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E3 Previews — Lego Star Wars Complete Saga and LittleBigPlanet
Posted by
Zonk
on Thu Jul 12, 2007 03:03 PM
from the using-the-force-for-fun dept.
from the using-the-force-for-fun dept.
Nintendo's success has marked a refocus on games for the sake of fun, and nothing exemplifies this trend better than the Lego Star Wars series. Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga will be the first game to offer the functionality gamers have wanted since they first saw a wiimote: motion-controlled lightsaber battles. It's not dueling, but it is a lot of fun. In the same vein, with even more creativity added in, is Sony's imaginative LittleBigPlanet . With Media Molecule finally opening up a bit of the user based content-creation process to journalists, 1up offers one of the first hands-on with the game's core mechanic: "Fusing various pieces together can forge entirely new objects. Place hinges and wheels on a pile of wooden blocks and suddenly you have a makeshift jalopy rolling through the stage. With a tad more work, you can transform that car into a massive (yet ridiculous) rolling wooden dragon. We didn't have quite enough time (or experience) to bust out a run-and-jump rally to put Super Mario Bros. World 8-2 to shame, but we can't wait to get our hands on the open beta due out later this year."
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So you're saying that if you coud tape the Wii controller to a paint mixer like they have at Lowes that you'd kick ass?
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In addition, one of the items you can use requir
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Yup. The accelerometers can measure the 9.8 m/s^2 downward acceleration from gravity in order to determine which way the ground is. The Excite Truck game also uses this quite a bit, as the primary control is tilting the Wii Remote left and right like a steering wheel. It works remarkably well.
You're Wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
You're wrong, and should not be modded informative.
Perhaps more precisely, you're right about many games, but wrong about the Wiimote capabilities. Granted, probably my biggest disappointment with the Wii so far has been how developers have failed to spend sufficient time with the motion sensing. The sensors are quite responsive, and while Wii Sports Baseball is decent, the best example is Wii bowling (not coincidentally, one of the more popular Wii Sports games). If you twist your wrist even a little as you bowl, your ball will spin proportionally.
Now, a 1:1 duel-type game would probably require incredible feats of programming, but here's a secret for you: you are not a Jedi Knight. One-to-one lightsaber action is no way to make a game. Like it or not, most people have no idea how to wield a blade. I'm trying to remember the game back in the 90's that attempted this "realistic" combat... Die by the Sword maybe it was called? Anyhow, you could set the sword controls to "free form" and tell the sword where to go instead of which pre-set moves to perform, and as exciting as the idea was to me, the gameplay sucked.
Compare, for reference: how much do you hate those people who say, "Guitar Hero is stupid, just learn to play the guitar for real?" Jamming on Guitar Hero does not make you a rockstar. It doesn't even teach you much about really playing a guitar. Because that's not the point.
The same holds true of every Star Wars geek who thinks a 1:1 lightsaber game would be awesome. They don't actually want to spend ten years doing katas before they're able to whip it up on their enemies. There's also no way to accurately represent something that blocks your lightsaber--your hands keep going, your lightsaber stops agains Darth Vader's lightsaber, BAM the wiimote is out of sync with the game.
What people really want is a close approximation. What I swing horizontally, I want my character to swing horizontally. When I swing diagonally, same thing. When I hold my Wiimote still, I want my character to be blocking. Maybe hammering the A button while holding the Wiimote still to push against my enemy's blade. Even Twilight Princess didn't quite do this much, but the final swordfight with Ganon came close at times. Those are not easy calculations, but they are possible with the Wiimote. People want to feel like master lightsaber duelers without actually learning how to use a sword, just like people want to enjoy the challenge of Guitar Hero without the years of challenge of really learning to play the guitar.
I don't think that a 1:1 lightsaber duel game is an impossibly high standard; certainly the Wii can get you closer than any other modern game system can. I just think it's a bad idea.
Parent
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Precisely my point.
But that would not be "1:1" movement. Imagine holding the new Wii Zapper in a sniper game and having your crosshairs jump wildly every time you took a breath. I'm all for substantially immersing the player--and the Wiimote, used properly, does just that.
