Topic: High Voltage Software Announces The Grinder for Wii

[Morari]

Why would anyone really even want to play Left 4 Dead on a console, let alone a knock-off version? Wake me up when they start putting their first-person shooters on a platform that makes sense.

User was warned for this post. Derailing. ~Pale

[Pale]

This thread will not be derailed into PC vs Console gaming shenanigans.

[Nick DiMola]

Wait, what? Why does putting an FPS on the Wii not make sense?

I know the PC is your gig, but it's just needless trolling to come in here and say that a Wii FPS doesn't make sense.

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

PC makes sense for lazy gamers.

[Stogi]

I'd be content with the latter, but if it could be done on the N64, then why the hell can't it be done now?

You're likely referring to competitive matches, not cooperative ones.

In GoldenEye you had up to 4 people running around a stage.  In Perfect Dark you had maybe 10 or 12 characters at once (including bots) at most.

If The Grinder is shooting for 60+ enemies on screen at once it's going to get nuts if they have to do that 4 times on the same television.

I'm pretty sure they explained the how in the interview, but none of the speculation matters. Luckily, we don't have to take what they've said at face value. Literally a week from now, we'll no exactly how it works.

[Morari]

This thread will not be derailed into PC vs Console gaming shenanigans.

Derailing, really? I was simply carrying on with the Left 4 Dead comparisons. Besides, some genres simply DO NOT work well on consoles. RTS and FPS are two of them. It's too bad too, because a Left 4 Dead-esque update of Zombies Ate My Neighbors would be pretty neat.

I'm going to go ahead and warn you for having a self-righteous attitude. I won't think less of you this time, just don't let it happen again.

[NWR_Lindy]

Morari, I think your stance on PC superiority in the first-person shooter genre is pretty well-established by now.  There's no need to beat that dead horse any more at this point.

And, Pale's "self-righteous attitude" is completely required to stop threads from getting derailed with comments like yours.  So before you complain about self-righteousness coming from anybody, understand that you're the one who prompted that type of response in the first place.

Thanks.

[Pale]

You didn't continue with the left 4 dead comparison at all...

Here...

"This isn't really like left for dead because it doesn't look like it's in a city."

That's continuing the comparison.  You blatantly changed the topic to a "Mouse controls are better for FPS so this must suck" an incredibly tired and old argument that has been had on these internets since their inception.

Whatever.  You are officially warned again for continuing to derail the topic.  If you had an honest dispute with what I did and wanted to carry on a civilized discussion about it, I would have been glad to do it in PMs.  That's the end of it here, please carry on with Grinder discussion.

[Pale]

PS, in case other forumers are wondering the way I would have liked to see you handle this Morari, it would have been like this...

Realize the first one was only a 10% warning and not a big deal.  Decide how badly you wanted to discuss mouse vs controller. If you really wanted to talk about it, search the forums for a relevant thread to bump and if that fails make a new thread in General Gaming.

[BlackNMild2k1]

Realize the first one was only a 10% warning and not a big deal.

Where can someone see their warning level?

[Morari]

PS, in case other forumers are wondering the way I would have liked to see you handle this Morari, it would have been like this...

Realize the first one was only a 10% warning and not a big deal.  Decide how badly you wanted to discuss mouse vs controller. If you really wanted to talk about it, search the forums for a relevant thread to bump and if that fails make a new thread in General Gaming.

Not likely. Some jackass would have probably just warned me for resurrecting an old thread then.

[MoronSonOfBoron]

Online AND offline co-op play? It's an instant sell for Kairon!

/rerailing?

[Djunknown]

I hope The Conduit is really good and sells really well because, dammit, we need SOMEBODY other than Nintendo to actually treat the Wii with some respect.

This.

I feel that how The Conduit sells will have an effect on whether Gladiator/The Grinder will get a publisher. Will publishers be patient if The Conduit doesn't sell 250k the first month? Or will they immidietly call it a failure if it doesn't sell like gang busters instantly?

To play devil's advocate for a moment, why should a publisher bother when all they need to do is jump on the mini-game/brain-training/exer-gaming bandwagon and make money hand over fist over our less discerning gamers?

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

"To play devil's advocate for a moment, why should a publisher bother when all they need to do is jump on the mini-game/brain-training/exer-gaming bandwagon and make money hand over fist over our less discerning gamers?"

Cuz the truth is those mini-game collections aren't selling the 2nd time around (>2 years since Wii launch).

[Stogi]

In business, the largest market usually has the largest competition. Not only is there an over abundance of shovelware, Nintendo themselves are targeting that market in a big way.

In some ways, it's a bigger risk.

[GoldenPhoenix]

PS, in case other forumers are wondering the way I would have liked to see you handle this Morari, it would have been like this...

Realize the first one was only a 10% warning and not a big deal.  Decide how badly you wanted to discuss mouse vs controller. If you really wanted to talk about it, search the forums for a relevant thread to bump and if that fails make a new thread in General Gaming.

Not likely. Some jackass would have probably just warned me for resurrecting an old thread then.

Well nothing is stopping you from leaving if people are so unfair to you.

Anyway I am interested in seeing the game in motion.

[BwrJim!]

No it wouldn't not that much anyways.   As a developer myself and work in 3d all the time.  The characters are "instanced" and then loaded and modded independently.   this is a massive memory save and I am surprised that this wouldn't be standard practice.   Instanced is kind of like a visual empty object that can be manipulated.  It may do a performance hit in the software to make it, but when playing, with how he said they are loading them, they shouldn't really have problems.   

