The Wiimote's biggest asset is its expandability. The motion detection and all that jazz runs the risk of becoming novelty (as early software was very quick to make apparent), and it carried on the Gamecube's tradition of sporting a horrible d-pad, albeit with a slightly more comfortable placement. I thought it was a neat little innovation, but was worried that it would fall by the wayside when placed up against the safe ground of its competition. My opinion changed once I had it teamed with the nunchuck and classic controller, however. What would seal the deal is if the classic pad actually came bundled with the system, but alas...
Oddly, what I would consider a bonus for the Wii is the availability of the Gamecube controller. There are so many methods of interaction at your disposal, up to and including the Wii Fit board, and for the first time ever, they're all catching on.
I personally find it frustrating that developers are putting more emphasis on polygons and pixel shading than interface. "We don't care that it doesn't play as well, it looks better!"
Same here. As long as it looks recognizable and plays well, I don't really care how good it looks. You can have the best looking game in the world, yet it'll be total crap. It'll still get good reviews because it "looks so lifelike", but that's no excuse for bad playability.
adelikat wrote:
It started off fairly tame, but as more balls entered the picture it sure got a lot more entertaining.
I'd like to mention that Nintendo's Wiimote+Chuck looks like a really good middle ground. What's everyone's opinion on the mostly unfulfilled potential there?
Funny, but games like Bionic Commando 3D and Spiderman 3 haven't been released on the Wii, because its hardware is too weak to support the visuals. Perhaps the most approptiate application of Wii's controller setup was left untapped due to other — completely solvable in any case — pseudoreason. Ironic, huh? This is one of the most facepalm inducing things of the current generation's game distribution.
That aside, my only real gripe with the wiimote is that MotionPlus's added precision was supposed to be there from the beginning. Had it been like that, the few Wii games that actually tried to take advantage of the controller could have been playable (Red Steel for an example).
Wii just needs more good games that aren't remakes, ports, or sequels.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
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Well, at least the Wii's getting The Conduit. Yeah, sure, it looks kinda like a Halo rip-off with art inspired by Metroid Prime (one of the monsters looks almost exactly like Prime 1's second to last boss), but all reports about it indicate that it's really quite good. It also shows that at least one 3rd party is taking the platform seriously, realizing its potential as an FPS console.
A hundred years from now, they will gaze upon my work and marvel at my skills but never know my name. And that will be good enough for me.
I'd like to mention that Nintendo's Wiimote+Chuck looks like a really good middle ground.
(EDIT: used this comment to bring my statements into conversation, not really to contract anything said, should've clarified, sorry.)
My biggest problem with the Wiimote is its mild inaccuracy in serious gaming.
Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz is probably the worst offender of this. The game content was okay, but the control scheme had you tilt the remote to control the character which could be inaccurate and hard to control. I didn't finish the game because the control scheme was too irritating.
The motion sensor is fun for casual "motion based" gaming, but if you were going for world records it would be really nice to have the joystick usable.
Super Mario Galaxy's control scheme was fine, but it was almost exactly the same as using a Gamecube Controller besides the spin jump.
I could go into my Twilight Princess rant, but I'll just leave it at "catch 2 fish."
All that being said, I opt to use Gamecube controller in all cases (Brawl, Mario Kart Wii) because it gives more accurate control and it is easier to hold and deal with (cords, batteries, etc.)
On an unrelated note, I hate how I can't play a Gamecube game in my Wii without using a Wii-Mote to bypass the menu. It's a HORRIBLE programming oversight.
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I'd like to mention that I made my Wiimote remark in context of the conversation, AKA how to control first person shooters. Agreed that its motion detection can get really gimmicky, but its pointer function would be more than adequate for something that PC's do using mice, thus being a good middle ground for consoles. But like I said, developers don't care. I was really perturbed when it was announced that a Command & Conquer game would be released for the 360 and Playstation, but not the Wii. They gave up a chance to have greater playability for better graphics (in a strategy game, of all things! graphics shouldn't be that intense in a strategy game!).
"But the market's not there!" Then make one, dangit.
A hundred years from now, they will gaze upon my work and marvel at my skills but never know my name. And that will be good enough for me.
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Kirkq wrote:
On an unrelated note, I hate how I can't play a Gamecube game in my Wii without using a Wii-Mote to bypass the menu. It's a HORRIBLE programming oversight.
Agreed. I had to go out and buy freaking batteries for my Wiimote just to play Melee.
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Kirkq wrote:
My biggest problem with the Wiimote is its mild inaccuracy in serious gaming.
Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz is probably the worst offender of this. The game content was okay, but the control scheme had you tilt the remote to control the character which could be inaccurate and hard to control. I didn't finish the game because the control scheme was too irritating.
The motion sensor is fun for casual "motion based" gaming, but if you were going for world records it would be really nice to have the joystick usable.
The wiimote was originally supposed to have motion and tilt sensors, but the tilt got canned at some point. The only way for the system to accurately track exactly where the wiimote is, is by using the sensor bar, and even that gets wonky, especially when you're twisting it. The upcoming WiiMotion addon adds gyroscopes to the controller, so it'll be able to detect any rotating motion much, much better.
