So this inanity isn’t just a persona you put up on GAF? You actually think the success of the Wii will kill technological progress in the gaming industry? Somehow the multi-billion dollar market already established with cutting-edge graphics and other such tech will dry up overnight and everyone who bought Halo 2 and Gears of War and Resistance and God of War and Metal Gear Solid 3 will clamor along with grandmothers nationwide for bi-monthly editions of WarioWare?
Maybe I’m just too optimistic, but I’m not climbing into my l33t h4rdK0r3 gaming bunker just yet, thanks.
That said, Wii Sports is more a tech demo than a full-fledged game to me, and doesn’t even crack my top ten for 2006. Even on the Wii only, Rayman is a better party game, IMO.
Tell that to the roughly 30 people that visited me since the system launched. Sure, Rayman is great - but, ultimately, they mostly want to play Wii Sports again.
It’s funny, when I got to play Tennis at E3 I thought Wii Sports is going to be a rather shallow appetizer for the console. Very accessible, but boring after a day due to lack of depth. Interestingly enough, I played Rayman a lot in the first 2-3 days - but ever since then Wii Sports was what I mostly fired up for the occasional gaming sessions. Either because friends were around, or some rounds of gold or bowling and their respective training modes such as Power Throw, which is really great.
I don’t care which crowd the game is aimed at or not - but I do know that I wouldn’t have regretted spending €50 on the game had it not been a pack-in.
I know quite a few truly casual gamers who’ve never played any of them. What’s your definition of a casual gamer?
I think the franchises define popular gaming, which isn’t really the same thing. Most of the truly casual gamers I know don’t own any consoles – at most they own a PS2.
More gamers should equal MORE niche titles, not less. Even if the gamers cut their teeth on Wii sports, it makes them more likely to look around at other games. They aren’t as likely to ignore gaming as a whole. Some of them will get into more complicated games. They’ll try them and like them and that means more profit for companies like Atlus and MORE complicated games, not less. Of course, the majority of casual gamers will never move on to other games, but that’s not a problem. There’s room for all sorts of games in this market. Tetris didn’t kill the market for other games, even though grandmothers were playing it (I literally saw that, btw…80 year old women playing Dr. Mario or Tetris).
I think the Wii is more likely to foster more creative games, not kill them.
I agree, more simple games should broaden the pyramid and make more money available to teams like Obsidian so that they can, like, actually finish their games for once.
Also, I do think that console controls got too complicated – not just the sheer number of sticks and buttons but also the multitude of button combos that games tend to define – and it was high time for a point & click interface. That doesn’t mean games get dumber, it just means complex games can be controlled more easily.
More like, the embarrassing Wii hatred around here is getting old. JD reported his experience that proved Wii Sports would have been worth $50 for him – you think he made it all up? Go back to your troll holes.
We’re supposed to be impressed by a repackaged Gamecube with a gimmick controller? Last I checked, we’re gamers around here; not jaded prats with a pro-Nintendo agenda or the Big Mouth Billy Bass seasonal novelty set.
Gamers or not, I think it’s fair to say that many of us are fairly jaded by this point. New things are good. Of course, I’d be very disappointed to see the novelty of the Wii replace all the games and genres I’m so fond of, but I have to say, I find that awfully unlikely. And, to be honest, if it does happen, I’m sure I’ll find waggle games to enjoy just as much as the games I enjoy now. Most of my gaming used to be limited to turn based strategy and intricate rpg’s. Not many of those around these days, and yet, I’m still gaming as much as ever.
I don’t think it’s falling, but I do think Sony dropped the ball big time, and the 360 will never have the Japanese penetration to get the niche games I like. I simply don’t wanna be stuck with a marginally upclocked Gamecube for my Jappy gaming fix, but it seems that’s gonna be the case.
Actually, the sky is falling; I’m gonna hafta endure DS visuals/audio and tacked-on stylus crap for my Rising Sun gaming fixes. :(
Other than that, though, with a 360, a PS2, and a great gaming PC, nerding out is still in style at the ol’ Erickson pad.
The game has a number of unique mechanics, such as the health system, the reloading minigame, the roadie run, and the mechanics for using and moving in cover).
You could implement the same features with a dual analog gamepad, and I sorely doubt I’d have any issues with using them. Seriously, though, it’s not the waggle that bugs me as much as the utter lack of horsepower in the Wii – it’s simply that the waggle is being used to excuse said lack of horsepower. If Nintendo weren’t such profit-driven fucks (lol business), we coulda had the best of both worlds.
And again: this seems like a conversation that we should be having in a year, rather than a conversation to be having a month and change after the systems’ launch.
You seem weirdly paranoid, Doug. I’m not trying to flame you; it’s just the truth.
It’s not service. Many of us have Wiis, and enjoy them. If it embarrasses you, perhaps you are too easily embarrassed.
And again: this seems like a conversation that we should be having in a year, rather than a conversation to be having a month and change after the systems’ launch.
One, we do play the horse power. If we didn’t we could have all been playing Grand Theft Auto on our Super Nintendos. For the past several decades, increases in technological horsepower have lead to newer and better gaming styles. Although not all games take advantage of this hardware for gameplay, I would not say that technological horsepower does not affect gameplay. And that does not even begin to talk about the impact that visuals can have on the perception of a game.