Remember, Conduit, grinder and so on are all about selling an engine, so if they can push it, they will.  There are a lot of sweet dirty tricks you can do in the 3d department, it just matters if the developers can figure out how to make it work correctly in their own engines.

Its all good though, The Grinder is showing off how the engine was modified from the conduit (play and quality) for FPS to a Left 4 dead style game.  And of course the engine was also modified to fit their gladiator game (also FPS, in 3rd person).   So while the engine can do all sorts of FPS style games, I wonder how if it can be "modified" to a complete different genre well?  im sure it can, but i wonder if they have put in the fuctionality yet?

So what other games on the 360 or ps3 (hehe just kidding bout that ps3) that are in the FPS genre that people thought couldnt be tackled on the wii and I am sure we may see what the 4th project will be. (unless said modification comes out).


Just for comparison reasons.

The Conduit = Halo = High quality FPS
The Grinder = l4d and dead rising = Massive amounts of enemies on screen
Gladiator A.D. = MK = blood and gore is possible with HVS, not everything is clean. 

Looking at Gladiator (from the first fuzzy screen i thought weapon lord (anyone else?) it has to be  (for me anyways) the most generic title they have announced.   But, I think this title is more designed to show off the graphics of the engine.   In such a contained environment, HVS should be able to do all sorts of wonderful engine trickery.

Ahh, im babbling about.

Get the engine where you want it HVS and then release it so that other companies can utilized what you have put so much time into.

 

[Ian Sane]

To play devil's advocate for a moment, why should a publisher bother when all they need to do is jump on the mini-game/brain-training/exer-gaming bandwagon and make money hand over fist over our less discerning gamers?

The same hypothesis exists regarding Nintendo themselves.  Why should they bother with core games at all if they make more money from non-gamers?  Really the whole core gamer vs. non-gamer thing is largely due to the fear of this.

[KDR_11k]

To play devil's advocate for a moment, why should a publisher bother when all they need to do is jump on the mini-game/brain-training/exer-gaming bandwagon and make money hand over fist over our less discerning gamers?

Because that train has already left the station and there's more money to be made by claiming new sectors of the market than jump into an already crowded one? The minigame market is already oversaturated by far, it'd be extremely hard to make a dent there now and you need to make a dent if you want to make money hand over fist. Staking out an unknown sector isn't easy, very few games manage to pull it off. FPS is a pretty well known sector that has been left unclaimed outside of a few smaller entries (such as Onslaught which has stayed fairly high on the WiiWare charts since its release) for a long time already.

[BwrJim!]

lets not forget that they need to nurture this new market too.  Otherwise when a system jump happens, they wont.   One thing is for sure though, even if Nintendo labled Animal Crossing core at one point, they will always end up taking care of everyone.  Meaning E for everyone style content.  and right now, sadly that is a mini game death hole for me.   I took until this point for me to just get sick of it. (like the first year of the ds, nothing but tech demos).  But now 3rd parties are creating the content that is rich and happy..  so i am expecting in the next 3 years of this cycle, we should be getting a lot more flavor in the market..

   

[KDR_11k]

They didn't just label AC as core, it IS core. The entire last generation was core because nothing besides the core existed back then.

[BwrJim!]

hah..., thats funny..  last generation was kinda like the birthplace for everything they have now.   let us not forget about wario ware, the mother of the minigame beast...

[Jonnyboy117]

Could be cool -- online co-op is definitely unmined territory on Wii.

But I'm a little concerned with how blatantly derivative this project is. In the IGN interview, High Voltage basically comes right out to say "we're making Left 4 Dead on Wii". I guess I'm glad that someone's doing it, if Valve has clearly passed, but where's the creativity in this company? They've already been criticized for The Conduit having too little personality and originality, and then their next two projects are what they are...

[GoldenPhoenix]

Could be cool -- online co-op is definitely unmined territory on Wii.

But I'm a little concerned with how blatantly derivative this project is. In the IGN interview, High Voltage basically comes right out to say "we're making Left 4 Dead on Wii". I guess I'm glad that someone's doing it, if Valve has clearly passed, but where's the creativity in this company? They've already been criticized for The Conduit having too little personality and originality, and then their next two projects are what they are...

Well the Gladiator game seems pretty different. In regards to Grinder, werewolves and vampires > Zombies.

[Ian Sane]

But I'm a little concerned with how blatantly derivative this project is. In the IGN interview, High Voltage basically comes right out to say "we're making Left 4 Dead on Wii". I guess I'm glad that someone's doing it, if Valve has clearly passed, but where's the creativity in this company? They've already been criticized for The Conduit having too little personality and originality, and then their next two projects are what they are...

Well there is some logic in making a knock-off game for a userbase that doesn't have access to the original.  Streets of Rage is a blatant Final Fight clone but Capcom was buddy-buddy with Nintendo at the time so Sega filled the void with their own copycat.  Crash Team Racing was a blatant rip-off of Mario Kart but you weren't going to get a Mario Kart game on the Playstation.

It's kind of lame and is of no interest to anyone who owns multiple consoles but it's a sound business strategy.

I'm more offended that the Wii's third party support is so weak that a developer pushing derivative games stands out.  But that's the fault of all the third parties that ignore the Wii.

I won't reward High Voltage for merely being competent though.  These games have to be good.  A lack of games isn't reason to settle.