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."
To Be Blunt (Score:5, Interesting)
I remember (back in the day) watching people flail around in Goldeneye or crash in Mario Kart simply by making too large of a gesture on the analogue stick; after you had a few games under your belt these problems went away. The Wii is fantastic, but it is a new way to control games; an input method that you don't have 20 years of experience using.
Re:To Be Blunt (Score:5, Funny)
Spoken like a true Linux-developer.
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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
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MS is the one I typically flog for trying to foist the wrong way to do things on their users. GVIM is the only right way to do things.
With this new controller I think the idea is that it is meant to be closer to real world interfaces, so it should be easier to pick up. Of course the execution of that idea might have fallen short. I'll find out after I give my girlfriend a Wii for christmas and I get to try it out.
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The only intuitive human interface is the nipple (Score:3, Funny)
The only intuitive human interface is the nipple. Everything else is learned, including pen, keyboard, mouse, and gamepad. You just seem to forget the effort that you spent learning them because you learned them before age 12.
To the contrary. (Score:5, Funny)
Not even that. Just ask the first woman I ever got naked.
Re:To the contrary. (Score:4, Funny)
And I apologize, I mean nothing by it. I just seem to be genetically unable to pass up the slow pitch.
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-Eric
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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)
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Once she did learn, it all became easier... like the analog stick or the Wii!
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Aiming is always more natural when standing. In fact, I can't think of a single time I tried to aim while sitting. That's just... weird.
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jason
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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".
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I think that the wii-mote is something friendlier to people who have never touched a gamepad... In any case they will feel more confortable since it resembles a tv remote, which is an interface that is known by all.
Re:To Be Blunt (Score:5, Informative)
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I can't even express to you how much fun it was to play Goldeneye with my roommate of the time...he was hopeless with the analog stick, and you would almost always see him staring straight up at the ceiling or straight down at his feet. It helped that he always played as Oddjob, of course.
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just kidding of course.
jason
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Isn't this the sort of statement that gets Sony in trouble?
Rob
The wii controller detracts from gameplay? (Score:2)
Ok, Traumacenter's hit and miss. a Stylus acting as a scalpel is MUCH more natural and intuitive than a laser pointer, but using the Nunchuck as a defibrillator Is natural and intuitive and couldn't be convincingly be done on the DS. For Trauma Center (and a number of Monkeyball mini games) it's Hit and Miss. Some controlls are superb, while others are barely functio
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).
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Or as the summary puts it "compensated for by too-easy games".
It almost looks like you agree.
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
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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
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When there is a crosshare it doesn't really matter (as you stated), also where is it supposed to aim from. I don't want it to sight along the "barrel" because I naturaly hold the Wii-Mote slightly up when sitting, and my TV is fairly low. Aiming along the length of the Wii-mote would be awkward at best.
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Should be a different article... (Score:4, Funny)
Scary (Score:5, Funny)
Accuracy Problems, Pointless Bashing (Score:5, Informative)
Basically, you have to be really careful about how you position the sensor bar in relation to yourself and the TV. I'm not sure there is much science behind it, but you have to make sure to get the sensor bar centered horizontally and at the front of the TV, but it also needs to be perpendicular to the way that you are aiming the controller. If it's a little angled, then things get a little messed up. The other big thing is that if you have other sources of IR than the sensor bar (like the sun, or anything that is going to reflect the IR from the sensor bar) then you need mess with the sensitivity of the wiimote and possibly cover things up (a lot of people on the gamespot forums recommend covering up any theoretical glass coffee tables that are between you and the system).
As for games being easier, yeah- some of the games do seem to START OUT easier, they get harder though (you wouldn't realize that if youre a typical sort of reviewer who only plays the first 30 minutes of a game though). You also have to remember that A: Nintendo is trying to rope in people who might have NEVER played a console game before in their ENTIRE LIFE. You have to make games easier for those people. B: Even hardcore gamers have never used something like the wiimote before, so everyone needs some time to get used to it. Look at how easy the first few levels of Super Mario 64 were- nobody was used to fully 3D analog control then either- but the game ramped up in difficulty toward the end.
