Topic: The Big Thread of Wii Launch Pessimism: All the things that could go wrong!

[Kairon]

I don't think that counts as a villain. Guilty Spark's just the librarian... OF DEATH!

LOL. I mean, seriously. He isn't remotely villainous. He ends up not on your team, but that's not enough to make him a villain.

The only force I can contemplate calling villainous in Halo are the Covenant, especially since the FLUDD are so uninteresting.

~Carmine M. Red
Kairon@aol.com

[BlackNMild2k1]

But he was trying to trick you into destroying not only yourself, but every other living creature within a 25(?) lightyear radius. And then when you wouldn't give him his stick thing back(I forgot what it was called ) he decides he is going to take it by force and even has two bot focus guns on you. How does that not spell villainous<sp>?

should I spoiler this? I've never played Halo, I've only just watched the video linked backed a few post ago.  

[Kairon]

But he's just a program! He can't be held responsible for what his creators programmed into his eensy weensy computer brain! Somebody think of the kids! The parents need to be held accountable!

~Carmine M. Red
Kairon@aol.com

[SixthAngel]

Quote
Originally posted by: Kairon
Was that a sensorbar or an IR receiver? The Superscope also had an IR object you had to plug into a controller slot, you calibrated it once in a blue moon, and shot away. This item was an IR receiver: the superscope merely transfered data to the IR receiver, but it operated exactly like a light gun.

I think it's safe to say that the Menacer and Superscope were actual lightguns, and not at all like the Wiimote pointer.

I can't say anthing about the Superscope because I didn't have a snes but the Menacer had the option of putting a target on screen that showed where you were pointing constantly.  It was pretty much a pointer.

[Smash_Brother]

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Originally posted by: Kairon
You worked the Tech Support Help line at 12 YEARS OLD?!?!?! you...have my respect sir..

Yeah, that's how it worked out. My father sold computers for a living via driving them to people's houses in a 2-3 state radius or so and people kept calling looking for tech support. My mother had no clue about computers but I had played with the one we had for quite a while. One day she handed the phone to me mid-call and I've been an intrinsic part of the family biz ever since.

That's what turned me into the bitter, shriveled, empty shell of a human being that I am today.

On the subject, spark is an AI with a predetermined programmed purpose to which he will strive without care or worry of who he must kill in the process.

Isn't that the quint essential definition of a villain?

[Ceric]

That actually makes me sort of want to give the game a shot.  (I didn't like the demo)

Actually all good villains must believe that they are, in fact, good themselves and are striving for the greater good.  (Which could be argued in this case.)  It the whole ends justify the means things.  In the robots mind wiping out all the sentient life and destroying the Fludd would releif the threat from him and allow for the ushering of new sentient life minus the Fludd.  With a long life-span and vast knowledge that would seem like a good idea.

[BlackNMild2k1]

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Originally posted by: Smash_Brother

Quote
Originally posted by: Kairon
You worked the Tech Support Help line at 12 YEARS OLD?!?!?! you...have my respect sir..

Yeah, that's how it worked out. My father sold computers for a living via driving them to people's houses in a 2-3 state radius or so and people kept calling looking for tech support. My mother had no clue about computers but I had played with the one we had for quite a while. One day she handed the phone to me mid-call and I've been an intrinsic part of the family biz ever since.

Can you help me fix my computer?

p.s. I'm serious it keeps freezing on me for no reason.

[Ceric]

I can read Smash_Brother's mind... "Get a Mac"  Will be his response.

[JonLeung]

Wow, I sure took things off-topic with all that talk about the childishness of the villain The Monitor/Guilty Spark.  But also, the minor alien baddies (their name escapes me at the moment) with the squeaky voices who sometimes say things like "run away!" supposedly cutesy-like, I was surprised to see when I finally got around to playing Halo.

It has childish bad guys, a silly villain, and somehow it's for TEH MATOOR PEEPLES.  Like, WTF?

On another note, now that there's talk of an Eternal Darkness trilogy, I would like to see the rest of that saga on the Wii instead of, say, the Xbox 360.

[Smash_Brother]

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Originally posted by: BlackNMild2k1 Can you help me fix my computer?

p.s. I'm serious it keeps freezing on me for no reason.

If we're talking XP, first, ensure that your HD is completely defragmented, as a heavily fragmented drive can likewise cause crashing and other problems. Go to Start > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Disk Defragmenter and run the analysis to see how bad it is and defragment as needed.

If it still freezes on you, head for the control panels and into the "Add/Remove Programs".

I'd start by going down the list and "trimming the fat" via removing any applications and/or items which you don't use anymore. These might be running background tasks which launch at startup and could be conflicting with one of the newer applications you've installed (also good to free up HD space).

Next, download an anti-virus demo and scan your HD at least once if you don't already have some form of anti-virus running.

