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Wii Entertainment Games

Great Preview Video of Mario Super Sluggers 83

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the wtb-us-nintendo-channel dept.
Kotaku has what looks to be a great preview video of Mario Super Sluggers, seemingly ripped from the Japanese Nintendo Channel. The video is quite long and does a great job of showcasing the game's control set. While the controls look relatively limited (especially the pitching), haven't we all wished for a few bombs to throw on those unfortunate pop-ups?
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Great Preview Video of Mario Super Sluggers More

Great Preview Video of Mario Super Sluggers

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  • Ugggggggggg WHY WILL NO ONE USE THE WII (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Robert1 ( 513674 ) on Wednesday June 04, 2008 @12:05PM (#23653923) Homepage
    Why does absolutely no developer actually use the damn wii-control in the way people want/expect. Take Zelda - you expect Link to mimic your slashes in how you move the wiimote, instead you just shake it to get it to attack. It just serves as a funky way to push a button - shake = B.

    Take this game and its pitching, from the video, - how would you expect to pitch with the wiimote. Obviously, how you pitch in real life. It would take the velocity of your swing, the twist of your hand, the motion and direction into account for a pitch. Instead we get the same fucking motion-equivalent-to-button-push bullshit. Watch the video, you pitch by tilting your hand down. Who the fuck pitches by tilting their hand down. The tilt down can easily be replaced by a button press, since they serve the same purpose. If you want to immerse people in the game with unique controls, why the hell don't the actually do it. How is tilting down a controller to pitch any more immersive than pressing a button.

    I have been very, very disapointed by the Wii, since it seems that no one, apparently not even Nintendo, cares to make a game that actually uses the wii-mote in any meaningful way besides as a crosshair or as simply being another way to push a button (shake to attack!). The game that came closest to something like this was Boxing in Wii Sports. Sure it was flawed, but it gave a hint about how to make immersive gaming by showing how to use the controls to that effect. Everyone waited for a boxing-like game to come out, one that was more polished and really responsive - basically just improve upon what seems like a tech demo in Wii Sports. But it doesn't exist, hasn't been made.

    At this point I'm beginning to wonder about the limitations of the wii-mote. It seems to me that the lack of games that we expect for the system - those with immersive, direct controls - may be fueled not by developers simply being lazy, but by the limits of what the wii-mote can do. Maybe we can never have a Zelda where the player directly controls his sword because its simply not possible with the wii-mote. Maybe we will never have a responsive boxing game because the wii-mote simply isn't responsive enough to do it. These are the things I and everyone expected from the system. Instead we have games that simply use the motions as buttons (does spinning in Mario Galaxy by shaking the wii-mote offer any benefit over a button?) or others that straight-up tell you to use a regular controller - Smash Bros. The only games we can say successfully used wii-mote it were RE4 and Metroid Prime as they actually used the aiming ability for it. Still, no actual games exist that actually uses the motion to any great benefit.

    Sorry for the rant, but seeing yet another game completely miss the point of what the Wii SHOULD be just pissed me off.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by RaceProUK ( 1137575 )
      Two words: Wii Sports.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Sciros ( 986030 )
        Wii Sports is a tech demo at best, given how little content there is. It was fun for like two days.

        I agree with the OP that the Wii has really not been used to its seeming potential. Either it really is just a rubbish console, or developers are just too lazy. I submit it's both (developers too lazy to make the most of a rubbish console). I'm not an uninformed hater, either. I have a Wii, but the games I like on it are Mario Galaxy and Smash Bros -- both basically Gamecube games. (I have Twilight Princess, b
        • Have you tried Warioware: Smooth Moves? That uses the Wiimote pretty well. Though I'll admit, it's the only one to do so. Actually, thinking about it, the Wiimote is suffering a mild form of what the Sixaxis is suffering, since not a single developer has fully utilised that one either, except maybe for flOw.

        • I think you're partly right here... The pointer gets used well in Resident Evil and Metroid Prime 3, and a couple of others, but the motion controls are utterly wasted, outside of a few titles. They're good in Wii Sports, Mario Galaxy makes some use of them, and so does Metroid Prime 3, but by and large they are just another button, and a more aggravating one.