I'm no blind nintendo apologist, but the Wii is a really fine system, and it seems like there are a lot of people who are either having legitimate problems with it because it's something new, and need to be set strait, or are just trying to set the console up to look like a failure, since it's doing something new.
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Please Note: This recommendation only applies to THEORETICAL glass coffee tables. Any actual glass coffee tables should be left uncovered.
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?
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I actually found on my 46" HDTV that placing the bar on the bottom was more accurate. Then the bar was on top the pointer was about a half screen height lower than where I was pointing (the Wii settings reflected the position of the sensor bar). When I moved the bar to the base of the TV (along with the settin
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
Re:Sofge's criticisms are specific to Sofge, I thi (Score:2)
True, but that doesn't completely invalidate the review.
If you're the same type of gamer as the reviewer is, this writeup may very well suggest that playing Wii would to you be a frustrating and disappointing experience. The reader, thus more informed, can make smarter purchase decisions.
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Whether the Wii ends up being as successful as it can be (both in terms of critical and ecconomical success) depends largely on whether they can
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You mean like every single feature in Warcraft 3?
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There are generally two ways to be successful: Do something noone else has done, or do something better than everyone else. Blizzard seems proficient at option 2.
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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.
Already on there way (Score:2)
Found it...sorta (Score:4, Interesting)
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90 minutes is pretty good, WASD + keyboard took hours and hours to get used to. Using the mouse to look around was such a bizarre concept that when Quake came out you had to hold down a key to look around. It took y
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Sofke is an idiot (Score:4, Interesting)
Everyone I know who has used the remote has started off extremely dubious, but eventually been won over, and gotten used to it. It sounds like the Wii just didn't match up to what he wanted, instead of trying out what it was.
slate is owned by microsoft (Score:2, Informative)
conflict of interest?
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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.
Penny Arcade (Score:5, Funny)
He says:
"I realized that the Wii isn't asking me to simulate a realistic swing. There's no reason to assume a batter's stance, and no reason to bother swinging the controller fast or following through--flicking the controller like a pingpong paddle works just as well. This is the Wii's biggest letdown--you don't need to stand up, leap around, or otherwise leave the warm embrace of your couch. The console senses motion, but compared with the full-body workout of a game like Dance Dance Revolution, you're not getting any kind of exercise at all."
PA says:
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2006/11/13 [penny-arcade.com]
I say:
He doesn't appear to understand a certain type of fun that videogames can provide. You _can_ decide to play it like Cartman playing WoW, or you could have fun. Your choice. He chooses to be a f***ing toolbox.
I'm not a Wii fanboy, but I have to say that article is pretty terrible.
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.
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The Wii Remote does not have a viewfinder or targeting reticule built into it. There's therefore not even any suitable reference point for determining of the pointer placement IS pixel-perfect or not.
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Super Monkey Balls REALLY shows the shortcomings (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:Super Monkey Balls REALLY shows the shortcoming (Score:5, Funny)
Baaawhahahawww
Sorry.
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I think they focused too much on including as many mini-games as possible, rather than focusing on perfecting controls for each particular game, and it shows.
SMB is made by Sega, btw, not Nintendo.
Re:Super Monkey Balls REALLY shows the shortcoming (Score:2, Interesting)
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It works beautifully in Twilight Princess.
Re:Super Monkey Balls REALLY shows the shortcoming (Score:2)
My experience with most Wii games so far is that they can feel very awkward at first -- and if you are an experienced gamer, you may find this frustrating, because you feel like a beginner -- but after 10-20 minutes it feels totally natural.
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.
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After playing tennis, baseball, and bowling on Wii Sports, I can say that this statement is incorrect.
