Topic: Stop making core games for the Wii!

[KDR_11k]

Blue Ocean is about striking where the enemy is weak or nonexistant, not where he is strong and when you think about it like that there's simply no point in attacking a red ocean, whether you're the market leader or the loser. MS and Sony are strong in the traditional controller games and can do better there than Nintendo (by having better graphics and online play). Nintendo has the motion controls that are a strength neither MS nor Sony can match. They have to use that strength to beat MS or Sony, they can't just throw it aside and try to go toe to toe. However the motion controls are STRONG, they greatly improve the HD consoles' primary genre, the xPS and we all know that pointer aim adds so much to those that graphics can't make up for the difference. Their second-strongest genre is the melee brawler like God of War or the various Dynasty Warriors wannabes. These involve swords or things like that which SHOULD be a strong point for motion controls but currently aren't, I suppose that could be fixed. That racing games benefit from having a steering wheel instead of a tiny stick is a given (honestly I've never gotten used to analog sticks on those). Sports games are already strongly benefitting. Western RPGs tend to be xPS or melee brawler games with stats and choices, those should have the advantages of the linear games too. Only the open world games might suffer but then again GTA3 had a very open world on the PS2 so that's just a matter of bothering to actually do it (and again open world games tend to be xPS).

So as I see it even the traditional genres have the potential to be massively improved by motion controls provided the designs are made to work with them instead of against them. Sports games benefitted because they replicate a real game played with real tools, not a concept designed around a controller with buttons. Many current genres were designed around button controllers so far and never had a real motion implementation, if their old designs get reused then motion controls must be shoehorned. The designs must be rethought to work with motion controls (e.g. fighting games cannot be as much about pre-defined button sequences, those were a way of requiring the player to input gestures with a controller that wasn't really built for it!) while retaining the basic idea. What developers fail to do is remove the controller specific parts from the design. They take all the old ideas verbatim instead of going through and making sure to remove the workarounds that were added because of the button controller in first place.

Imagine a Wii golf game that used the three button press swing mechanic controller-based golf games use. That's a fucking ridiculous idea. Yet it's what other genres do to the system.

[Chozo Ghost]

I might be in the minority, but I didn't really enjoy the stingray and bubble courses in Galaxy, because I kept getting killed in them and they frustrated me to no end. I eventually did beat them, but it took me many lives and a lot of wasted time doing it. It wasn't fun to me at all, and once I was finished with them it was a huge relief.

The rest of the game for me was enjoyable and it was challenging but not to the extent of being frustrating.

[Ian Sane]

I might be in the minority, but I didn't really enjoy the stingray and bubble courses in Galaxy, because I kept getting killed in them and they frustrated me to no end. I eventually did beat them, but it took me many lives and a lot of wasted time doing it. It wasn't fun to me at all, and once I was finished with them it was a huge relief.

I had a lot of difficulty on the stingray courses as for some reason I couldn't get the remote to acknowledge my right turns.  It literally took like 10 minutes to get past the little tutorial because try as I might the remote just wouldn't co-operate with me.

Nintendo has the motion controls that are a strength neither MS nor Sony can match. They have to use that strength to beat MS or Sony, they can't just throw it aside and try to go toe to toe.

Well I agree that they can't just throw it aside.  But motion control vs. traditional control is not a strength.  It's just a matter of opinon and for me the comparison is in favour of Sony and MS.  Motion control, as is, sucks.  Traditional controls win out.  But traditional control + motion control vs. just traditional control IS a clear advantage.

Many current genres were designed around button controllers so far and never had a real motion implementation, if their old designs get reused then motion controls must be shoehorned. The designs must be rethought to work with motion controls

To me this isn't good game design.  This is forcing ideology.  This assumes far too much that motion control is the ideal standard.  It isn't.  You enforce this and you get, well, exactly what we get now: lots of games that control like ****.

There's nothing wrong with wanting better implementation of the remote and to have games that fulfill the promises Nintendo was making with the Wii.  But there is the possibility that with the current remote that this just isn't possible.  You may be asking Nintendo to create something that no one can make.

[Chozo Ghost]

I had a lot of difficulty on the stingray courses as for some reason I couldn't get the remote to acknowledge my right turns.  It literally took like 10 minutes to get past the little tutorial because try as I might the remote just wouldn't co-operate with me.

Did you try the stingray course on the planet of trials? You get there when you've saved the 3 green stars and they open up a portal to it near to the spaceship on the observatory. There is also a very tough bubble course and something else as well... I did beat them all, but it was very difficult and frustrating and looking back I shouldn't have done it because I didn't collect every star in the game anyway so I shouldn't have bothered with those.

