Official Nintendo Fanboy Smugness & Gloating Thread

[jrc313]

This question produced a number of knowing smiles around the room from LucasArts employees, followed by the comments: "We know" and "We are looking into it", as possible concepts for the game were discussed. However, the firm has not yet made any official announcements regarding planned Wii titles.

*extreme spoo*

[teamonkey]

This question produced a number of knowing smiles around the room from LucasArts employees, followed by the comments: "We know" and "We are looking into it", as possible concepts for the game were discussed. However, the firm has not yet made any official announcements regarding planned Wii titles.

If it uses the speaker does that mean that you don't need to make the sounds yourself?

[Samus]

Red Steel seems to have some serious problems in the control department:

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.

[Darkflame]

Since the sensor bar is placed above or below the television, players point at the bar itself, not at the screen

I dont get why its set up that way at all :-/

Sure, the sensor bar is above or below the screen...but I would have thought the game would bet set up to compansate so your aiming above the bar (or below).
Bah.
Stupid.

This question produced a number of knowing smiles around the room from LucasArts employees, followed by the comments: "We know" and "We are looking into it", as possible concepts for the game were discussed. However, the firm has not yet made any official announcements regarding planned Wii titles.

If it uses the speaker does that mean that you don't need to make the sounds yourself?

You dont have too...

...but thats not to say people wont

Heck, Id hope for a special edition controller pack for the game...

One thing that hasn't been made clear yet is whether you can 'point' using the sensor bar with more than one controller at a time

Of course you can.
Duck Hunt clearly has two players "aiming" at the same time.

Or did you mean something else?
====

Incidently, third option;

The "arc" method + some sort of "bounceing" beam from the remote that could sense the Hyp distance, and thus triangulate its position enough to get onscreen co-ordinates.
(with knowledge of the angle).

[xav]

I doubt what Nintendo are doing even needs to be even as elaborate as a camera in the controller though to be honest.

Although these days that's not really so elaborate anyway - just look at the price and availability of optical mice. A pretty low res CCD would do the job - like the sort of 640x480 unit that goes into those really cheap keyring-sized digital cameras.

One thing that hasn't been made clear yet is whether you can 'point' using the sensor bar with more than one controller at a time (as opposed to using just the mems device to detect wave type motions).

My gut feeling is that the MEMS devices alone wouldn't be sensitive enough for the "laser pointer" style of interaction to work. I don't know what the lower detection limit for a typical MEMS accelerometer is, but I would imagine that just moving the remote slowly would be enough to throw the readings out. For tennis, golf and sword swings I can imagine that the MEMS devices would be fine, but I'm not so convinced for the case of selecting menu items, or aiming at specific areas on-screen.

For that reason I'm more inclined to believe that there's some active targetting going on - whether by triangulation, a video camera, or whatever. The shooting demo that was linked to in one of these threads appears to show two players aiming simultaneously. In which case either the sensor bar really does have to discriminate between the four controllers that it's tracking, or the controllers have to do the tracking themselves.

Not that I really have the slightest idea how they're doing it. I'll be looking forward to the first dissection of one in a few months time just to find out how wrong we all were.

[Kemper_Boyd]

I doubt what Nintendo are doing even needs to be even as elaborate as a camera in the controller though to be honest.

Although these days that's not really so elaborate anyway - just look at the price and availability of optical mice. A pretty low res CCD would do the job - like the sort of 640x480 unit that goes into those really cheap keyring-sized digital cameras.

I've read one theory that it is a 'camera' type system with a high frequency
low res sensor (a bit like the ones you get on mice) and presumably a filter.
The nice thing about a camera approach is that multiple controllers can
share the same 'sensors', IR lights or whatever they are, and radio back
what they can see.

Of course what I've described there isn't a sensor bar, the controller is
doing the sensing, but you never know it could just be a marketing
description.

[namor7]

Okay, can a Llamasoftie who's actually spent decent time with Wii explain to us just what the heck is going on??? First I read 'Wii Golf doesn't work' on one site, then Gamespot comes in and says...

Playing golf in Wii Sports was, quite possibly, one of the most straightforward and intuitive gaming experiences we've had in a long, long time.

And it's basically the same with *every game* besides Mario and Sonic...everyone seems to love those.