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Harder than you think (Score:5, Interesting)
For example, I'm fighting an enemy with my sword and swing at him. He counters, meeting his blade with mine, causing both to bounce back from the force slightly or to slide against each other. However, my actual hand has met with no such resistance and has followed through as though my blade sliced through his sword, body, or anything else in the way as though it were nothing. On screen I'm locked sword to sword with my foe, but my hands suggest that I slashed through him. How is the mapping handled from here? Should the position that my hand ends up in be the new centered location for determining the swords next move, which would make further attacks awkward and unrealistic, or should the blade on the screen magically move to the position my hand suggests it's in, which doesn't make for a very realistic game.
The best idea I've ever heard for this solution is to have the controller respond with some type of feedback, a rumble, a sound, or something else, to notify the user that their blow was deflected. The user would then be unable to attack further until they managed to sync the remote position with their hand with what is displayed on the screen. Assuming the feedback is powerful enough and the player manages to learn to anticipate the deflection enough, eventually they will serve as their own feedback, stopping their swing as soon as they feel it has been deflected. To use the above example again, as soon as I were to feel a rumble from the Wiimote or hear two swords clashing, I would halt my downward motion and position the controller as though my blow had been met, allowing me to once again regrain control and continue with the battle.
While there are a lot of programing difficulties to be worked out, it still requires a lot of time for the player to become accustomed to the system and actually care to become familiar enough with it to enjoy playing the game. I don't forsee this as being something that casual players would be interested in taking the time to accomplish, and I'm not entirely sure if the hardware available now can offer all of the necessities in order for this to succeed.
Parent
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Don't worry though, apparently Mario & Sonic at the Olympics has a fencing mode... so there might be hope there.
The Baseball bat in Wii Sports actually tracks pretty accurately, it's just there's a lag to it, and if you make quick movements it glitches. There's bounding or something involved.
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yes, it is bounding, you cant knock the bat on home plate. The bats movement is restricted to a standard swing and any back and forth movement becomes a swing, with the speed of the movement determining the power of the swing.
Its not bad, but it could be better. I wouldn't mind a baseball game that allowed you to swing high or low or reach out for a pitch off the plate, but thats a bit much to ask of a tech demo like Wii sports. Heck, baseball doesn't even have base running in it. Maybe when EA gets aro
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What are you talking about? The baseball bat in Wii Sports tracks incredibly well.
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if watch one of the few games that actually tries to follow the remote, like the baseball bat in Wii Sports, the remote is terribly inaccurate and loses track of where it actually is unless it's pointed at the IR bar.
Actually, no. On my Wii, the baseball bat tracking in Wii Sports is spot on. When I'm batting, I even sway the Wiimote around a bit (like you do with a real baseball bat before taking a swing) and watch as the Mii batter on screen does the same thing. Oh, and the IR bar doesn't even participate in these actions; it's only used for the pointer, not the motion sensing.
However, it's funny you should mention this, because I went to a friend's house for a Wii Party and we ended up playing tennis a lot. I'm
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Check out the swords in Red Steel until you actually hit something, or the baseball bat in Wii Baseball before you actually hit the ball. Which, by the way, has got absolutely nothing to di with the IR bar. If you think pointing it to the IR bar did anything at all, you were on drugs.
Dueling (Score:3, Insightful)
The same kind of adjustment/penalty will have to apply for inertia effects of weapons for how strong your character is, & then you can use all kinds of weapons.
Get on this developers! Millions of people have the hardware, you just have to code it now!
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By the way, Halo is 'just' a bunch of polygons with pretty graphics and the same "game mechanics" Doom had in 1993.
Are you even old enough to have PLAYED Excitebike or did it just show up in your googling? You couldn't share those tracks buddy.
This is sweet! (Score:2)
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Nintendo, Apple, Google (Score:1, Funny)
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This thread is now about fluffy bunnies and kittens. Discuss as you wish, just don't kill the kittens.