Anyway, I'm just saying if you've had difficult with just the tutorial (which I did too) then wait til you get to that huge course that you have to beat in under 5 minutes or something... the only good thing I can say is that it is fairly easy to pick up some 1up mushrooms in it so you can keep at it pretty much indefinitely without getting a game over.

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

Are you really complaining about challenges that are meant to be difficult?

[Chozo Ghost]

Are you really complaining about challenges that are meant to be difficult?

There's difficult and then there's frustrating. The difference is difficult is something that isn't easy but you can do it with practice or if you're a good gamer, but frustrating is when the controls are ridiculous and unresponsive to what you're trying to accomplish. Like Ian pointed out with the game not responding to right turns... I suppose that does fit the challenge of being difficult, but its a difficulty that doesn't go away no matter how good a gamer you are. I really don't think the developers intended unresponsive motion controls to be part of the game's design. It was an error that makes the game a bit more challenging, but also a LOT more frustrating.

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

When you're holding the Remote in your right hand, it's naturally easier to turn your wrist counterclockwise than go clockwise with the resistance and range inherent to your wrist.

I held it with my fingertips with one or both hands together to get the freedom I needed.  The Remote was a paper airplane to me in that situation, so I'll think outside the box for once and not treat it like a mere TV Remote.  The Remote was conceived outside the box in the first place.

[KDR_11k]

But motion control vs. traditional control is not a strength.  It's just a matter of opinon and for me the comparison is in favour of Sony and MS.  Motion control, as is, sucks.  Traditional controls win out.  But traditional control + motion control vs. just traditional control IS a clear advantage.

That's because you didn't play the games that used the controls properly. As I said, many games just assume there are buttons for everything and then map gestures to them.

To me this isn't good game design.  This is forcing ideology.  This assumes far too much that motion control is the ideal standard.  It isn't.  You enforce this and you get, well, exactly what we get now: lots of games that control like ****.

No, it's telling people to stop acting like they're making games for a traditional console. Designs need rethinking. You can't make a fighting game using motion controls if you still design it in the Street Fighter style (because that was invented to bridge the gap between buttons and martial arts in first place). Some games control like **** because they were badly designed. Others control perfectly well and natural because they were properly designed. Of course we currently get a lot of games with bad controls but that's because proper controls require attention and sill, something shovelware isn't afforded so let's just ignore shovelware, there's no way of fixing that particular mess.

[ThePerm]

start making good games with the Wii controller in mind is all i say. Twilight princess is a good example, a future game could have motion plus control for the sword instead of waggle.

[KDR_11k]

BTW, I feel like I should mention that I consider the IR pointer part of the motion controls. It's definitely the biggest reason the Wii's controls are superior to other consoles'

[Ian Sane]

When you're holding the Remote in your right hand, it's naturally easier to turn your wrist counterclockwise than go clockwise with the resistance and range inherent to your wrist.

I held it with my fingertips with one or both hands together to get the freedom I needed.  The Remote was a paper airplane to me in that situation, so I'll think outside the box for once and not treat it like a mere TV Remote.  The Remote was conceived outside the box in the first place.

But Nintendo's diagram of how to control the stringray showed the hand holding the remote like a remote.  I was doing it exactly how Nintendo was telling me to so it better fucking work that way or the controls are broken horseshit.

That's because you didn't play the games that used the controls properly.

I've played Wii Sports and Metroid Prime 3.  Isn't that pretty much the best of the best in regards to making full use of the remote?

No, it's telling people to stop acting like they're making games for a traditional console.

Why must it be traditional console vs. motion controlled console?  Why can't it just be a console?  So you make games for it.  Maybe you make a fighting game from the ground up that uses motion control OR maybe you want to make something more old-school with SFII style moves.  You should be able to make both.  Gamers should be able to play both on their console so as to have choice.  To me this is like in the Playstation days where 2D was seen as inferior and old and games had to be 3D DAMMIT!  And while many fantastic 3D games were made we saw 2D games get overlooked and relegated to portables.  But I just see 2D and 3D as different formats of gaming with their own pros and cons.  Neither one is superior they're just different and depending on the game one or the other is more suitable.  Ditto with traditional controls vs. motion controls.

I would like to see games designed from the ground up to use motion controls and I think if Nintendo got out of their rut and were not so insistent on sticking to their franchises and using new IP only for non-games we could see that.  And at the same time I don't want to see lame ass waggle anymore.  If you're just mapping button pushes to gestures then support the classic controller so that those that bought it aren't stuck playing with broken ass controls.