          What I really can't agree with you on is the touchscreen on the DS being gimmicky, or the best games not using it - not when you've got games like Ze

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Sciros ( 986030 )
            Well, with the DS my fav games are:

            Mario64 DS (touchscreen obviously not necessary, and certainly less so than a joystick/thumbstick)
            Mario Kart DS (touchscreen not even used really)
            Castlevanias (touchscreen only used to finish off bosses -- insanely annoying)
            Zelda: Phantom Hourglass (I admit the screen works... but I don't think it is an improvement over traditional handheld Zelda controls, and has almost no bearing on how much I enjoyed the game (except that my touchscreen is old and fubar so all my item s

          • Re: (Score:1)

            by KDR_11k ( 778916 )
            Chou Soujuu Mecha MG. The game just wouldn't be the same without the touchscreen. Most of the controls of your mech are on it and they often act as a regulator to how you can use a certain ability (e.g. manual loading for the cannon you have where you have to drag the ammo into the weapon, close it and then pull a trigger or shoveling coal into the combustion chamber of a steam-powered mech or a death ray that comes with a row of switches that you have to flip to activate it, just like in the movies) or pro
        • I hate to break it to you, but wii Sports is ummm a sports game. Sports by nature have very little content. What did you want, unlockables? Oh, they're there in training mode, not hard, but there (unlockables don't belong in sports games aanyway).

          What did you want from tennis? some complicated system where you have to run your player around with the nunchuck only to have it go flying out of your hand as you deperately try to swing the wiimote in your other hand?

          or maybe you wanted the bowling game to co

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Sciros ( 986030 )
            Have you ever played an actual sports video game? Doesn't sound like it to me.

            It's the Xbox 360 not Xbox2. And it's brought a bit more than sweat... in fact, that's mostly what the Wii is trying to sell people, what with Wii Fit and all. And for the record, the Wii IS a rubbish console. If it weren't for, as usual, the decent first-party offerings, it'd be a complete waste of money. Really, it's the Gamecube with a gimmicky controller that isn't used to nearly its full potential and which has 10x longer loa

      • Two words: Wii Sports.

        Not really. A better example would be Tiger Woods golf. Yeah, you manually spin the ball after you hit it, but the trajectories are significantly different depending on how open/closed your club face is and how much you rotate as you swing through the ball. Maybe the wiimote isn't responsive enough, but they don't need to change the look of the swing on the screen, just run some math to calculate the trajectory of the ball. Regardless, it does feel a lot more realistic and good than pushing an analog s

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by skeeto ( 1138903 )
      Well, the hobbyists did something very interesting that uses the Wii remote for more than "press a button by shaking it". Some guy implemented a system that turns a Wii into a sort-of VR display. A video on YouTube [youtube.com] demos it.
    • You should try Boom Blox [youtube.com]. The game is basically a physics engine and a whole lot of little games that use it. The throwing physics are extremely realistic, to the point of exhausting your arm if you play for more than a few minutes. The jenga-like levels use extremely sensitive Wii controls to let you delicately pull blocks out of towers in all directions.

      Nintendo may not be taking full advantage of the controls, but someone is...

    • Re:Ugggggggggg WHY WILL NO ONE USE THE WII (Score:4, Insightful)

      by quantumplacet ( 1195335 ) on Wednesday June 04, 2008 @12:35PM (#23654531)
      you're completely right, and expect to continue to be disappointed. the wiimote does offer possibilities for interesting control schemes, but ultimately a true 1:1 motion to onscreen action correlation is not possible given the wii and wiimote hardware. everyone bought a wii and thought it was going to be amazing because wii sports gave the impression that such a 1:1 ratio was possible, but if you really examine how wii sports interprets motion controls, it's ultimately just a cheap trick to emulate 1:1 controls, which it only gets away with because the games are so simple. I do fully agree with you in being disappointed with the wii. my girlfriend and i bought one about a year ago, played it like crazy for a few weeks, bought 3 games within the first month, and haven't really touched it since.

      • Re: (Score:1, Flamebait)

        by been42 ( 160065 )
        everyone bought a wii and thought it was going to be amazing because wii sports gave the impression that such a 1:1 ratio was possible, but if you really examine how wii sports interprets motion controls, it's ultimately just a cheap trick to emulate 1:1 controls, which it only gets away with because the games are so simple.

        Wow. I'd hate to be there when someone sits you down and explains the reality of movie CGI, or stuntmen, or how magicians make things "disappear", or any number of other "cheap tric
        • Dammit! where are mod points when I need them? Seriously, Nintendo's offer of 1:1 is much closer than it's competitors. Pushing a button on a controler is much farther from swinging a bat then the Wiimote is.

          Like some people further down, I don't want 1:1. There was a reason I never made the baseball team in high school. Let me hit my homeruns!

