So I guess today Nintendo announced the Wii 2. Sounds like a good idea to me except for one or two things. First of all, the name doesn't follow Nintendo's regular naming scheme for consoles. Until the Wii, they'd always used Nintendo somewhere in the name for the console. The only time they reused the name of their previous console was in the Super Nintendo (SNES). This time, they seem to have followed the pattern set by their competitor, Sony, by just adding a number to the end. Come on Nintendo, couldn't you come up with something original? It sounds like you're just saying, "We too." I'd even settle for it being called the Super Wii over Wii 2.
Actually, I can't really come up with anything else to complain about other than the name, especially since there really aren't that many details about it yet. We will definitely get to hear a lot more about it at E3 this June and then I might have more to say. I've always liked Nintendo, and I'm sure this system won't be a big disappointment, especially since I already have a 3DS and they will probably do some things together.
If you want to read more about it, here is a list of recent blog posts about the announcement: ZDNet, PCMag(talks a little about hardware), 2D-X, T3, NDTV
Update: It appears that the official name of the project from Nintendo is Project Cafe, which is much less silly than the name that is being reported in most of the media.
Showing posts with label wii. Show all posts
Showing posts with label wii. Show all posts
Monday, April 25, 2011
Thursday, April 21, 2011
What is missing from motion-controlled shooting games
When I got my Wii way back when it first came out in November of 2006 I was really excited for the new gameplay possibilities it would provide. In particular, I believed that shooters would finally be playable on consoles. No offense to anyone that exclusively plays shooters on consoles, but a mouse just provides much better accuracy and control than a thumb-stick ever will be able to. With the Wii remote, you can just point at the screen and pull a trigger to fire, much like gun-wielding arcade games.
In order to try out the motion-controlled shooting experience, I got a game called Elebits. The aiming at the screen works well, and the player quickly becomes accustomed to pointing to get the cursor to move. The one big downfall of this targeting scheme comes when the player needs to change the direction of the camera. The only way to move the camera is to move the pointer to the edge of the screen and wait there until the camera has moved far enough and then return the pointer to the center of the screen. This method of controlling the camera is just as bad as using a joystick, and in fact a little bit worse. For instance, if you move the cursor just a little bit past the edge of the screen and leave the screen entirely, the sensor no longer knows which direction to turn, so it either turns the wrong way or doesn't turn at all. Maybe that's why all the shooting games in arcades are rail shooter (a game where the camera control is scripted, and the action is always where the camera is looking). Unless something is done to improve the current state of motion-controls for consoles (and most arcade games), rail shooters are the best kind of motion-controlled shooters we will have.
The way I would implement a motion-controlled shooter to make the controls non-frustrating and intuitive would require hardware that is more expensive and perhaps less practical to have in one's living room. Most importantly, the player would need to have a surround display system. I mean that a set of displays, or one large, curved display, would need to be placed around the player to allow for a 360 degree view at all times. The player could then point the wand/gun/whatever in any direction and use a joystick to move relative to that pointing direction. The result would be an intuitive, accurate, and easy to control shooter with motion controls. The only downside is that the display technology is much more expensive than people are willing to pay. One might also want more displays to look up and down in addition to the horizontal directions.
In order to try out the motion-controlled shooting experience, I got a game called Elebits. The aiming at the screen works well, and the player quickly becomes accustomed to pointing to get the cursor to move. The one big downfall of this targeting scheme comes when the player needs to change the direction of the camera. The only way to move the camera is to move the pointer to the edge of the screen and wait there until the camera has moved far enough and then return the pointer to the center of the screen. This method of controlling the camera is just as bad as using a joystick, and in fact a little bit worse. For instance, if you move the cursor just a little bit past the edge of the screen and leave the screen entirely, the sensor no longer knows which direction to turn, so it either turns the wrong way or doesn't turn at all. Maybe that's why all the shooting games in arcades are rail shooter (a game where the camera control is scripted, and the action is always where the camera is looking). Unless something is done to improve the current state of motion-controls for consoles (and most arcade games), rail shooters are the best kind of motion-controlled shooters we will have.
The way I would implement a motion-controlled shooter to make the controls non-frustrating and intuitive would require hardware that is more expensive and perhaps less practical to have in one's living room. Most importantly, the player would need to have a surround display system. I mean that a set of displays, or one large, curved display, would need to be placed around the player to allow for a 360 degree view at all times. The player could then point the wand/gun/whatever in any direction and use a joystick to move relative to that pointing direction. The result would be an intuitive, accurate, and easy to control shooter with motion controls. The only downside is that the display technology is much more expensive than people are willing to pay. One might also want more displays to look up and down in addition to the horizontal directions.
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