[teamonkey]

I've read one theory that it is a 'camera' type system with a high frequency
low res sensor (a bit like the ones you get on mice) and presumably a filter.
The nice thing about a camera approach is that multiple controllers can
share the same 'sensors', IR lights or whatever they are, and radio back
what they can see.

Of course what I've described there isn't a sensor bar, the controller is
doing the sensing, but you never know it could just be a marketing
description.

It makes sense that way, especially with the reports about how the games play. The bar offers (very) basic trianglation and active calibration for the MEMS sensors in the controllers. It's not very accurate, but it seems that the MEMS do the vast majority of the work and the bar gives an accurate point of reference (or rather, two) that works more or less when the controller is pointing at it.

Or alternatively, pixies.

[Samus]

From the impressions all over the net, to me it looks like this:

Mario Galaxy is solid and amazing.

Metroid Prime, complex, solid and good.

Zelda, complex, solid, good.

Tennis, simple and fun.

ExciteTruck, simple, fun, amazing.

Red Steel, complex, has control problems.

Sonic, simple and fun.

[sponge]

Okay, can a Llamasoftie who's actually spent decent time with Wii explain to us just what the heck is going on??? First I read 'Wii Golf doesn't work' on one site, then Gamespot comes in and says...

Playing golf in Wii Sports was, quite possibly, one of the most straightforward and intuitive gaming experiences we've had in a long, long time.

And it's basically the same with *every game* besides Mario and Sonic...everyone seems to love those.

It's funny how some people want things to be more complicated, isn't it?

Pick up and play is good. Anybody should be able to play and enjoy on some level.

A minute to learn, a lifetime to master. Or a bloody long time, at least.

[Roobarb]

Duck Hunt clearly has two players "aiming" at the same time.
Or did you mean something else?

No that's what i meant, just hadn't seen that demo before.

I've read one theory that it is a 'camera' type system with a high frequency
low res sensor (a bit like the ones you get on mice) and presumably a filter.
The nice thing about a camera approach is that multiple controllers can
share the same 'sensors', IR lights or whatever they are, and radio back
what they can see.

Would a low res / high sample rate camera work for this though? It works well for measuring how far across a table surface you've moved in a small amount of time, as you are effectively stitching frames based on surface pattern.

If the Wii camera has a filter tuned to the IR beacons in the sensor bar, then it would need to have the beacons in each frame, which isn't going to happen unless you have a wide angle of view, at which point presumably you'll need a reasonably high res camera, no?

[namor7]

Okay, can a Llamasoftie who's actually spent decent time with Wii explain to us just what the heck is going on??? First I read 'Wii Golf doesn't work' on one site, then Gamespot comes in and says...

Playing golf in Wii Sports was, quite possibly, one of the most straightforward and intuitive gaming experiences we've had in a long, long time.

And it's basically the same with *every game* besides Mario and Sonic...everyone seems to love those.

It's funny how some people want things to be more complicated, isn't it?

Pick up and play is good. Anybody should be able to play and enjoy on some level.

A minute to learn, a lifetime to master. Or a bloody long time, at least.

There. The voice of reason. Thank you

[Samus]

Nintendo had to close the doors for now, too big lines.

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

Positive Metroid Prime control comments @ 1UP.

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.

[Kemper_Boyd]

If the Wii camera has a filter tuned to the IR beacons in the sensor bar, then it would need to have the beacons in each frame, which isn't going to happen unless you have a wide angle of view, at which point presumably you'll need a reasonably high res camera, no?

I don't think it would need very high res, and you can get single chip
VGA res cameras for ~$5. Nintendo could use something even cheaper.

Really all you want is to be able to pick out two points, with a resonable
angular resolution and do a bit of trig. If we can have little cameras in
our mice I can't see why the main controller couldn't have a similarly
customised part. I'm not saying it does, just that I wouldn't dismiss
this theory on the grounds of cost.

[sponge]

I think the buzz power of Wii was amply demonstrated this morning.

E3 opens the doors up early to let the exhibitors in. Nintendo opened up their Wii demo room. People rushed and the Wii queue went right around both the Sony and Nintendo booth areas as people impatiently waited AGAIN.

The line was positively massive even without the non-exhibitors there.

Super Wii power.