    • Re:Ugggggggggg WHY WILL NO ONE USE THE WII (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Rydia ( 556444 ) on Wednesday June 04, 2008 @12:36PM (#23654551)
      You do realize that you can't have players directly control the sword in Zelda, or any other control scheme people keep ranting about, because your controls aren't the only factor that determines what happens.

      Let's use zelda. You swing your sword. The enemy blocks it with a shield, and Link gets thrown back a bit. But you do not. You arm is down, but the fact that you were blocked necessitates the sword to be up in the air, reeling backwards. How are you going to reconcile the two? You could disable user control for a bit as Link reels, but where do you pick up afterward, provided the remote doesn't move? Link's sword teleports from being up to down, and you've just confused your player.

      Another additional concern that is less prevalent in zelda that it would be in other games, that a large part of balancing a game (not to mention setting a scene) is controlling what the player is able to do. The remote is nearly weightless, it would be simple to just run at enemies swinging the remote back and forth as quickly as possible (very fast) to have link swing his sword as superhuman speeds. This destroys the scene (ridiculous physics), but it also screws up balancing; does the developer assume everyone will swing like a madman and make it really difficult for those who choose not to, or make it really easy for those who choose to do so by balancing the game toward those less inclined to flail their arms wildly?
      • They could have easily fixed this; The enemy blocks, but Link's sword continues to the spot where the user dictated by the wiimote motion. In Die by the Sword [wikipedia.org], you had the same full range of motion, and it worked great!

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Qzukk ( 229616 )

          but Link's sword continues to the spot

          If I was "fixing" it and I was told I had to do something to make it work but was free to do whatever I wanted, I'd show Link's sword arm bounce back, but also a "ghost" arm that continued through the motion, and the player would have to move his arm (the ghost arm) back to the general area of Link's arm before he can swing again (thus, Link is "stunned" until the player recovers, and perhaps if Link is hit he drops his arm back to where the player's is). If the player realizes the attack is going to be b

          • I like it; if I might offer a further suggestion, make the wiimote vibrate until the ghost-sword is back in position. If you've ever hit a full-tang sword (or an aluminum bat) against something metal, you'll know the feeling I'm talking about.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Scoth ( 879800 )
      I was pretty disappointed with the Wiimote controls for Twilight Princess since it was so highly hyped as "Control the sword with the remote!". Especially since I took glovepie and was able to write a script do direct swing inputs on Ocarina of Time. Swing the remote left, he swings the sword left. Swing it right, he swings right. Overhead swing, does an overhead swing of the sword. It makes the archery a little funny, but it was a lot more entertaining than just wiggling. I should get a youtube vid of that

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Jaqenn ( 996058 )
      There is a mod for Half-Life 2 where you use the Wii-Remote to control your character. I've never actually played the thing, so I can't speak for how well it works, but I understand that he uses motion controls to throw grenades and swing the crowbar.

      The guy's home page seems to be down, though. It's normally found here: http://wii.hl2world.com/ [hl2world.com]

      Here is an alternate: http://www.moddb.com/mods/8775/half-life-2-wiimote-mod [moddb.com]

      Here is a YouTube video of the thing in action: http://www.youtube.com/wa [youtube.com]
    • The Wii is / was a gamble. Nintendo tried a new direction with controls and succeeded.

      What they didn't do was invest heavily in the hardware. I agree with you in that the Wiimote, for all the potential it encompasses, sucks as a precision sensing device. The system doesn't even use a DVD drive, let alone a HD-DVD or Blu-ray drive and the console's internal memory has been surpassed by most smart phones. All of those things were, however, cheap off the shelf hardware. Nintendo made money on a new console with new ideas, how much did Microsoft and Sony make on their glorified Xbox and PS2?

      Building on that, making a game for the Wii is still a huge gamble. If you're a third party developing for the system, you have to develop for a platform that is still feeling out the general game controls. You can make the mistake of dumbing down the controls too much (e.g. almost every sports game so far) or you can make the controls silly, cryptic, and horribly delayed (MLB the bigs).

      You've also got to balance gameplay factors. Maybe you can make an amazingly real swordplay engine using the wiimote, but I don't think that's going to make LEGO Star Wars that much more fun, especially since the master fencing / wii player demographic isn't all that big.

      The Wii has been fun, it's been a nice way to get off the grinding of button smasher games and into something that's been both fun and different. I think the overall success of the console (Which from a tech standpoint is basically N64 V2.0) has opened the door for a Wii 2.0 that has the things that real gamers want.

