Ken Kutaragi replaced as president of Sony's gaming unit

[asleepathewheel]

Originally posted by Asher
This is starting to sound like a very complicated control scheme -- controlling three axises (axii?) at once?

I thought the goal was to simplify.

It sounds more complicated than it actually is in practice. Really.

[Asher]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
I'm sorry but didn't we just have this conversation about what critics think of the Wii version of Madden?

Yes, that many of them haven't played it enough to wear off the novelty factor.

It's the same reason Perfect Dark Zero got high reviews when it came out (including a 9.0 from Gamespot).

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Verto
Other things I was thinking of:

It would be heard to implement a freestyle lightsaber game, where you battle it out with another lightsaber-wielding foe, since nothing would stop your Wiimote in the air when your onsreen lightsaber hit something/stopped it...at least, not that I know of. Maybe a solution could be find, I dunno. But the game could still feature you blocking blaster-fire, for example. Other ideas: Wiimote controls lightsaber, Nunchuk could be your "Force-wielding hand", allowing you to Force-Push enemies, levitate objects, etc. I see lots of potential for the system, moving far beyond the "gimmick" level that Asher wants to relegate it to.

See the video I posted earlier and you'll realize just how powerful the remote or nunchuck could be for using force powers

And re: lightsabers, I saw an extremely insightful comment about a way of implementing it. When a lightsaber meets something that stops it, the lightsaber stops and a transparent blade continues where your hand would be holding the lightsaber (so the transparent bit goes straight through the other lightsaber). I think people would naturally adjust after a while and stop their hand at the right point. If you want to have one lightsaber push the other back, it could be resolved by button mashing (IMO lame), some sort of gesturing system and/or something like the special kills in God of War (where you basically had to hit a sequence of buttons or analog stick rolls and/or button mash to get an instant kill on a monster you started grappling with).

[Asher]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
See the video I posted earlier and you'll realize just how powerful the remote or nunchuck could be for using force powers

I'm sorry but:
1) Was that a confirmed Wii game?
2) Was that actually running on a Wii? It had per-pixel lighting which isn't possible on the Wii. And if it was faked they are VERY clever and could make a lot of money by licensing that technology.

[Verto]

Asher really likes typing "per-pixel lighting", and I can't blame him. It just rolls off the tongue, so to speak.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
See the video I posted earlier and you'll realize just how powerful the remote or nunchuck could be for using force powers

It looks like the PSP game Star Wars: Lethal Alliance. I'm not sure why you think it has any bearing in a conversation about the Wii.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Verto
Asher really likes typing "per-pixel lighting", and I can't blame him. It just rolls off the tongue, so to speak.

Global illumination is better than per-pixel is better than per-vertex which is better than lightmaps...

[Kuciwalker]

I'm sorry but:
1) Was that a confirmed Wii game?

It's not a confirmed game at all, AFAIK, and I don't think it's a Wii game from the graphics. It was certainly prerendered anyway, not gameplay footage. The point was that those sorts of arbitrary manipulations are only really possible with the Wiimote. With the remote, I can point at what I want to grab with the force, press a button or perform a gesture with the nunchuck to grab it, then move it through space at a huge range of speeds and directions. I can swiftly point the remote left and the object goes flying off, or I can slowly move it, just carrying the object to a new point. It's like grabbing and chucking things with a mouse, but you have full 3D because the remote and nunchuck can detect motion towards the screen as well.

[Asher]

The point was that those sorts of arbitrary manipulations are only really possible with the Wiimote.

But that's patently not true. Have you ever played HL2?

Have you ever thrown a grenade in a game?

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
It looks like the PSP game Star Wars: Lethal Alliance. I'm not sure why you think it has any bearing in a conversation about the Wii.

I think you could actually DO those sort of force powers in-game with the Wii.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Asher
But that's patently not true. Have you ever played HL2?

Did you miss the analogy with the mouse?

[Verto]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker


See the video I posted earlier and you'll realize just how powerful the remote or nunchuck could be for using force powers

And re: lightsabers, I saw an extremely insightful comment about a way of implementing it. When a lightsaber meets something that stops it, the lightsaber stops and a transparent blade continues where your hand would be holding the lightsaber (so the transparent bit goes straight through the other lightsaber). I think people would naturally adjust after a while and stop their hand at the right point.

Not bad, and I agree that people would naturally adapt to holding the Wiimote when the blade stopped onscreen.

One thing I'm not sure of is, how well the Wiimote would work if you were being a bit, shall we say, extravagant, with your dueling. What if I bring the Wiimote up, with it facing the ceiling rather than the TV screen? Would that throw it off and break up the natural flow of the game while it fixed itself?

[Asher]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
Did you miss the analogy with the mouse?

No, it's just not relevant nor does it make much sense.

Force (forward movement with the Wiimote) determines how hard it's thrown, the angle it's aimed at determines where it is thrown. This is not something only possible on the Wiimote, and in fact it's been done already without it.

[Verto]

Originally posted by Asher

But that's patently not true. Have you ever played HL2?

Have you ever thrown a grenade in a game?

Yes, because holding down a button to throw a grenade in an arc is exactly like using the Nunchuk to grab a crate and throw it across the room.

That clip of the game Kuci linked to, in it we see a TIE Fighter approaching the Jedi, and they throw some debris in front of it. That got me to thinking about how, just to add another bit of detail to a game. Lighter objects like, say, Yoda, would require just the Nunchuk, while heavier objects, like an X-Wing, would require both Wiimote and Nunchuk working together on it - to reflect all your attention, etc. Maybe stupid to some of you, but I think it would be a neat touch. And far "cooler" than simply holding down A, or A+B.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Verto
Yes, because holding down a button to throw a grenade in an arc is exactly like using the Nunchuk to grab a crate and throw it across the room.

That clip of the game Kuci linked to, in it we see a TIE Fighter approaching the Jedi, and they throw some debris in front of it. That got me to thinking about how, just to add another bit of detail to a game. Lighter objects like, say, Yoda, would require just the Nunchuk, while heavier objects, like an X-Wing, would require both Wiimote and Nunchuk working together on it - to reflect all your attention, etc. Maybe stupid to some of you, but I think it would be a neat touch. And far "cooler" than simply holding down A, or A+B.

It's interesting that you guys have built up this game in your head that dedicates both the Wii controllers to throwing objects around.

As intensely exciting as that sound, we again come to the problem of "gameplay".