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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.
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Yeah. Sofke sounds like he's got some serious self-image issues -- he's got a lot emotionally invested in being a "733t hardcore gamer" and predictably reacts rather negatively to anything new which puts him on the same level as the unwashed masses.
Kind of pathetic really...
He must be clumsy (Score:2, Informative)
Hint it's a new control scheme people. Also... (Score:5, Informative)
Let's start at the begining. Play a nintendo game. Don't want to pay for it? Play Wii Sports. Wii sports is suprisingly spot on with it's controls (Zelda and excite truck is too). So that means the controller is good and the system is amazingly responsive.
Now let's look at the problem with the controller. Point the controller at the screen, can you hold it there for 3 minutes. I can't either. Know why? Because it's a new system. You're not going to completely master the wii mote in the first minute. It takes a couple hours at least. I'm pretty good with the control now, and I expect to get far better. Try holding up a hand and not moving it for 3 minutes, can't do that either right? Again it takes time and practice with it.
Now let's look at the games being too "Easy"? They might be simple (though Again zelda is far from simple) but they arn't "Easy". And why is that? Because companies didn't know how far they could push the new control scheme. You could program a Xbox 360 game years before it came out, because of a simple fact. It's the same as a Xbox control scheme with minor changes you tweak when you get the final dev kits.
As for unresponsive? Out of 4 games (including wii sports) the only unresponsive game was Red Steel, and that was hardly the only problem with that game. There was numerous problems with ubi's launch titles, either being graphically inept (both racing games). Being minigame, with out a real game (rayman) and being Red steel (with a number of problems). So the system sucks right? Well excitetruck showed that the system is more than a little good with racing games, Monkey ball shows we can have full games with mini games, and Call of duty 3 which looks weaker, is said to have the best controls out of all three systems.
The bottom line is that this is a NEW console, with radically NEW control schemes, just because reviewers have had it a week doesn't mean you'll master it in that time. You should already be better at it, and just like us, developers should be getting better and better at it. Just don't blame Nintendo for Ubi's crappy titles when Nintendo and Activision both prove the Wii is more than capable at holding it's own.
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Gee, playing games with the Ninte
My only accuracy complaint... (Score:2)
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The existence of games with in-game calibration makes me worry that the new calibration would have to be included in new games, not just provided by the OS.
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But of course, instead, it's just "above or below?". It could just have been to shorten setup time, but not even have that as an "advanced option"? That said, it's still accurate enough not to have major
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Seems like the ds situationj repeats itself (Score:2)
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Getting the basics wrong... (Score:2)
How much of a fan can you be without knowing it's called "Wiimote"? That kind of gaffe makes me question the rest of the article.
Some thoughts on this (Score:2)
In Super Monkey Ball, if I'm sitting on my bed near my bedroom TV, it's very hard to control some of the games; the remote sensing tends to be off. If I move to a TV I can be further from, most of them work fine... But whackamole's "move the remote around to move the hammer" doesn't work well at all, with the hammer bouncing all over the screen. On the other hand, disc golf works like a charm at that range.
In Rayman, the only control problem I've had is tha
Has he played with it for more than ten minutes? (Score:2)
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Yeah, this guy's entire review was obviously based off 5 minutes of playing at E3. He complains about a fishing tutorial in zelda, when there isn't a fishing tutorial in the version currently on store shelves... he talks about Metroid, which isn't even available for reviewers yet.
Why didn't he write this review 6 months ago? Because that's obviously the last time he played it.
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\{me puts on my photographers hat} As the camera that senses the sensor bar is in the wiimote, it's using the position of the IR emitters in the light bar to figure out its orientation. I'll bet the lens on the wiimote's CCD has a short focal length, meaning that if it could see normally, it would see fisheye;
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Where is this option? I readjusted the sensor bar, and things are running great now, but I would like to know if there are any 'blind spots' that I haven't discovered yet.