Also, make sure you don't have multiple anti-virus/spyware prevention utilities running at the same time as these can also cause conflicts.

Beyond that, you wander into the terrain of service packs and I'm afraid I don't remain up to date on those. I'd do a search on google about a service pack before installing it because sometimes MS will release a pack which is likely to harm your computer.

If none of that works, get a Mac.

Quote
On another note, now that there's talk of an Eternal Darkness trilogy, I would like to see the rest of that saga on the Wii instead of, say, the Xbox 360.

I'm still scratching my head as to what the hell happened with Silicon Knights. There was a quote from Dennis Dyack saying "We'll always be a Nintendo developer.", then SK jumped ship and began developing for the 360, and right on the cusp of the Wii's announcement as well (and I'm sure SK would have known in advance what Nintendo was up to), a platform which looks very much like it will finally establish Nintendo as a viable choice for mature franchises due to its mass-market appeal and innovative controller which is ideal for FPSes and many other older-oriented genres (sports, racing, etc.).

Nintendo CLEARLY has not given up on developing for the older audience, what with bringing out some in-house franchises which are geared to older audiences (Day of Disaster, HAMMER, TP, MP3, to name a few) as well as helping 3rd parties bring mature franchises to the Wii (Red Steel and I'm sure there are others we don't even know about yet).

So the theory of "Nintendo let SK go so they could do better sales-wise" just doesn't pass the sniff test for me.

Also, I thought Nintendo owned the ED franchise and its characters but I could be wrong...  

[Kairon]

I think what happened with Silicon Knights is... Nintendo wasn't happy with how Eternal Darkness turned out, and decided that they needed to extract themselves before they had another Rare on their hands.

~Carmine M. Red
Kairon@aol.com

[SixthAngel]

I don't think Silicon Knights matched the Wii at all.  They were about making a story and weren't really that great at the other parts of a game.  The Wii is all about new experiences and gameplay and I frankly don't think Silicon Knights would have been up for it.

What about the Menacer comment?  Nintendo is improving and combining many existing technologies so problems should be slim.  I understand this is a Nintendo forum but someone else had to have had a genesis?  Maybe I'll make a thread in the other systems forum to help out people with Sega on the virtual console.

[Kairon]

The menacer was a lightgun. Wiki says so.

The constant cursor was merely the lightgun taking constant snapshots of the pixels it sees and placing those on the screen.

Thus, the menacer operates nothing like the Wiimote, and that so-called "sensor bar" was actually an IR receiver to make the gun wireless, much like the Superscope's "sensor bar" was also an IR receiver.

~Carmine M. Red
Kairon@aol.com

[SixthAngel]

While I would like to agree with you (your probably right) the source is Wiki, that is like saying your kid borther said so.  Any shooting game back in the day would have been called a light-gun game by default. (I looked and couldn't find anything about how it works).  Though while the technology is a bit different two generations later a pointer already did exist.

[Ceric]

It was proven that Wikipedia is only slightly less accurated (we're talking within the error-bounds) then its Encyclopediac competitators.

[GoldenPhoenix]

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Originally posted by: Ceric
It was proven that Wikipedia is only slightly less accurated (we're talking within the error-bounds) then its Encyclopediac competitators.

I'm not surprised considering wikipedia is pretty open to change, so it is bound to get the right information after so many have looked it over.

[Ceric]

I want to put, "People always thinking the graphics stink for the sole reason that its the Wii", on the list.

[couchmonkey]

Well, I think that is definitely going to happen, but that's the gamble Nintendo took, and hopefully it will pay off.  In a worst-case scenario, it looks like hardcore gamers are going to buy it anyway for the newfangled gameplay.  In a best case scenario, non-gamers will buy it thanks in part to the low price, which wouldn't be possible if the system had the same power as the other systems.  
I think that's actually pretty good compared to Sony's gamble, which is that people will buy it for Blu-ray and hopefully buy some games.  Sony is actually turning away hardcore gamers.  Casual gamers, we have yet to see how they'll react.

[Urkel]

I imagine the graphics issue is going to work out similarly like it did for the DS.

Early in the DS's life, almost every game shown was either met with comments like "It looks like a GBA game", or "The DS's 3d capabilities really suck". It was seen as a huge Achille's heel at the time. Let's face it, the PSP is essentially a whole generation ahead of the DS in terms of horsepower.

But these days graphics aren't even brought up anymore in the DS vs. PSP debate. Now that people have gotten over the novelty of playing portable games with PS2 quality graphics (they got over that a long time ago) it's all about which is the better gaming system.

Once everybody gets over the novelty of next-gen graphics, it wont be as big of an issue for Wii.

[Spak-Spang]

Urkel:  I agree with you.  The debate will be do you like playing games with Wii type controls or with traditional controls.  