Two, the DS has already shown this trend. Few DS games look much better than their GBA brethern with the notable exception of high profile games made by Nintendo and Squareenix. 3d is hardly used, and most of the sprite work on the DS pales in comparison to the best of the GBA.
If the same happens with the Wii, damn straight I’ll be pissed. I’ll be stuck with genres that don’t take advantage of the greater graphics of the ps3, and don’t take advantage of the control scheme of the platform they are on.
If the Wii is as dominant as the PS2 was in the last gen, then the PS3 and 360 games will mostly consist of ports from the Wii, prolly with minimal graphics upgrades which utilize some of the extra power, but nowhere near all of it. As PCs are today, although worse.
But that just isn’t going to happen. Gameplay and graphics are not a zero sum mix and thus, in the long run, the gameplay of games on the Wii is going to be about as good as the games on the PS3/360. But the graphics will be better on the PS3/360 games which will make the PS3/360 games overall ‘better’. The Wii will just not be able to compete with that, graphics are just too much of a pull, for casual and hardcore gamers, particularly as its price advantage will get eroded with time.
Even if the Wii does win out, we will still have the PC to turn to for state of the art graphics. Actually this is prolly a pretty good scenario, PCs are far better than consoles in every respect. :|
Console games now have way too much overuse of buttons, IMHO. If you need to have 14 different buttons in a game which all do completely different things, your game is hard to control IMHO.
Oh, don’t even start with the PC-vs-console bullshit.
I’ll say it again just for posterity: it’s penis vs. vagina. They’re both fun to play with, they just do different things. One isn’t better than the other unless you’re really trying to convince yourself it’s the case.
That’s not my point. My point is that horsepower does not axiomatically lead to superior gameplay the way Doug seems to be saying it does. Even if the Wii pulls out ahead and everyone and their mom starts developing for it:
Developers will create superior games that take advantage of the hardware in every respect. As the entire PS3 launch lineup proves, you can have all the horses you fucking want, but if the development isn’t there, the fun isn’t. By the same token, the PS2 was the weak sister last gen, and it still had decent games. If the Wii becomes the big gun, you’ll see people working to squeeze extra mileage out of it, and you’ll see the graphics improve.
The Wii isn’t exactly two tin cans and a piece of string. Miyamoto said he never scratched the surface of what the Cube could do. I’m looking forward to seeing what’s up.
There’s still going to be a market for more traditional gameplay experiences, and there are still going to be Microsoft- and Sony-exclusive developers. Even if the Wii turns into a casual-gaming juggernaut, it’s not going to completely destroy traditional keyboard/controller-driven gaming; it may not even marginalize it, since even the Wii itself is going to have a lot of virtual-arcade games using traditional controller setups.
I spent three hours last weekend getting my PC to function again after it spontaneously stopped producing sound. If I didn’t have to have a PC to play Company of Heroes and maybe five other top-tier games every year, I’d throw the thing in the garbage and never look at it again. Modern consoles are an infinitely superior experience. My first five years gaming were spent on home computers (and the arcades), but these days PC gaming is simply a necessary evil, since I’ve given up hope that RTSes will ever work on consoles.
Anyway, I flatly do not believe the Wii is going to “win out” and corrupt the entire console market with bad graphics and wiggly control schemes. The idea is fucking ridiculous, and I still half-believe that Doug is just putting the entire internet on, because he really seems smarter than that to me. Then again, if you can’t have fun with the Wii, something’s probably broken in your soul.
Halo 2 sold what, 4.5 million copies in a day? Last I checked, there are more kinds of games on the shelves than just futuristic FPSes. Even phenomenal success doesn’t mean the entire game development community is going to shift their focus to playing Monkey See, Monkey Do. If anything, the trend will be like what we see with Call of Duty 3 - PS3 and 360 get one version, the Wii gets an entirely different one.
Developers will create superior games that take advantage of the hardware in every respect. As the entire PS3 launch lineup proves, you can have all the horses you fucking want, but if the development isn’t there, the fun isn’t. By the same token, the PS2 was the weak sister last gen, and it still had decent games. If the Wii becomes the big gun, you’ll see people working to squeeze extra mileage out of it, and you’ll see the graphics improve.
The Wii isn’t exactly two tin cans and a piece of string. Miyamoto said he never scratched the surface of what the Cube could do. I’m looking forward to seeing what’s up.
There’s still going to be a market for more traditional gameplay experiences, and there are still going to be Microsoft- and Sony-exclusive developers. Even if the Wii turns into a casual-gaming juggernaut, it’s not going to completely destroy traditional keyboard/controller-driven gaming; it may not even marginalize it, since even the Wii itself is going to have a lot of virtual-arcade games using traditional controller setups.
Yes, but like the ps2, it will only happen in rare instances, and will not stack up to mediocre efforts (at least in technical aspects) of the 360 and the ps3. And while the Wii does have technical merits, neither will it ever be able to play games the likes of Dead Rising.
My point wasn’t that traditional games won’t be eliminated, but that if the Wii becomes the dominant player, they will be limited by the technical aspects of the system. Already we have seen Dragon Quest 9 go to the DS, regressing from a fully realized overworld to becoming a multiplayer action RPG with graphics slightly better than DQ7. If that is the trend, I oppose.