      Don't forget that Nintendo has carved out a nice slice of market for themselves. They've shown Mom and Dad that video games can be fun, now Nintendo is in a position to show that same segment that games can look as good as movies and have stories that are just as immersive.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by i.of.the.storm ( 907783 )
        Err, that's inaccurate, the Wii does use a standard dual-layer DVD drive, that's why modchips let you play burned games.
        • My bad. I was under the impression they were still using a fixed speed drive (like the GD-ROM) in lieu of a DVD drive. Either way, they went cheap by using DVD instead of a next-gen drive.

          • Did Microsoft also "go cheap" by using DVD?

          • Next-gen drive? I think the 360 is doing fine without a so-called next-gen drive. Hell, PCs have the most technologically advanced games, no contest, and we're still using DVDs on PC. I think saying they "went cheap by using DVD" is a bit of a stupid statement. The other components sure, but not the DVD drive.

    • Re:Ugggggggggg WHY WILL NO ONE USE THE WII (Score:4, Insightful)

      by JonathanBoyd ( 644397 ) on Wednesday June 04, 2008 @12:46PM (#23654753) Homepage
      The trouble is that if you matched controls and actions 1:1, you'd be putting the game out of reach of people who have no talent for the physical game. One reason to play a sports game is to achieve things you cant necessarily do in real life. The instant you require real life skills, you're taken that away from people and they won't want to play your game. Obviously as you say,t he argument can be made that the actions aren't similar enough to real life to be immersive, but make it too similar and it wont be immersive because you'll suddenly have supposedly star players absolutely sucking because the gamer isn't a professional player themselves.

      • They could always give you an option to switch between "standard" Wiimote controls (what's currently used in most games) and "advanced" Wiimote controls (the more realistic controls). There's already different control mappings for different controllers, and different mappings for the Wiimote, so it shouldn't be that difficult to map the so-called "standard" and "advanced" controls.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by jalet ( 36114 )
      > and Metroid Prime as they actually used the aiming ability for it.

      I don't know for RE4, but Metroid uses the nunchuk for the grapper and even if a button would do the same, after all it's just a video game, the way you launch the nunchuk seems really realistic for me.

      BTW the Wii and Metroid in particular are what caused an old video-game addicted like me (during three years, 20 years ago) to become really addicted again. I couldn't stop to play until I had finished this damn game (33 hours, not so bad

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Fozzyuw ( 950608 )

      Why does absolutely no developer actually use the damn wii-control in the way people want/expect.

      DragonQuest: Swords for the Wii. Your "slashes" translate to the 2D plane of the screen. up/down slashes are up/down on the screen. Horizontal are horizontal and diagonal are based on your direction given.

      Go play that. Then come back here and remind us why it's better game play to just "shake = B". DQ:Swords isn't horrible, but I'll be damned if it's very easy to do a proper directional slash because what you *think* was a horizontal slash was actually a diagonal slash because you twisted the remote

      • That's contradictory. First, I've not played RE4:Wii, only Gamecube. But Metroid's use of the Wii controller was of great benefit to the game. Thus, there's at least one "actual" game that uses it. And according to you, there's a second, RE4.

        I'm on your side, but what he said wasn't contradictory. RE4 and MP3 primarily use the pointing (ie IR camera) function of the Wii remote, not the motion-sensitive (ie accelerometer) mechanics he was referring to at that part of the paragraph (even though at the start of the paragraph he was talking about Wiimote as a whole).

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Fozzyuw ( 950608 )

          RE4 and MP3 primarily use the pointing (ie IR camera) function of the Wii remote

          Very true. However, it wasn't the primary aspect of Metroid that make this version (compared to the previous 2 on the Gamecube) better, IMHO. It was the interactive use of the Wii remote to grab, twist, and pull power conduits out of the wall to push, twist, and lock them back into place somewhere else (to solve a puzzle). And then there was the grappling hook which you yanked your nun-chuck back to rip the shield off an enemy. That was also very cool.

          Those little touches really enhanced the game fr

    • Take this game and its pitching, from the video, - how would you expect to pitch with the wiimote. Obviously, how you pitch in real life. It would take the velocity of your swing, the twist of your hand, the motion and direction into account for a pitch. Instead we get the same fucking motion-equivalent-to-button-push bullshit. Watch the video, you pitch by tilting your hand down. Who the fuck pitches by tilting their hand down. The tilt down can easily be replaced by a button press, since they serve the same purpose. If you want to immerse people in the game with unique controls, why the hell don't the actually do it. How is tilting down a controller to pitch any more immersive than pressing a button.

      Blame the dumbasses who pitched their wiimotes into their TVs while playing WiiSports for that.

