Nintendo Wii appreciation thread

ArsTechnican mietteitä ohjaimen teknologiasta:

http://arstechnica.com/staff/fatbits.ars/2005/9/16/1265

Tuo Smash Bros-traileri oli ihan ykkönen, varmaan paras pelitraileri mitä olen koskaan nähnyt.

Red Steel vaikuttaa olevan pahasti vaiheessa:

May 11, 2006 - Leading up to E3, Red Steel was one of the most anticipated Nintendo Wii titles worldwide. Ubisoft is reinventing the first person shooter genre, combining motion controlled gunplay with hand-to-hand sword fighting. We had the chance to deliver exclusive video content, take early looks at concept work and even go hands-on with pre-E3 builds in Paris, France. While the game continues to show promise even now on the showroom floor, our hopes for the control and intuitive "New FPS" experience has yet to be delivered, as Red Steel comes up lacking at Nintendo's booth.

Before we send fans scrambling to the boards in a fury of hatred or depression, we have to get a few things straight. Red Steel still has the potential to be one of the most desirable launch games on the Wii, and we still expect great things from the team working on it. It just needs some serious control work. The E3 demo includes the intro level, which teaches the basics of swordplay and gunplay, as well as simple navigation, zooming and time-freeze abilities. All in all, the demo takes about eight minutes to navigate through, and we've had a chance to experience it multiple times, with multiple editors on multiple system set-ups. In short, we've played the hell out of this thing.

The Presentation:
For starters, the game doesn't hit the level of detail and style found in the target renders shown a while back, or even the official trailer that we have on our own site. Colors aren't as crisp as they could be, the characters have a bit of a cut-out look to them, and the amount of graphical polish just isn't there. While some areas are destructible, such as the fish tanks, televisions and cars, others simply aren't. It's a bit odd to shoot through a paper door and see sun rays sparkle through, and then turn just moments later and have shotgun blasts do nothing to a set of bottles. If Red Steel is going to turn heads graphically, we haven't seen it happen on Nintendo hardware yet.

The Gameplay: Gun Battle
As Nintendo has said over and over, however, playing is believing. The presentation could take a backseat of the gameplay was on, but unfortunately it didn't give the feeling we were hoping for at all. The gun control is amazingly jittery, having extremely high sensitivity when not zoomed in, and the overall feel is still very clunky. If you look back to the Nintendo conference, you can actually see the high sensitivity in action, as the main Ubisoft representative that was playing even overcompensated a ton, hitting enemies at a very low rate. The idea for Wii FPS games is to eliminate the need for dual analog sticks, but Red Steel isn't solving any problems, as analog control is being mapped directly to the Wii-mote. Since the sensor bar is placed above or below the television, players point at the bar itself, not at the screen. For this reason, the game doesn't allow pinpoint accuracy with the Wii-mote, as players have to steer a cursor rather than aiming at a point on-screen, which is a far more natural approach.

We aren't saying the game needs to work like a light gun, it just needs to have an accurate one-to-one representation of where your hands are in relation to the game. If a character pops out of a hiding place, players need to be able to swing their hand over and point at him as they would the barrel of a gun, and that is definitely not the case right now. The ability to calibrate your own controller and sensitivity will be added in later, so hopefully that will solve a lot of the problems we are seeing. Again, we played this demo over and over with multiple set-ups, and each time we had the same conclusion: Red Steer is harder to control than dual analog or a PC mouse.

The Gameplay: Sword Battle
Since Red Steel focuses on not only gunplay, but also hand-to-hand fighting, we thought it necessary to go a bit in-depth with how this works and feels. First off, the swordplay portions of the game actually feel better than any of the gun areas, which is already a testament to the hybrid design. It's the control that kills it again, however, as the implementation with motion sensing isn't where it should be. Players use the nunchuck controller to block attacks with a small knife, while simultaneously using the Wii-mote for their own sword. While the nunchuck portion works relatively well (after a few times through the demo we could defeat any enemy without getting hit... nice) the actual sword play isn't there yet.

Instead of mimicking every movement of your hand (something that is done in Nintendo Baseball), Red Steel instead waits for a full action to be done with the Wii-mote, and then executes it on screen. What this means, however, is that it is simply simulating a button press. If multiple people play the sword portion, you should see multiple swipes and styles coming form the character on-screen. After all, everyone swings differently. Instead, there are only a few different swipes that will be recognized. If you swipe the Wii-mote horizontally, it will show a horizontal swipe. Attempt an upper-cut motion, however, and the action is shown as a generic up-to-down slice instead, as if you went from above your head and down. The difference here is a bit hard to explain, but it will make or break the experience. Right now motions convert to a pre-determined swipe, instead of the player actually using the Wii-mote to realistically attack with a virtual sword. The difference is huge, and it has to be tweaked.