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

"But Nintendo's diagram of how to control the stringray showed the hand holding the remote like a remote.  I was doing it exactly how Nintendo was telling me to so it better fucking work that way or the controls are broken horseshit."

Nintendo's the same company that told me "Press A" instead of "Hold A" to make Link wrestle the goat-cow early on in Twilight Princess (and later the final boss), so Nintendo's no god of traditional controls either.  If you ask me to press A, I'll give it a tap at right time and let it go, cuz that's how games and the rest of the modern world works, which only led to disastrous results in that stupid game.  I followed the game's directions, it just wasn't aware of what directions it gave me.  Talk about complete fucking frustration via miscommunication, those moments really killed the game for me.  The boss fight took a half-hour longer than it should have.

Dammit that game makes me sick.

And no, I didn't have trouble with the stingray when I held the Remote the "normal" way, but I looked for a better solution for myself anyway.  Just like how my index finger always hovered Z-button on the GameCube controller when I played Melee--I had no use for the R-trigger.

[KDR_11k]

Wii Sports works perfectly. The combat grapple in Prime 3 was pretty annoying though and felt like a lame upgrade compared to all the different beams and super beams in Prime 1 or stuff like the super missiles in Super Metroid. The doors and stuff worked well enough I think.

Yeah, okay, not EVERY game has to be designed for the Wii but currently it's like every game outside of WiiWare is designed around regular controls with the Wii tacked on. That really needs to change.

[Guitar Smasher]

Basically, if the motion controls could be easily replaced with a traditional controller, then don't bother adding motion.  This is the "waggle" crap that impresses no one.  Let's see more games that can be only achieved through Wii.

[ThomasO]

I thought Elebits was a good game that could only be accomplished on Wii... if it weren't for the slowdown and not-completely impressive graphics... but I still thought it was fun. I did wait however, two years to buy it used for $5.

I always thought that making games that use only the Classic Controller would alienate those players that do not own them, which might be why it's not implemented much. But I'm no expert, of course... 

[NWR_insanolord]

Basically, if the motion controls could be easily replaced with a traditional controller, then don't bother adding motion.  This is the "waggle" crap that impresses no one.  Let's see more games that can be only achieved through Wii.

You really have to be more specific than that, golf can easily be done with a three point meter like it always has been but there's no way I'd ever want to go back to that after playing Tiger Woods 10. Same thing for Wii controls in FPSs vs. dual analog or mouse/keyboard.

[Peachylala]

I would love more FPS on Wii, but I would like them in colors other then brown.

Thanks for making this gen of games **** colored HD.

[NWR_pap64]

Boom Blox worked fine being designed around precise Wiimote motions. It's not very accurate when moved quickly but when moved slowly it seems to be sufficiently precise for most purposes. There's more the Wiimote can do than just thwack stuff with a stick, what about something like an archaeology game? Or a puzzle adventure game where you interact directly with your environments instead of using context sesitive actions? Hell, Zack & Wiki worked fine too.

I posted this because I was really annoyed by Nintendo's direction for E3 2009. "Core gamers" are a misnomer anyway, veteran gamers just want more complex games, not strictly core games but Nintendo doesn't seem to be making any effort to appeal to them with anything but core games, furthering the notion that core and veteran are the same thing and stand opposed to casual. Come on, with the control values as the focus instead of graphics a game for the veteran gamer shouldn't be very expensive to make and pull the last leg MS and Sony are standing on out from under them. Going against them with games that use traditional controls is a red ocean strategy (and I can't imagine many other reasons for Galaxy 2 or Other M, both are squarely aimed at veteran gamers), I thought Nintendo was going to avoid that? Draw their customers away with moves they cannot replicate! Make them face games they cannot make! Yes, that'll require innovation but isn't that what Nintendo is all about? Finding new ways to entertain people?

Though I'll be fair to Other M, we have no idea how it works so it might use motion controls in a great way but their advertising seems to be aimed at core values currently.

See, this is why I asked why you posted this. This is basically the casual argument but backwards. Instead of "Nintendo should stop making casual games with gimmicky controls and focus on core games"its "Nintendo should stop making core games and focus more on games that control with the Wii Remore only", which either way its a bullsh*t argument.

I do agree that more games should be made with Wii controls made in mind. But are basically asking Nintendo AND developers to alienate consumers and themselves just because of a belief that isn't even perfect to begin with.

Its already confirmed that the Wii Remote is great for some things, bad for others and not even Nintendo has yet to fully master it. They understood this from the very beginning and that's why they made the controls accessible to the developers and players. If they love the motion controls they stick with them,  if they prefer buttons that's available too. Once again, even if Nintendo believes in motion control they aren't dumb to just ditch the traditional elements that work just to pursue something.

