that most publishers looked at it and said, "Meh. Whatever."

    And like I had said earlier, there is very little even in Nintendo's first-party releases that justifies the existence of the Wiimote. The fact that Nintendo has been able to best implement the device (which, hello, they're who created it) doesn't mean that the device demanded implementation to begin with.

    Have you played Twilight Princess or Metroid Prime 3. Having FPS controls that don't suck is reason enough in itself.

    I loved MP3, but I don't think the motion control in that added anything to the experience. It kinda-sorted mimicked a real-world activity, I suppose (at least when I was shooting; it's not like I'm accustomed to looking about by waving my hand in the air.) After a couple hours I'd acclimated to the controls, but even after that I don't think I had any better control than I do in a good 360 FPS.

    ElJeffe on
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  • HappylilElfHappylilElf Registered User regular
    edited April 2011
    Eh, in my experience the Wii-mote is at worst as good as dual sticks when it's done properly and as someone who absolutely hates dual sticks for FPS games, well, that's kind of a huge plus.

    HappylilElf on
  • AtomikaAtomika Live fast and get fucked or whatever Registered User regular
    edited April 2011
    What Jeff said.

    I found most of MP3 and Twilight Princess' control scheme to be mostly further examples of Nintendo's "innovation," which by that is meant, "offering something different without first asking if it's necessary or worthwhile."


    The large swath of the Wiimote's potential begins and ends with Wii Sports.

    Atomika on
  • HamHamJHamHamJ Registered User regular
    edited April 2011
    Dual analog stick controls are an atrocity.
    The fact that you can just sit down and play and inuitively control aiming without having to screw with y-axis inversion and crap is revolutionary.

    HamHamJ on
    While racing light mechs, your Urbanmech comes in second place, but only because it ran out of ammo.
  • AtomikaAtomika Live fast and get fucked or whatever Registered User regular
    edited April 2011
    HamHamJ wrote: »
    Dual analog stick controls are an atrocity.
    The fact that you can just sit down and play and inuitively control aiming without having to screw with y-axis inversion and crap is revolutionary.

    Yes, it's the height of achievement that the visionaries of 1983 could offer.
    256px-DuckHuntBox.jpg

    Atomika on
  • HamHamJHamHamJ Registered User regular
    edited April 2011
    HamHamJ wrote: »
    Dual analog stick controls are an atrocity.
    The fact that you can just sit down and play and inuitively control aiming without having to screw with y-axis inversion and crap is revolutionary.

    Yes, it's the height of achievement that the visionaries of 1983 could offer.
    256px-DuckHuntBox.jpg

    Yes because Duck Hunt had freelook.

    HamHamJ on
    While racing light mechs, your Urbanmech comes in second place, but only because it ran out of ammo.
  • AtomikaAtomika Live fast and get fucked or whatever Registered User regular
    edited April 2011
    HamHamJ wrote: »
    HamHamJ wrote: »
    Dual analog stick controls are an atrocity.
    The fact that you can just sit down and play and inuitively control aiming without having to screw with y-axis inversion and crap is revolutionary.

    Yes, it's the height of achievement that the visionaries of 1983 could offer.
    256px-DuckHuntBox.jpg

    Yes because Duck Hunt had freelook.

    Your post did not have freelook, however.

    Atomika on
  • shrykeshryke Member of the Beast Registered User regular
    edited April 2011
    Narom wrote: »
    Anyway, that wasn't my point. My point was that Nintendo has a tendency to come up with neat ideas that they have a plan for supporting, but which nobody else knows what to do with. You can go back all the way to the NES and the light zapper. How many good zapper games were there that weren't made by Nintendo? Were there even any games that used the NES power pad besides Track & Field? How about the power glove? The weird shoulder-gun thing for the SNES? The microphone for the gamecube? How many developers used the Wiimote for something you couldn't have just mapped a button to? Is there a Wii Fit game that doesn't suck?

    The only Nintendo peripheral innovation that has really caught on and become something that enables 3rd party developers to make great games which could not have existed otherwise is the touch-sensitive DS screen. Maybe now that the Move and the Kinect exist there will be more major publishers thinking about what to do with motion control, but so far I think you can pretty definitely say that most publishers looked at it and said, "Meh. Whatever."
    Keep in mind, a lot of those were optional peripherals rather than a part of the system. Also, you touched on something with the DS there that I think is worth considering. Had the DS not gotten a lot of third party support, I think we'd be levying a lot of these criticisms at it as well (in fact, it did get those for a time). The Wii's lack of third party support in general is probably what makes the motion controls seem superfluous to most. Had they gotten on board, we in all likelihood wouldn't even be discussing the merits of motion control anymore.

    Basically, I think rather than motion being a cause of it's lack of appeal, I think the lack of appeal caused motion control to be poorly or under-utilized.

    edit: Though for all the focus on motion control, I do now feel obligated to remind everyone that it does still have buttons on it. Because the way some people talk you'd get the impression it didn't.

    Really? Cause I'd say most of the Wii's First-Party titles made the same case. In shit like Mario it's literally useless and you'd actually be better off with the button press instead of the waggle cause it'd be more responsive.

    Wii Sports was great for showing the potential of the motion controls. But I think it also, in some ways, hit the ceiling on them too. They work well when the game involves primarily and mostly an action (or actions) that you can mimick with the motion controls. Mario Kart Wii is the same thing, where it works well too. Or Wii Bowling as mentioned above, which is shitloads of fun to control.

    But outside those situations, it's superfluous at best and a detriment at worst.

    Which isn't to say it's not good for many things, but not for everything. It's sort of a sideways-revolution to gaming. It adds another trick to the developers bag that works well when used properly, but doesn't need to, and shouldn't, be used everywhere.