Where to go From Here:
We all love the Red Steel concept. We've been watching it in motion for a while, we showed it in motion exclusively to the world a few days ago, and we've been playing it non-stop. Red Steel is one of the most anticipated games on the system, and we want to see it tighten up and seriously deliver. As it stands right now, we can't recommend the game to anyone due to the shaky controls and lack of polish. We fully understand, however that this is E3. This is the chance for Ubisoft to show off Red Steel, gain some impressions and do what it needs to do in order to pull off a top-tier game. Swordplay simulates swipes rather than giving the player full control of the weaponry, and the sensitivity and execution of gunplay is still off. These are both changes that can be made, however, and we'll be keeping our eye out for them in future builds. Graphically the game could be improved on as well, not just by allowing for sharper colors or more beautiful backdrops, but also by adding destructible environments and more glorious effects. There is plenty of time to make Red Steel the game everyone wants it to be, and we expect to see it from a company like Ubisoft. It has some issues, but there's still potential. Right now it's all up to the developers.

Nintendo joutui sulkemaan ovet toistaiseksi, jonot kasvoivat käsittämättömän pitkiksi.

Video: The Wii line at 10:30 am day 2 of the show.

Positiivisia Metroid Prime kommentteja 1UP:ssa.

To ease the concerns of fans (or perhaps worsen them?), the Wii remote and its freelook system works wonders for Prime. But because the stick-like controller requires more movement than a mouse, getting used to circle-strafing and other skillful moves takes a bit of practice -- we'd put the learning curve at about 6 minutes straight, perhaps less if one wasn't standing for hours on end on the deafening E3 floor.

The latest Mario Galaxy vid, shows the robot boss scene, high quality clip!

:cool:

The latest Mario Galaxy vid, shows the robot boss scene, high quality clip!

:cool:

Wow! Upean näköistä...

Wii:stä on tullut nyt pakko-ostos. Mahtava line-up julkaisuun, uusi mario näytää ihan vitun herkulliselta!

Reuters kirjoittaa E3:sta:

By Kemp Powers

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Nintendo Co. Ltd.'s (7974.OS: Quote, Profile, Research) new Wii video game console, considered the underdog in the console wars because it lacks the high-definition graphics and multimedia features of its rivals, is stealing the show at this week's Electronic Entertainment Expo trade show.

The wait to try out the Wii at E3 pushed past four hours on Thursday afternoon, while the wait for hands-on time with Sony Corp.'s (6758.T: Quote, Profile, Research) PlayStation 3 was barely 30 minutes. Both consoles will hit the market later this year, though the Wii is expected to cost much less than rival consoles.

The Wii (pronounced "we") uses a motion-sensor enabled controller that looks like a TV remote and allows users to direct action on the screen by wielding it like a sword or swinging it like a baseball bat, tennis racket or golf club.

"It's basically a whole different thing from anything I've seen before," said Josef Faulkner, who had been waiting in line for three hours to get his hands on Wii. He still had an hour to go. "This is definitely the biggest thing here."

Faulkner and other attendees agreed that the unique controller is what is drawing people to the Wii.

Unlike other next-generation consoles, Wii doesn't sport high-definition graphics or make any promises of being a multimedia entertainment hub, but it promises a unique, fun experience new to video games.

And while the company insists that Wii is not a direct competitor to powerful new game consoles like the upcoming Playstation 3 and Microsoft Corp.'s (MSFT.O: Quote, Profile, Research) Xbox 360, there is no doubt that it has stolen much of other consoles' thunder.

"You have to play (Wii) in order to understand what it is," said Don James, Nintendo's executive vice president of operations. James said the company knew that lots of people would be drawn to Wii, but he was surprised by the sheer numbers. He said that after 3:00 p.m. Pacific Time (22:00 GMT) they had to stop allowing people into the line because there was no way they would be able to see the console before the convention center closed three hours later.

"I didn't think the line was going to go around the whole convention center," said James.

The enduring image of the show might end up being the enormous line, which snakes completely around Nintendo's floor space. A security guard estimated that 1,500 to 2,000 people have been in the line at any given time.

Matt Rogers and Steve Bollinger said they waited almost three hours to get their hands on Wii, even though they lined up as soon as the convention center doors opened. After exiting the booth, they said the wait was definitely worth it.

"Nintendo really nailed it," said Rogers.

"They really worked hard to put fun games in this booth," said Bollinger. "Now I know the next thing I'm getting."

Nyt napsahti päässä!

Dowload here (QuickTime format): http://zdmedia.vo.llnwd.net/o1/Podcasts/051106.m4v

Ihan tajuttoman asiallista matskua Mariosta, Zeldasta ja vähän Tenniksestäkin.

Mariota pelaa selvästi kaveri, joka ei yleisesti ole kiinnostunut Mario pelisarjasta. Tyyppi ei osaa tehdä perus hyppykomboja tai edes backflippiä, mutta silti homma toimii todella sulavasti ja kommenteista kuulee, miten kaverin ennakkoluulot murtuu ja asenne peliä kohtaan vaihtuu radikaalisti. Kuvaava kommentti alkuvaiheessa, "it's not really that intuitive", mut tsekatkaapa mitä kaveri samalla onnistuu tekemään, LOL! Kenttäsuunnittelu on ihan tolkuttoman asiallista....

