Topic: The Grinder: Hunter The Reckoning + Left4Dead

[Pale]

Again, I'm not saying they can't go for their own stuff.  I'm not saying they aren't capable of making a great game.  More power to them.  I'm saying that having three games does not instill confidence... in fact, it stinks of lack of industry experience in my mind.  I'd love to be proven wrong.

I don't care if Conduit is almost done.  It isn't on shelves yet and they would do good to focus all their attention on discussing why its so great right now, not showing their two other game ideas that they may come out with some day.

[GoldenPhoenix]

  It isn't on shelves yet and they would do good to focus all their attention on discussing why its so great right now, not showing their two other game ideas that they may come out with some day.

I think they are past the idea stage and are actually in development (unlike, oh, Sadness). My guess is that we'll see footage at E3. We also have to remember that both games are running off the Conduit's engine, so that speeds things up.

[Pale]

Heh, well if they are that far along I think they should release actual screenshots.   If those ones are "real" they must be from more of a proof of concept level than an actual game level in my mind.

But I'm not claiming any hard evidence here, I'm just discussing my gut feeling.  And my gut feeling is that they are showing a high level of arrogance which stinks of inexperience which makes me lose faith in them. =P

[bustin98]

I circled elements that generally show this is not some bullshot or painted image.



I would tend to agree that the shoots are a proof of concept, with the lack of HUD and that HVS has said they created mock ups just to see how many enemies they can get on screen while keeping a high frame rate.

[D_Average]

Meh, just give me Animales already.

[Pale]

Are you circling aliasing there Bustin?  I agree there is a little there, but it still doesn't look anything like an in game screenshot to me.

Here, can I be pessimistic for another reason?

HVS have released 4 VC games.  Only one of them received somewhat good reviews and absolutely none of them brought anything interesting to the table that made me even remotely intrigued by the title.

How's that?  I just think people should be weary of being too excited about these two new announcements.  You'll also notice they don't have a publisher yet.... so in a world where Conduit doesn't tear up the sales charts, these may not ever see the light of day.

[GoldenPhoenix]

Pale is being a negative face. 

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

1.  There's actually plenty of aliasing.  You probably have a modern PC monitor, so it's hard to tell from "tiny" SD screens.  Checkout the full-sized screens, and bring your eyes within 6-inches of the monitor.  This game has stronger art-direction than The Conduit and doesn't have the candy-color contrast of Nintendo games, so aliasing is less noticeable due to the more-organic color palette.

2.  The resolution on the screens is 795x448.  Out of the 720x480p available "canvas" on Wii, Nintendo's games (everything but Metroid Prime 3) are typically rendered at 660x456 (helps eliminated thin black borders), while the majority of 3rd party devs (Capcom, most consistently) render their games at 640x448 with no other variation.  The Grinder is apparently 448-vertical, so scaling it we get 448 * 16 / 9 = 796, the approximate width of our screens.  Either HVS provided the screens as 795x448, or IGN received 640x448 screens and did the scaling themselves (with imperfect math...) to get 795x448.  The overall image quality of the teaser screens are consistent with the 480p Wii videos I manually scale to widescreen -- most pixel edges look perfectly contrasted/jagged, while more-horizontal edges show some pixel interpolation.

3.  The graphic effects in The Grinder are consistent with what's been shown for The Conduit.  The clean, bloomy explosions and gun flares are essentially the same.  As a base case, The Conduit makes aliens super shiny, but not much else.  Gladiator A.D. goes OVERBOARD with shinyness, while Grinder holds back on it.  And the HUD, we don't have to expect to see it from HVS shooters now because we know it can be disabled completely in The Conduit, and it's "confirmed" that kind of customization applies to The Grinder as well.

4.  The in-progress game is playable at E3, and we'll know for sure.

5.  As far as I can tell, HVS's WiiWare games are just experiments made for a quick buck.  They're not tightly associated with existing genres.  These big HVS shooters feel like established, hard-to-mess-up-making-a-genre-fitting-game focused affair with more generous dev time.

[D_Average]

HVS have released 4 VC games.  Only one of them received somewhat good reviews and absolutely none of them brought anything interesting to the table that made me even remotely intrigued by the title.

I agree with Pale here.  HVS has a track record of mediocrity.  How many times have we seen a below average developer create or port 30+ average or sub par games over a 10 year period to all of the sudden hit one out of the park?  Their last 3 Wiware titles, Evasive Space, Hot Rod Show, and Gyrostarr, were all pretty basic concepts that should have been fun.  Yet they all lacked that certain punch to make them a compelling addictive experience, like say the first Geometry Wars.

I hope that game turns out well, as the Wii needs more fps's, but there's no way I'm getting hyped until I see the final product.

[Pale]

I'm interested in the points about resolution.  That does lend itself to being system rendered....

They could still be totally staged though. =)

[BranDonk Kong]

Pale, look at the full-sized image on this page. You can see lots of good ol' Wii aliasing issues. Keep in mind, the closer you are to the object, the less apparent the aliasing.

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

Being a small developer, they ARE at the mercy of publishers.  You work on the work you can actually get, and you work on what gives you income and practice.

If CondomUnit is a plain but solid Goldeneye corridor shooter (and i don't think highly of Goldeneye), that's plenty of practice for a monster meat grinder game.