Unfortunately, that'll probably bring the total price of a wiimote+nunchuck to something like $70-80.
I'd like to mention that Nintendo's Wiimote+Chuck looks like a really good middle ground. What's everyone's opinion on the mostly unfulfilled potential there?
Funny, but games like Bionic Commando 3D and Spiderman 3 haven't been released on the Wii, because its hardware is too weak to support the visuals. Perhaps the most approptiate application of Wii's controller setup was left untapped due to other — completely solvable in any case — pseudoreason. Ironic, huh? This is one of the most facepalm inducing things of the current generation's game distribution.
That aside, my only real gripe with the wiimote is that MotionPlus's added precision was supposed to be there from the beginning. Had it been like that, the few Wii games that actually tried to take advantage of the controller could have been playable (Red Steel for an example).
Wii just needs more good games that aren't remakes, ports, or sequels.
wat
SM3 was most certainly on the Wii. Sadly, it was the strangely gimped PS2 version(Less content than Sm2. WTFucking Hell?!) with shitty tacked on controls, but the game exists.
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I may be mistaken here, but I think the wiimote CAN detect exactly all of the axis it's rotated about, without the need for the sensor bar. The sensor bar just gives precision and response.
You can try the baseball game in wii sports and hold the bat in any position you like to try it out.
I think what it has built in is the IR sensor and some inertial sensors. The inertial sensors let it more or less keep track of how it's oriented in 3D space, but they drift and eventually get off-track, needing to be recalibrated by pointing the remote at the screen. The "sensor bar" (really a pair of IR emitters) provides the triangulation needed to re-fix the remote's location and orientation.
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You are probably right, evidenced by the fact that no game fully utilized the wiimote as a 3d spacial detector, but only gestures or pointing abilities.
The Wiimote just has a simple accelerometer. It knows when it's being jerked about, but it doesn't know with any real precision WHERE it's being moved to, or how. Without the sensor bar, all you can get out of the Wiimote is, "am I moving? Y/N"
It has an ability to sense which direction it is moving in, but it is not sensitive to degrees of motion in terms of distance, just in terms of force.
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superjupi wrote:
The Wiimote just has a simple accelerometer. It knows when it's being jerked about, but it doesn't know with any real precision WHERE it's being moved to, or how. Without the sensor bar, all you can get out of the Wiimote is, "am I moving? Y/N"
Well, you can tell exactly what position (angles) the wiimote is in, and also, distance can be done while pointing at the sensor bar (i.e photo channel drawing) because the ir camera in the wiimote can see the ir dots get bigger.
Should have added that list stipulation in beforehand, oh well.
Without IR, the Wiimote has no real idea where its placement is in space. It can tell which direction it's moving in, but not with any degree of accuracy. Apologies for the exaggeration.
The Wiimote just has a simple accelerometer. It knows when it's being jerked about, but it doesn't know with any real precision WHERE it's being moved to, or how. Without the sensor bar, all you can get out of the Wiimote is, "am I moving? Y/N"
Technically, if you know the angles and the direction of movement, tracking where it's going isn't difficult. It might require some calculation (depending on how it is handled by the Wii itself), though I can't imagine it being very intensive.
Btw, it seems that Nintendo has understood some basic truth about
computing: It's not processing power that sells. Consider this:
Xbox 360: Triple-core CPU at 3.2 GHz, 512 MB of RAM.
Units sold: 30 million.
PS3: A 3.2 GHz Cell microprocessor, which consists of one PowerPC-based
core and six SPE cores, 256 MB of RAM.
Units sold: 22 million.
Nintendo Wii: A single-core CPU at 729 MHz, 88 MB of RAM.
Units sold: 50 million.
PlayStation Portable: 333 MHz CPU, 32 MB of RAM (plus 2 MB of GPU RAM).
Units sold: 50 million.
Nintendo DS: A 67 MHz main CPU and a 33 MHz coprocessor, 4 MB of RAM.
Units sold: 100 million.
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I think that it's sales figures may partially be due to the fact that the specs of the console are not written on the box. As far as average joe is concerned all the consoles are equal, but the Wii has all the gimmicks. If you look at the sales for the previous generation, the PS2 was clearly the greatest, however, I would expect this to be due to the fact that the PS2 was released far earlier than it's competitors, rather than it's technical specifications.
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andymac wrote:
I think that it's sales figures may partially be due to the fact that the specs of the console are not written on the box.
Are you saying that the average person would be swayed to buy one console over another based on the specs rather than the content? A lot of people tried pandering to the specs when the consoles were slated to come out (read: "the PS3 has THE CELL"), but I doubt it had a noticeable impact on sales.
The reason is not the specs, most of the console that sells well have a lower price. With a lower price, the console sells more, and more game are developed for it and it's a running cycle.
The reason is not the specs, most of the console that sells well have a lower price. With a lower price, the console sells more, and more game are developed for it and it's a running cycle.
At least the DS and the PSP have about the same price, so in that case it's not the decisive factor...