This is why I think Natal will bring a lot of issues to MS. The idea of no controls is far too ambitious and will have issues.

Speaking of E3...

You speak of E3 as if it was a massive core fest. It wasn't the only two examples were Mario Galaxy 2 and Other Me. The rest were games that utilized Motion Plus, casual games and the likes. It was a fair and balanced show so I understand why you are even upset.

Either way, what I am getting at is that just as the casual argument is silly this core argument of yours is even more stupid since its asking everyone to limit their ideas just for the sake of a novelty. I LOVE the Wii. I love it when I have to stand up and replicate the motions or when I am sitting down and pushing buttons.

I hate elitism either way and this seems like it. Sorry, but that's what I think of this whole argument and would have accepted it had this been a cynical parody of what most analysts say when dealing with the Wii.

[KDR_11k]

NSMBW didn't have significant use of the Wii controls either from what I read. Of course you COULD call it casual...

I'm saying developers should try harder. I'm pretty sure the current problems with motion controls stem partially from lazyness that makes developers reuse pre-Wii designs on the Wii without alterations. Of course those play better with buttons, that's what they were designed for.

It's not picking the best option if the devs don't even try one of them. This lazyness is propagating the belief that the motion controls aren't useful for most games.

[Guitar Smasher]

Basically, if the motion controls could be easily replaced with a traditional controller, then don't bother adding motion.  This is the "waggle" crap that impresses no one.  Let's see more games that can be only achieved through Wii.

You really have to be more specific than that, golf can easily be done with a three point meter like it always has been but there's no way I'd ever want to go back to that after playing Tiger Woods 10. Same thing for Wii controls in FPSs vs. dual analog or mouse/keyboard.

Perhaps I should say, where motion control doesn't give you more 'control'.  I agree with you, if they tried to bring back three-point golf I'd call it ridiculous.  But then again I wouldn't consider them to be the same type of game.  Really, I think a lot of games rely on a mish-mash of button/waggle controls when they'd be better as more defined parts.

[NWR_Lindy]

I'm saying developers should try harder. I'm pretty sure the current problems with motion controls stem partially from lazyness that makes developers reuse pre-Wii designs on the Wii without alterations. Of course those play better with buttons, that's what they were designed for.

Do you think this is still happening though?  I mean, the Wii has been on the market for almost three years.  I doubt anybody is literally still basing their Wii games on designs they wrote back in 2005.

It's not picking the best option if the devs don't even try one of them. This lazyness is propagating the belief that the motion controls aren't useful for most games.

Maybe they aren't.  Or, maybe they aren't all they're cracked up to be at this point, so developers came to the consensus that they currently aren't appropriate for certain types of gameplay.  Like you stated in your original post, Nintendo themselves releases major games that barely use the motion controls that they themselves pioneered.  That's pretty telling.  If this is the case, it's developers doing what they think is best for their games, not developers being lazy.

[KDR_11k]

I'm saying developers should try harder. I'm pretty sure the current problems with motion controls stem partially from lazyness that makes developers reuse pre-Wii designs on the Wii without alterations. Of course those play better with buttons, that's what they were designed for.

Do you think this is still happening though?  I mean, the Wii has been on the market for almost three years.  I doubt anybody is literally still basing their Wii games on designs they wrote back in 2005.

I don't mean they're using their own old designs but when making their designs heavily copy non-Wii games. Design copying isn't exclusive to the Wii of course but the Wii is where it tends to fail.

Maybe they aren't.  Or, maybe they aren't all they're cracked up to be at this point, so developers came to the consensus that they currently aren't appropriate for certain types of gameplay.  Like you stated in your original post, Nintendo themselves releases major games that barely use the motion controls that they themselves pioneered.  That's pretty telling.  If this is the case, it's developers doing what they think is best for their games, not developers being lazy.

I think developers should go for types of gameplay that benefit from motion controls or even find new types. Nintendo's output is strongly based around sequels of last gen games which obviously weren't designed around the Wii. Way too many devs are uncreative and copy stuff, either from non-Wii games or the huge sea of Wii Sports wannabes. The Wii requires innovation and it seems noone is really willing to do that.

Of course it doesn't help when a game like Disaster that's designed around the Wii is swept under the rug.

[Plugabugz]

Of course it doesn't help when a game like Disaster that's designed around the Wii is swept under the rug.

We live in Europe. Nintendo of Europe lost the skill for marketing & hype when dinosaurs roamed the earth.