    It is interesting that alot of that division (though not all) falls along a sort of "casual/fun/party/etc game" vs "hardcore/traditional game" boundary. Although this is probably just a result of motion controls not being suited for most games that require complex or precise controls.

    shryke on
  • shrykeshryke Member of the Beast Registered User regular
    edited April 2011
    HamHamJ wrote: »
    Dual analog stick controls are an atrocity.
    The fact that you can just sit down and play and inuitively control aiming without having to screw with y-axis inversion and crap is revolutionary.

    Eh, it's still not quite intuitive imo. It can get tiring on the arms, it's still not as precise (though that's not always a bad thing) and suffers from the whole "Am I trying to point at the right of the screen or turn right" type thing.

    But there's definitely promise there.

    shryke on
  • Z0reZ0re Registered User regular
    edited April 2011
    shryke wrote: »
    HamHamJ wrote: »
    Dual analog stick controls are an atrocity.
    The fact that you can just sit down and play and inuitively control aiming without having to screw with y-axis inversion and crap is revolutionary.

    Eh, it's still not quite intuitive imo. It can get tiring on the arms, it's still not as precise (though that's not always a bad thing) and suffers from the whole "Am I trying to point at the right of the screen or turn right" type thing.

    But there's definitely promise there.

    I literally do not understand this 'tiring on the arms' thing. The Wiimote responds to absolutely miniscule motions, and especially in games like Metroid Prime you can have the controller resting on an armrest or your lap because it only matters where the pointer is pointing. I guess if moving your wrist is some kind of enormous hardship I could see it, but you really don't have to flail around like you're having a seizure. I mean, its no more intensive than moving your mouse, or it shouldn't be if you hold it properly.

    Z0re on
  • shrykeshryke Member of the Beast Registered User regular
    edited April 2011
    Z0re wrote: »
    shryke wrote: »
    HamHamJ wrote: »
    Dual analog stick controls are an atrocity.
    The fact that you can just sit down and play and inuitively control aiming without having to screw with y-axis inversion and crap is revolutionary.

    Eh, it's still not quite intuitive imo. It can get tiring on the arms, it's still not as precise (though that's not always a bad thing) and suffers from the whole "Am I trying to point at the right of the screen or turn right" type thing.

    But there's definitely promise there.

    I literally do not understand this 'tiring on the arms' thing. The Wiimote responds to absolutely miniscule motions, and especially in games like Metroid Prime you can have the controller resting on an armrest or your lap because it only matters where the pointer is pointing. I guess if moving your wrist is some kind of enormous hardship I could see it, but you really don't have to flail around like you're having a seizure. I mean, its no more intensive than moving your mouse, or it shouldn't be if you hold it properly.

    I don't see what's so hard to understand. You are holding something pointed at the screen for, potentially, hours. That can get fairly tiring, depending on where your TV is located.

    shryke on
  • DacDac Registered User regular
    edited April 2011
    If you are literally holding your arm up for hours, yes. But if you merely LEAN OVER and rest your elbow on your thigh, resting the remainder of your forearm down, across, and over the knee, only your wrist and hand should be in open space. In which case, moving the Wiimote is no more tiring than pushing around a mouse.

    Or leaning back and resting the heel of your hand on your leg, clutching the wiimote like, well, your swingin' cack. Even easier to move it around.

    The only time the Wii is tiring is if you deliberately avoid the most basic logic of posture.

    Dac on
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  • AtomikaAtomika Live fast and get fucked or whatever Registered User regular
    edited April 2011
    Dac wrote: »
    If you are literally holding your arm up for hours, yes. But if you merely LEAN OVER and rest your elbow on your thigh, resting the remainder of your forearm down, across, and over the knee, only your wrist and hand should be in open space. In which case, moving the Wiimote is no more tiring than pushing around a mouse.

    Not every game allows for this. Certainly not the games that most intuitively use the motion control scheme.

    Atomika on
  • KageraKagera Imitating the worst people. Since 2004Registered User regular
    edited April 2011
    Blow jobs.

    You shouldn't be expecting blow jobs.

    Kagera on
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  • AtomikaAtomika Live fast and get fucked or whatever Registered User regular
    edited April 2011
    Kagera wrote: »
    Blow jobs.

    You shouldn't be expecting blow jobs.

    Why not? I got one when I bought my Wii.

    It's really the only reason I keep going back to Best Buy.

    Atomika on
  • ElJeffeElJeffe Moderator, ClubPA mod
    edited April 2011
    Dac wrote: »
    If you are literally holding your arm up for hours, yes. But if you merely LEAN OVER and rest your elbow on your thigh, resting the remainder of your forearm down, across, and over the knee, only your wrist and hand should be in open space. In which case, moving the Wiimote is no more tiring than pushing around a mouse.

    Not every game allows for this. Certainly not the games that most intuitively use the motion control scheme.

    Yeah. With standard controllers, it's not even an issue. Flop how you want on the sofa. Having to either deal with wrist fatigue or find a special gaming position is kind of annoying. Not a huge deal, but...

    ElJeffe on
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  • shrykeshryke Member of the Beast Registered User regular
    edited April 2011
    I first noticed it when playing games like Mario Galaxy. To pick up shit on the screen I actually have to lift my hands up from their default comfort position to point the Wiimote at the screen. When playing games that need you constantly pointing there, it's worse cause I need to be in that position all the time. I noticed everyone else I saw playing Wii doing this too. When you've got to point the thing at the screen, they move their arm upward to do so. When just relaxing naturally with the controller, people don't point it at the screen. It's nothing like moving a mouse around.

    It's like the issue Atomic Ross mentioned earlier with boxing games. Fun, yes, but tiring.

    shryke on
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