Zeldassa mukana kalastusfiilistelyä ja paljon keskustelua herättänyt jousiammunta-osio. Tää tyttö osaa oikeesti pelata vähän vaikeempia pelejä ja homma näyttää toimivan hemmetin hyvin. Tarkkuus näyttää olevan huippuluokkaa ja haastavuus vaikuttaa olevan loistavassa balanssissa vähän moniulotteisempia pelikokemuksia hakeville pelaajille.

Nyt nyrjähti,

WII GET!

Joystiq:

I would love to have a specific example of a mistake that was corrected by you; you stepped in and you made some changes, and you taught others what not to do in that situation. Can you think of a good example?

Miyamoto:

This is a kind of a slightly different case then what I just explained, but one example I can give would be with The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, which as you know takes advantage of the Wii remote for aiming with the bow. Some people found that when they were aiming with the bow, as they release the button to fire the arrow your aim would move slightly, and that would make it more difficult to hit the enemy. So the natural thinking was that maybe on the software and programming side we could make it so that even if your aim moves just a little bit as you release you'll still hit the target, kind of almost like an auto-aim type of feature. That was kind of the natural thinking in terms of how we could improve that.

But I went back to the team and I said, well, you know, if you think about it though aiming a bow is not something that's very easy to do. So the fact that you have to be very precise adds reality, it adds realism to the game. So rather than try and take that type of aiming system and change it into something that's more along the lines of a shooting game, it's better to retain that type of realism and challenge the player to really kind of get into the feeling of shooting a bow. I think often times people kind of have these old habits in creating games, that they always tend to try and resolve issues in the same way, even though resolving that issue may not be the best solution for that particular piece of software.

:king:

Wii-mote Demo: Obstacle Course

http://uk.revolution.ign.com/articles/707/707953p1.html

The controls of this game are where the demo really shines. The aiming is 100% spot-on and sensitive enough that you hardly have to move the controller at all. It demonstrates perfectly that the remote will be able to be used with no effort or strain on the wrist if developers decide to program games to perform at that level of this sensitivity. With the smallest of movements the icon and your character went exactly where you wanted and it seemed nearly instantly second nature. This demo proved what Nintendo has been saying all along: Anyone can use Wii, and the remote responds with perfect control when done right.

Out of all the E3 Wii demos, we really thought this one was done beautifully. The controls were what we always dreamed about when imagining how Wii would work. You pick up the remote, and it just plain works. After a few rounds of the game demo, hopes are very high that more developers somehow unlock the magic that is contained inside that tiny little remote, because the games that could be made would blow anything up to this point clear out of the water.

Elebits (Konami) - gameplay vid 1

:confused:

:cool:

Project H.A.M.M.E.R - gameplay vid 1

Excite Truck - gameplay vid

Mitä enemmän tätä kattelee sitä todennäköisemmin peli lähtee launchissa säkkiin! Erittäin asiallista arcade-menoa, sulavaa, haastavaa, hauskaa ja toimivaa :)

Or How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love the Controls.

The trick to good control in the E3 demo of Corruption is to enable "Expert" sensitivity in the pause menu. This setting allows you to perform all the aiming and turning with small, precise wrist movements, instead of larger movements of your entire arm which are required at the default sensitivity. Because you aren't moving the remote nearly as much, it won't drift outside of the sensor bar's range, so you avoid the weird view-freeze bug and subsequent auto-calibration fix mentioned in my first set of impressions. It's also just easier and more comfortable to play the game with smaller movements, and you can turn faster to keep up with quick flying enemies.

http://www.planetgamecube.com/impressionsArt.cfm?artid=11556

:)

Ja jälleen uutta Mario Galaxy matskua, mukana vähän uuttakin ympäristöä E3 demo buildista. Näytää mahtavalta vaikka klipin laatu ei kovin hyvä tällä kertaa ookaan.

http://www.gamerz-edge.com/ipodvideo/super_mario_galaxy_2.mp4

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4767807.stm

Nintendo steals the show at E3

By Alfred Hermida
Technology editor, BBC News website in Los Angeles

If success was judged by the size of the queues at this week's E3 games expo, then Nintendo would win hands down.

Fans waited in line for hours to have a go at the new Wii console and its unorthodox motion-sensing controller.

Nintendo's Wii (pronounced "we") stole the show in Los Angeles, which is one of the key events of the games industry.

It managed to overshadow Sony's much vaunted PlayStation 3 (PS3), even though this was the first time buffs were able to play games on the new system.

As E3 entered is final hours on Friday afternoon, the queues to play the PS3 had vanished

Ihmettelinkin eilen kuinka vähän juttua PS3:sta on E3-medioissa ollut. Toisaalta aluekoodittomuus ja muut specsithän oli julkaistu jo aiemmin.

Miyamoto Vs. Spielberg @ WiiTennis:







:)

Videoita odotellessa!