Nintendo's achilles heel is whether or not 3rd party developers can create truly engaging Wii controls for their games.

If Madden for Wii is engaging and fun to play then Wii will be able to attract a huge crowd.

But not just Madden, but EA is going to have to be able to pull that off with Basketball, Golf, 1st person shooters, ect, ect.

If the gameplay and controls are engaging the debate will completely shift from graphics to controls and play style.  It will literally split the gaming market into 3 camps:  those that love the Wii controls (they will buy a Wii) those that hate Wii controls (They won't buy a Wii) and those that like both controls (This market will be split between who buys and not).

This would be bad for Nintendo except that they are also trying to reach beyond the traditional gaming markets.  If Nintendo even taps just 10-20% of that market, they have a huge new list of millions of gamers.

[IceCold]

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Nintendo CLEARLY has not given up on developing for the older audience, what with bringing out some in-house franchises which are geared to older audiences (Day of Disaster, HAMMER, TP, MP3, to name a few) as well as helping 3rd parties bring mature franchises to the Wii (Red Steel and I'm sure there are others we don't even know about yet).

Well, Disaster isn't a first party title, but yeah, you're right.

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I understand this is a Nintendo forum but someone else had to have had a genesis? Maybe I'll make a thread in the other systems forum to help out people with Sega on the virtual console.

I think there already is one..

Also, when we moved from the 64 to the 'Cube, the graphics were a lot better. The leap was big, and the quality went up tremendously. This isn't happening right now - the plateau is arriving. It's the third 3D generation, and as much as developers are doing, the gap from this generation to next isn't impressive at all. In the case of the Wii, the gap in graphics between the Wii and the PS3 definitely won't be as noticeable as the one from the DS to the PSP.

[GoldenPhoenix]

Quote
Originally posted by: IceCold

Quote
Nintendo CLEARLY has not given up on developing for the older audience, what with bringing out some in-house franchises which are geared to older audiences (Day of Disaster, HAMMER, TP, MP3, to name a few) as well as helping 3rd parties bring mature franchises to the Wii (Red Steel and I'm sure there are others we don't even know about yet).

Well, Disaster isn't a first party title, but yeah, you're right.

Quote
I understand this is a Nintendo forum but someone else had to have had a genesis? Maybe I'll make a thread in the other systems forum to help out people with Sega on the virtual console.

I think there already is one..

Also, when we moved from the 64 to the 'Cube, the graphics were a lot better. The leap was big, and the quality went up tremendously. This isn't happening right now - the plateau is arriving. It's the third 3D generation, and as much as developers are doing, the gap from this generation to next isn't impressive at all. In the case of the Wii, the gap in graphics between the Wii and the PS3 definitely won't be as noticeable as the one from the DS to the PSP.

Right on, I agree with everything you have said. We are reaching a plateau (just look at the photos of Crysis from the developers of Far Cry, that is almost photo realistic), and honestly the only steps that are left are adding more particle effects or better lighting. I've recently upgraded my PC from a 6800 GT to a 7900 GTX and really there was not a very big gap (the same applies to when I jumped from the Geforce Ti 500 to a 6800 GT) in graphical quality, most of what I seen was in framerate. For myself, I am really at the point where framerate is what matters the most to me, not how "pretty" the pointless (IMO) lighting effects or bump mapping is, and if WIi can achieve that then I will be more than satisfied. Personally I think the noticeable gap between Wii and PS3/Xbox 360 will be that of PS2 (or perhaps slightly less) to the Xbox.

[couchmonkey]

Well, I think there's still a ways to go in computer graphics, but I agree that the leaps and bounds are turning in to skips and hops.  It's still easy to tell CG people from real people in movies, unless the CG people are far away, or not very human-like.  Golem and Yoda (episodes one to three, obviously) were fairly convincing in my eyes, but they're not human, and there were times when you could tell they weren't real.  Spider-Man is also fairly convincing because you can't see his face, but again there were times when you could tell he wasn't real.

Having said that, I think it's going to take years of effort to get human CG characters to the level of reality, if it can even be done, it's like we're 99% of the way there, but the last 1% is going to take forever, like the progress bar on your computer.

[Ceric]

The Uncanny Valley.  It's the point at which people won't make things because they look like us.  That's why in the Western world robots are for the most part made to mimic human design but never on purpose made to look like a human.  It always gives people a feeling of offness.  Something not being right.  That would first have to be subconsciously overcame before CGI could look "real".  Even then though they wouldn't.  It's a hard to hit the mark.  I've seen both ways.  Things that don't look real to things that look too real.  The middle ground where normal people live is near impossible to come to.  That's why some movies Model effects and the like hold up better then computer graphics.  It's the whole analog versus digital.  Plus if there weren't things for the player to fill in you just be playing a movie.