Tag: Wii

The PATHETIC State of the Gaming ‘Media’

This is basically about reviews, I was going to make it about how it sucks as a whole, but it got too depressing. We all know that Gamespot / IGN / 1up etc. all offer completely terrible reviews, have crap staff, and just plain embarrass themselves on a daily basis in almost every “opinion” piece they put up. But I came across this review and had to say something.

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Wii Want Our Money Back

As Wii tops sales charts worldwide, experts fear the current domination of Nintendo’s Wii system is a major threat to the stability of the gaming industry. A new study proves that if Wii continues to dominate, people will spend less money on gaming, which could force an alarming percentage of gaming developers out of business.

“I have Wii Sports, I don’t need any other games,” insisted a local resident we contacted, in a worrying statement. The general consensus from the gaming community is that Wii has downgraded videogaming from a serious hobby to merely a “fun” distraction.

Nintendo admits their main priority with Wii is making people have fun, but remain arrogant on its success. When questioned about the survival of other videogame makers, President of Nintendo of America Reggie Fils-Aime replied with “not my problem”.

Analysts previously felt that Wii was just having its moment and believed the fad would pass before doing too much serious damage, but uncertainty is starting to develop in even the most positive, and most industry analysts are now admitting things haven’t gone as planned and are closely monitoring the situation.

Observers are starting to discover loopholes in Nintendo’s strategy, as Wii owners currently endure a serious lack of new content. Experts warn that supply of Wii could be restricted for some time, and with consumers losing patience and PS3 getting more games released each year, things could very well get back to normal.

A former Nintendo employee agrees it’s only a matter of time before their “moment” is over. Keen industry observer MikeUS backed that up with his insight, “haha wii sounds like wee”.

Wii Breathes Life Into Gaming Industry

After suffering a steady decline over the last few years, sales of videogames are up over 55% over last year and there’s one key factor: the introduction of Nintendo’s new Wii system. Nearly six months after launch, keen consumers are still lining up for hours outside stores whenever a new shipment of Wii arrives. Such demand is unprecedented in the entire history of the gaming industry.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” commented local store owner John Fredward. “People are so excited when they can finally secure themselves a system, even when they have to trek here at 6am in the snow to get it.”

The key factor to its success is the introduction of a new way to play, which has given people who previously felt alienated from videogames a second chance. Nintendo’s Wii allows people to play games with unrestricted 3D movement simply by moving around the remote shaped controller. Son of a father of at least one, George Beating, proudly remarked, “my friends and family are actually excited about games again; Wii has a real friendly attractive vibe that just lets everyone let loose and have fun.”

Not only are consumers benefiting from Wii, but game developers are in heaven. “This system has given us a lot more to work with and given life to many ideas we’ve always wanted to realise.” Wii is much more developer-friendly than other systems and doesn’t require a huge money investment by the publisher, which is resulting in a huge barrage of games being released. The success of Wii is a win-win situation for the gaming industry and gamers, and it looks set to continue as Nintendo stocks rise to record highs.

Controlling Shooters on Revolution: A Bluepaper

Ok. It all came to me in a rush so it could be a bit blah but here it is.

Revolution’s controller is going to revolutionise first person shooters more than we initially think. The genre has been dying all over again, having to resort to horror themes and generally making everything bigger and longer to improve itself. When people get excited over the ability to hold two different pistols at the same time you know we’re heading towards a brick wall.

Everyone’s already thought about simply aiming with the controller by tilting, as we would a mouse or second analogue stick. I propose however that with the revolution controller FPS games can move beyond that, beyond even what light guns offer, and offer true realism in handling firearms as done in real life. I’m talking blind shooting, shooting around corners, behind ourselves, over objects.

So far. Most people have accepted the obvious idea, to simply map the motion sensor as you would a mouse or right thumbstick. To look up and down and turn left or right. To aim. You gun remains shooting towards the middle of the screen.

I believe this to be a flawed approach. If you consider turning in the keyboard/mouse setup. You move the mouse towards the desired direction then lift it off the surface and back to your central position. If you do not do this and move back to centre, your character does the same, facing the original direction. When you apply this to a motion sensor, should the motion sensor be on at all time, we have no way to ‘cancel’ our movements as we can a mouse by lifting it. Therefore when we turn around a corner in a game we would have to hold the controller or our whole arm at 90° until we face our initial direction again. I dread to think of the difficulties we’de face holding our controller backwards, pointing away from the screen, should we ever need to backtrack. Because of this I suggest my own scheme.

Detachable Thumbstick
Move forward and back and turn left or right. *

Motion sensor.
Moving the ‘remote’ left and right across a horizontal plane to reach left or right.
Tilting the ‘remote’ up down, twists left and right to aim.
Moving the ‘remote’ up and down to raise and lower your gun.

Crosspad
Left and right: to strafe. Up and down to look up or down*

Under my scheme, we wield the controller as we would a real firearm. My approach  intergrates the precision aiming of lightgun games and the player controlled movement of traditional first person shooters. But it takes it up another notch.

Imagine a situation we’re you’re taking cover behind a wall. Around the corner to your left, enemies are opening fire, awaiting for you to appear. In a traditional FPS you would have to move out into the open and take out the gunmen while standing in the way of their gunfire. But now, with revolution, you could just edge up with your back pressed against the wall. Then at the corner. Reach around, moving the controller around your shoulder, and just firing. In person you would be holding the controller behind you, pressing the B trigger. In the game your character would we shooting blindly into the room, with only their arm exposed. Maybe you might be lucky, but if not you can still just swing around and run in firing at enemies as you would a light game game.

But there’s much more you could do. Taking cover behind a crate you could raise your arm to shoot over the top, or failing that, lob a grenade, simulating a throwing action with your arm, pressing the trigger to release the explosive. In multiplayer while running past an open doorway you could fire into it, just incase you hit someone, while not breaking stride or changing direction.

In case you just skipped all this or didn’t understand. To put it simply, in shooters, you should use the motion sensor to replicate the movements of the characters arm. Use the crosspad and thumbstick to take care of his feet and head.

*I say this because I’m used to the “Goldeneye” setup. For those who want to strafe with the thumbstick or walk with the cosspad it really doesn’t matter, they could map it like that. I just find speed and precision in turning to be more important than strafeing.