Slate Pans the Wii, Slate Loves the Wii 161
thatguywhoiam writes "Slate's Eric Sofke takes a few considered shots at Nintendo's latest console. He claims the Wii Remote has major accuracy problems, which are compensated for by too-easy games. Meanwhile, just next door, Chris Suellentrop says the Wii is even better than the PS3. Check out both sides of the issue." From the Sofke article: "The new Nintendo's flaws make me question who the Wii's audience will be. Kids don't want embarrassingly easy games. Casual gamers of any age will bail out the first time their crosshairs go AWOL. And hardcore gamers like me aren't going to bother with a magic wand that makes us less efficient at killing aliens. For a console that wants to start a revolution, making users doubt their reflexes is a serious design flaw."
question for you, sir (Score:5, Insightful)
Is he pointing his remote like a gun and holding it to his eye as if it had crosshairs? Cuz otherwise, I don't get how you could miss anything; it has been pretty much effortless for me to aim and shoot in Rayman Raving Rabbids' gun games, for example. Anybody else having accuracy problems out there?
I also have trouble with the guy telling everyone what he thinks "mainstream" and "hardcore" people want. If you're gonna review it, tell us what YOU think. Seems a bit more relevant than what you assume grandma will think (unless, of course, you report on what your grandmother's impressions were, which would be much more valid, not to mention a pretty interesting idea).
I wonder (Score:5, Insightful)
You must A) tell it the proper position of the sensor bar (which should be as close to immediately below the TV, or directly on top of it, as possible, with on top being HIGHLY reccomended by nintendo)
and B) in most games, actually configure it if it needs accuracy. This usually consists of shrinking an area on the tv until it knows the size of your tv in relation to the sensor bar, but in Red Steel they use a more ingenious method. You're asked to look at things on all corners of the screen as part of the story so its harder to ignore.
But anyway, I wonder how much is simply calibration problems, or due to it being too far from the bottom of the tv?
Sofge's criticisms are specific to Sofge, I think (Score:5, Insightful)
Every time I sighted down the controller at the TV, the crosshairs were off-center
This presupposes that you should be sighting down the controller to aim the crosshairs, which I contend is not how most people (myself included) will be using it. A light gun, since it mimics the feel of a real gun, should meet this standard. The Wiimote, since it mimics the feel of a laser pointer (roughly, at least), need not. When I point a laser pointer at part of a slide, I don't actually sight down the barrel before pressing the button. I point it at the intended target, turn it on, then adjust the aim appropriately. I'm sure if the laser was significantly off-line, it would be problematic, but as long as it's close, I don't really care. If there's an onscreen pointer, then I don't see this being a problem. It's certainly not going to be less "realistic" or "natural" than moving a mouse - in a plane perpendicular to the viewing plane - to aim a gun, and that's been the standard for FPS-style aiming for a decade and a half.
During a quest to catch a magical fish, the onscreen directions told me to cast my line by swinging the right controller back, then forward. And when the fish bit, a graphic showed me how to make a reeling motion with the nunchuk. I was annoyed when I couldn't shoot straight, but this was worse. The Wii is T-ball for gamers.
I hardly think that having games show you the appropriate controls to accomplish in-game tasks is unique to either Zelda or the Wii. While the growth of in-game tutorials might be criticized for leading to a dearth of quality manuals, it's certainly an effective way to learn how to play a game. So it shows you the correct motions to make to do something in the game. How is this any different than a manual showing you which buttons to press to accomplish something in the game? You still have to go and actually do it, after all. Besides which, Zelda as a franchise (recently, anyway) isn't exactly known for being a demanding twitch/precision control style of game. It's a pseudo-RPG in its modern incarnations. A little assist on the dextral mechanics for playing isn't really a bad thing.
After a few whacks, I realized that the Wii isn't asking me to simulate a realistic swing... [snip]
No kidding. I can virtually guarantee that a console which required a full-body workout to play games would be a dismal failure on the marketplace. It's one thing for DDR, it's another thing for a whole system. The idea behind the Wiimote, in my mind, is that someone can pick it up and play baseball as if he was actually swinging a bat. That's the part that's accessible to everyone who's gone bowling, or played tennis, or baseball, etc. That you don't have to do that doesn't mean the system's a disappointment. In fact, for a lot of people, that's probably an advantage: that means that the novel control scheme won't get in the way of having a good time.
(And I won't even touch the amount of criticism that Nintendo would draw if their console was completely inaccessible to, say, paraplegics)
Which is why I could hit one-handed home runs without winding up or following through.
Strictly speaking, follow through isn't a physical requirement for hitting home runs. Once the ball has left the bat, the bat imparts no more energy to the ball. It could stop the instant it was out of contact with the ball, and the ball would go just as far. Follow through is simply a result of swinging that mass around, and mentally focussing on follow through is what allows the actual impact to be smooth and at peak velocity.
If you translate this to something the mass of the Wiimote, you've still got exactly as much follow throug
After 45 Minutes, the Wiimote is Gold (Score:5, Insightful)
Admittedly, playing an FPS with the Wiimote takes some getting used to, but once you do, you will never want to go back to dual-analog. I played through CoD3 over the last two days, and it took me a solid 90 minutes to get accustomed to using the Wiimote as is necessary to get through the game. However, once I did, the experience became so much more immersive and satisfying than it would have been otherwise (CoD3 is a pedestrian game saved by a cool control scheme).