[BlackNMild2k1]

Also do we have any idea how big they are? If they have a fairly big development team splitting duties it is very possible.

I hear their development team is about 150 people. That is ploenty to be working on 3 games especially where one has been in bug testing and polishing mode for the last few months.

Think about how many people grasshopper has and how many games they are working on right now? I believe its less that 90 people and they are working on 2 or 3 games.

Another thing you have to take into consideration is the fact that HVS has been around fro a long while, and they have been working on mostly licensed crap. But all that licensed crap has to be completed within the budget and on a strict deadline to coincide with the licensed movie they are making a game for. That sort of efficiency could definitely be whats helping them manage 3 games at once, and all the WiiWare practice was probably to help them not only generate a quick buck, but help them figure out ways to perfect their engine.

And why would they fake a screen shot from a demo that they gave IGN to play that will also be playable at E3?
& if they were gonna start fdaking screen shots, wouldn't they have done bettter looking models (skin texture looks wierd) for Gladiator AD?

[Ian Sane]

HVS deserves the support of ALL Wii owners...or at least all Wii owners that don't consider themselves casual.

They still have to earn it.  I really like how they actually seem legitmately interested in making Wii games and literally no one aside from Nintendo shares that.  But they don't get a free pass just because no one else shows up.  I don't rate games on a bell curve.  HVS still has to deliver the goods.  The Conduit doesn't get my purchase just because it's an okay game or "good by Wii standards" or better than most Wii third party games (since most Wii third party games are complete trash).

The Conduit has to be good enough that it would also be a big deal on the PS3 or Xbox 360.  Ditto with this and Gladiator.

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

"The Conduit has to be good enough that it would also be a big deal on the PS3 or Xbox 360."

Ugh, when you consider been-there-done-that games that happen to be HD are considered big deals, that's not saying much.

[BlackNMild2k1]

Why would the Conduit need to be a big  deal on 360 & PS3 where it would get lost in the sea of 1st person shooters and even if it did get noticed it would just be compared to Halo3, Killzone2 & Resitance2.

HVS doesn't get a pass just for showing up on the Wii, but they sure as hell get noticed for being enthusiastic with their Wii support by putting in lots of effort with a sufficient budget and the 8.0+ reviews don't hurt the game either you know.

The Conduit is getting my purchase just for the fact that I know they are putting out a quality product & I don't own a FPS yet. If I find the Conduit even remotely fun, The Grinder automatically get my pre-order since AI'm sure its only gonna be an improvement.
Gladiator on the other hand is a wait-n-see.

[Ian Sane]

Why would the Conduit need to be a big  deal on 360 & PS3 where it would get lost in the sea of 1st person shooters and even if it did get noticed it would just be compared to Halo3, Killzone2 & Resitance2.

The Conduit should be as good as those games or better.  That's what I mean.  It shouldn't just get a free pass for being okay and standing out entirely because there is nothing else.  The Conduit should be good enough that if the big FPS games of the other consoles were on the Wii you would still buy it.

Is Metroid Prime 3 good for a Wii game or is just a great game PERIOD?  It's a great game period!  So we should expect HVS' games to be of similar calibre.  These games should be great games PERIOD and would be great games that stand out on any console.  That's what I want and that's what it will take for me to buy any of these.

Otherwise you're ADMITTING to giving them a free pass just for trying which is stupid.  If you reward mediocrity you get more mediocrity.  We're the market leader and should expect the BEST from third parties.

[BlackNMild2k1]

But what about the tests!!?? I think we need more tests. we might not be ready to handle the awesomeness of actual 3rd party effort.

[Caliban]

You'll also notice they don't have a publisher yet....

SEGA
SEGA
SEGA
SEGA

[BlackNMild2k1]

You'll also notice they don't have a publisher yet....

SEGA
SEGA
SEGA
SEGA

They don't have a publisher for Gladiator A.D. & The Grinder yet.
But after all the positive feedback from the IGN reveal, if everything looks good @ E3 & the conduit performs at par or better I'm sure SEGA would love to publish atleast The Grinder too.

[Dirk Temporo]

Pale is turning into Ian: CONFIRMED

Also

looks bleh

You obviously hate everything, so why bother commenting?

[vudu]

Also, those don't look like screens at all to me... they look like mocked up concepts...

It's playable at E3, so you'll know in a week!

[Caliban]

You'll also notice they don't have a publisher yet....

SEGA
SEGA
SEGA
SEGA

They don't have a publisher for Gladiator A.D. & The Grinder yet.
But after all the positive feedback from the IGN reveal, if everything looks good @ E3 & the conduit performs at par or better I'm sure SEGA would love to publish atleast The Grinder too.

D'oh! In my head it came out as if HVS does not have a publisher.
My apologies to Pale.

[Pale]

Hey man, I'm still hopeful they will work, it's just fishy to reveal this quantity of games.. that's all I'm saying. =P

Optimistic Pale: They are just really confident and excited, that's why they are revealing them.

Pessimistic Pale 1: They are trying to land publishers for these before Conduit comes out because they have no faith in that game.

Pessimistic Pale 2: They are totally full of themselves and are over promising on something they won't have the capacity to deliver, thus disappointing everyone who is getting excited.

=P

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

bwuh?  How hard is it for a western dev house to churn out a western bang-bang game?  not at all!

It's those Japanese developers who have yet to deliver on the level they achieved in the previous cycle.