    • Re:Ugggggggggg WHY WILL NO ONE USE THE WII (Score:4, Insightful)

      by El Gigante de Justic ( 994299 ) on Wednesday June 04, 2008 @01:13PM (#23655215)
      I can only assume you somehow forgot about all the idiots that broke their flat screen TVs by trying to pitch and swing as hard as they good in Wii Sports baseball.

        The main reasons you can't do true 1:1 action have already been laid out and are pretty obvious:
      1) No physical feedback, other than maybe a vibration. There is no known technology that could actually give true force feedback for something like the WiiMote

      2) By having the controls generalized, you don't actually have to be facing the TV straight on, which helps when you have 4 people playing. Also, in a confined space, it keeps people from whacking each other in multi-player.

      3) 1:1 action would make it impossible for the physically infirm, or just physically clutzy to enjoy playing. Part of the point of Wii design was to simplify video games for new players, as opposed to something like the potentially intimidating PlayStation controller (10 buttons plus a control pad and two analog sticks which also double as buttons, and some buttons are pressure senstive)

      4) 1:1 action would also be much more physically tiring and could eventually lead to a lot of physical ailments like tendonitis or joint injuries (such as the Wii-itis reportedly caused by Wii Sports Tennis not long after release). Since there isn't full weight resistance on the end of your arm, you can move your arm too quickly and are more likely to cause injuries.

      5) To get perfect 1:1 action would likely have increased the cost of the system too much.
      There are a few games that have gotten pretty close to 1:1 action, but generally in puzzle solving situations, not in fast paced action; a good example would be Zack and Wiki
    • Okami makes good use with the painting, slashing, etc...

    • Part of the problem is that the accelerometers in the Wiimote are set up to measure the movement of the remote, not its rotation. It's difficult, if not impossible, for the Wiimote to accurately detect fast rotation around its center of gravity, and this is one of the movements that would be very useful in some of your example scenarios.

      Games like Mario Kart Wii measure "rotation" by the movement of gravity, but the user must hold the controller generally still or the overall acceleration will be affected

    • Re: (Score:1, Flamebait)

      by croddy ( 659025 ) *

      Sounds like you might like driving with the Wii wheel.

      (I mean, analog stick users will still drive circles around you, but at least you'll feel genuinely immersed in your defeat.)

    • I suspect the reason Wii remote functionality has generally been limited to not much more than button presses is to maintain a level playing field.

      If movements had to mirror actual movement games would have an added layer of complexity. Now games would have to be able to move more precisely, while still maintaining good timing. It's a lot like an amateur playing an FPS online and trying to be competitive. It would pretty much be hopeless, and discouraging for many people.

      So Wii remote movements have been ke
    • Why does absolutely no developer actually use the damn wii-control in the way people want/expect. Take Zelda - you expect Link to mimic your slashes in how you move the wiimote, instead you just shake it to get it to attack. It just serves as a funky way to push a button - shake = B.

      That would be a bad thing. The problem of parrying has been gone into by a previous reply, but let's suppose that's been solved. We now run into a deeper problem: gamers suck at fencing. Perfect 1:1 mapping between the Wiimote

    • LostWinds, released on WiiWare a month or so back was a great example of using the wiimote in a successful way. For a 3-5 hour game, its easily one of my favorite games on the Wii to date.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by muridae ( 966931 )
      Obviously, the reason people play games on the PS3 and 360 are because the motion controls are 1:1 and that makes the golf/baseball/football games so much better.

      Oh, wait, guess not

      The technology to use a Wii-mote sized object to get full 1:1 movement would have made the controllers prohibitively expensive. Gyroscope chips are about 10 times the price of a 3 axis accelerometers*. The Wii couldn't have been sold at that price.

      In the end, it's a controller. The game is not real life, and we've settled for pus

  • If only REAL baseball were that exiting...

  • "The video is quite long" (Score:5, Funny)

    by MagicM ( 85041 ) on Wednesday June 04, 2008 @12:12PM (#23654047)
    3 and a half minutes is long? If your attention span when watching video is less than 3 and a half minutes, why are you still reading this comment?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by D Ninja ( 825055 )
      Some people just don't have great attention spans. Given the way technology is going these days and with constant updates flooding our senses, it's not wonder that...OOO SHINY!
    • It is too long, my boss might see me watching it. I don't think I can pass it off as an SDK Intro.
    • I had to re-read your comment three times. I kept getting bored and distracted halfway through...

  • The video is quite long and does a great job of showcasing the game's control set.

    I wish all games had real previews like this one so I would feel better informed about buying it without having to see someone else playing it.

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