I have played most of the major FPSs ever to come out. From Wolfenstein, Doom, Goldeneye, Half-Life (and mods), Halo, HalfLife2...etc ... On some, I have used a console controller, on others, I have used a PC. IMO, for FPSs, the wiimote is far better than dual-analog, but not quite as good as wasd+mouse.
Personally, I won't ever go back to using archaic dual analog ... even for Gears of War. In fact, I think that in 4 years, all the next-next gen consoles will be sporting Wiimote-like controls.
Re:To Be Blunt (Score:3, Insightful)
This isn't a new way of doing the same thing. This isn't a redesign of a standard input field. This isn't a new fancier mouse.
This is a new controller. There is no parallel for 99% of the people out there that will try it.
A parallel would be to expect a 16 year old that has only ever seen cars in pictures to be able to hop in a car and drive it off the lot with zero issues the first time through.
And you've got your meme wrong anyways. MS is the one we typically flog for trying to foist the 'right' way to do things on their users.
Re:To Be Blunt (Score:2, Insightful)
weird guy (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, that's a huge advantage. It's cool that the game allows it (wireless controler) but doesn't enforce it. I would hate to come home after work, exhausted and tired, and have the game console force me to jump around. Sometimes I want to, sometimes I don't - and if the console respects that, bonus points for playing nice with me.
Sighting? (Score:5, Insightful)
"Every time I sighted down the controller at the TV, the crosshairs were off-center."
The Wii-mote isn't designed for this, period. While there is minimal configuration for the Wii-mote's sensitivity, there is no way to make the Wii-mote's pointer line up pixel-perfectly. The Wii-mote is pretty accurate, but it's more of a relative movement like a mouse. Games aren't designed to require pixel-perfect accuracy. If you needed pixel-perfect accuracy, you'd need a more complicated setup to calibrate for the size of your TV, the orientation of the TV and sensor bar, and to take in account the fact that players will be playing from different angles. It's just not needed.
Re:question for you, sir (Score:4, Insightful)
This sounds like a review for Red Steel. The controls are very difficult and even buggy to the point they jump around the screen. On moments of clarity (aka the crosshair not jumping), it was very easy to point it my enemy and headshot them. Due to this technicality, Red Steel feels like it WAS made easy. No matter how many bullets you take, if you hide for 5+ secs without damage, your life will refill to full... at any time. They also make ammo easy to come buy.
This console does change a lot. Just because one First Person Shooter game has a lousy control scheme, doesn't mean the whole interface is flawed. In fact, I'm actually surprised the by accuracy of it. On other games, like DBZ and Zelda, they give you cross hairs which can move across the screen effectively and accurately to my movements. Or so it seems.
The truth is, the system is still too now to judge it's interface on one poorly designed control system on one game. I can tell you, the Wii has really improved the DBZ fighting game experiance compared to the last 2 games and I look forward to what other creative developers come up with! I just hope that all FPS don't suffer the Red Steel issues or maybe Sofke will be right.
Cheers,
Fozzy
If the wiimote supports precision fighting (Score:4, Insightful)
That the first games that are published for the Wii go this route does not surprise me at all though. First of all there is Nintendos initial main focus on casual gamers, which of course makes them emphasize more accessible games. The developers also need to come to grips with the controller, they need to understand a new kind of gameplay, and there also may be some hardware precision issues in the first Wii generation.
However if the wiimote is capable of precise tracking in principle, and it seems like it, then I am convinced that the second or third wave of games will go into completely new directions, and there will be games that will use precision movements for all kinds of stuff: sports like gold, tennis, or ballsports, sword (or lightsabre) fighting games, and things I am not creative enough to think of.
I for one cannot wait.
Trash (Score:5, Insightful)
But the Wii, which is being marketed as the ideal system for newbies, made me feel like an incompetent novice. I don't blame myself. The ugly truth is that the Wii's already-legendary motion-detection system doesn't work very well.
Emphasis mine. That pretty much sums up the article.
Re:To Be Blunt (Score:3, Insightful)
That is the point, but (from what I have seen) it is not the non-gamers that have been having problems with the Wiimote; mostly I have seen hardcore gamers complain that "I used to own people in Halo 2 and I can't (automagically) own people in Red-Steel".
Re:question for you, sir (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:question for you, sir (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes. I have to aim high to hit things. It turns out there is an obvious explanation -- the Wii remote's signal is captured in relation to the sensor bar, not the TV. Of course the sensor bar is very close to the TV, and most people stand a ways back from the TV. That mitigates the problem. But everyone with a Wii does have this problem, more or less. Stand close to the TV, perhaps 3 feet away or so. Try aiming at buttons, then look at your hand. Notice anything? You're aiming too high. You shouldn't be hitting the mark. Turns out you're really just aiming at the sensor bar.
Having said that, I actually did have to stand close to the TV and then look down at my own hand to see what I was doing. In other words, adjusting to aim high was so natural that my body did it automatically. My point? If adjusting is that natural, then even if the reviewer is correct that the Wii has accuracy problems, it's still overblown.
But I... uh... wouldn't mind the ability to recalibrate the thing.
Re:The only intuitive human interface is the nippl (Score:4, Insightful)
Spoken as someone who hasn't had a problem with a baby latching on to nurse.
I know it's a common cliche, but that doesn't make it right. There are multiple organizations out there because the nipple isn't an intuitive interface. La Leche League. Lactation consultants.
To bring this back to the Wii - yes, people will have to get used to doing something new. But people do that all the time.
Good luck,
=Blue(23)