Nintendo Wii Fanboy

Airplane is a sport?

Since when?

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I thought it was it's own game.

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Has anyone else noticed that the "+7 pts" font and style is the exact same font and style as the Duck Hunt demo that was displayed at E3?

Is this an indication that the Duck Hunt revamp will be included in the Wii Sports title? I think Nintendo may take a cue from some of the success of their other Mario Party and Wario titles and include a large number of varied titles.

I'm just glad to see another indication that we will be seeing Duck Hunt again!

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Actually I was hoping it was controlled that way. I can imagine playing crimson skies with such a control scheme. Talk about immersive dog fights.

Who cares if the controls seem real, it's more fun that way, like you are the plane rather than controlling it.

Anticrawl

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I think Wii Sports is gonna ecompass a bunch of mini-game type games, and some will be branched off to full-fledge games (I'm sure the Tennis, Baseball, and...the other Wii Sports title will become Mario ones, individually packaged with a higher price tag and more options/gameplay modes/characters. While games like this Airplane demo may become more full-fledged, Like a Pilot Wings or something (and of course, a higher price tag)). Maybe so, maybe not, but one thing's for sure, Wii Sports games are merely quick yet immersive games, something to whet your appetite.

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#3,
Check out:
http://www.youtube.com/results?search=wii+duck+hunt&search_type=search_videos

There are several videos from duck hunt for the wii at youtube.com.

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a) It is a very slow plane.
b) The birds are probably drafting ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drafting_(racing) )

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i hope nintendo includes a bundle of the sports games with the system. seems like the best way to transition people into using the new controller.

also, in all the wii videos i've seen where they show the person moving the remote, it seems like there is a pretty decent lag between their movement and what happens onscreen. maybe it isn't noticeable when they are playing, but to me it looks like it would be annoying.

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Why would one use it as a flight stick? The whole point of the wiimote is /imersion/. Why mimick the flight controls when you can just move the plane how you wish?

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I agree, I wish they that could have the controls as a flight stick, instead of emulating the airplanes movements.... or maybe they could the choice of both?

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^ Maybe this isn't the ONLY way to control it. Maybe in the final version of the game it'll have both sets of control.

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I agree, Special_K. While a flight stick would be more like you were "controlling" the plane, presumably you would hold the Wii remote vertically, thus making it a large analog stick and not separating it much from the old controls.

I hope Marc's right... actually it seems like most of the games we've seen would benefit from multiple control schemes. Let's hope the developers try to keep everyone happy! :)

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Actually, cross out "large analog stick", it's just a joystick if you hold it vertical... sure that's more like a flight stick, but it's been done for many years.

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ooo! I want to buy a model airplane and build a shell for the Wiimote! :D This game looks fun. I'd really like to see some combat flight sims, too. We need more flight sims with realistic flight control, and less arcade style flight.

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This video is rad. I agree with this control scheme, not the flight stick one. This is wii sports. It's like a tutorial. Better versions of all these games will be done by other game developers, third-party or not. Wii Sports is like solitaire for windows. It teaches you the basics of the many different kinds of play really quick and easy to understand and anyone can try it and immediately have fun. If you have any weird feelings about this wii sports game... just keep thinking... 'it's like solitaire...' That's what it's purpose is.

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Wii sports Cricket for World Cup 2007!

We need some cricket action here in the U.S. :)

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Is it just me, or does that seem a lot like the "racing" levels in Spyro the Dragon, except with an airplane?

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Anyone else notice the other plane fly by at 2:48? I didn't hear that the flight game would be multiplayer...

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#6 - Yes, I saw the video during E3, hence I was able to make the comparison. Keep your YouTube searches.

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Adam Blinkinsop,

I don't think it's multiplayer. The other plane could just be another AI in the game. One challange would probably be to "race" this other plane to a specified destination.

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i need that game... i thought pilotwings was fun, but oh my god... i would kill for that, that looks so fun, and the best part? the Wii is still in development. I hope that becomes a game. but wow ya,... those seagulls are on crack, lol.

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"17. Is it just me, or does that seem a lot like the "racing" levels in Spyro the Dragon, except with an airplane?"
Yeah, me too! That's the first thing I thought when I saw it. A Spyro game for Wii would be awesome, I think the last ones were for Gamecube and GBA so it's definitely a possibility, especially since they would seem out of place on the "Real-Time Weapon Change" PS3.

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I'm sorry if someone already asked this but...

Can you do a http://lolpeppyrave.ytmnd.com/ ?

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#16 - Tush you're absolutely right. We really need some cricket action here. Swinging Wii-mote like a cricket bat!! You know what, I think even if they release a cricket game on Wii, it will only be released in Europe & Australia, cause they're cricket playing nations. I doubt they'll ever release it stateside, though I really want them to do so. Specially If its from Codemasters (Maker of Brian Lara 99). EA Cricket is just OK. If that happens, I will surely import it, cause I've heard Wii will be region free.

Man it'll be fun playing cricket on Wii; better than Baseball!

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I think this title from nintendo IS just a taste of things to come in the future life of the Wii. You could(maybe) almost call this software a beta for whats to come. Iron out the rough edges now and in the future achieve much better levels of immersion. Hasn't it already come to light that the sensor bar and controller are still not finalised yet?

So, as a poster has already stated, make individual sports products at a later date, but for now a whole bunch of experiments on one disc for a keen price.

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* Dan Kavanagh: "i thought pilotwings was fun, but oh my god... i would kill for that, that looks so fun"

We've all played this game a million times. More originality, please.

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A million time, I guess I missed the boat on that one, but I haven't even played this game once. The idea of a flight sim is ancient, that I will admit. I think the fact that you can twist and turn your controller to initiate a turn and dive or climb is what makes this original. Innovation is the art of taking existing things and makeing them better, invention is the creation of totally new things. This game represents an innovation, and even if you think it looks stale, I have a hard time beliveing you have ever played anything like it.

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^Chris deserves a star!

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* Chris: "Innovation is the art of taking existing things and makeing them better, invention is the creation of totally new things."

Technically, both innovation and invention are the acts of creating something new. Neither term implies improving an existing design.

* Chris: "This game represents an innovation, and even if you think it looks stale, I have a hard time beliveing you have ever played anything like it."

Actually, I have. I've dealt with all kinds of control experiments like this before. Ever try to drive a racing game in 1st person mode, and then switch to 3rd person? Same thing.

Most game developers make the viewpoint of the vehicle in 3rd person mode parallel with the direction of travel, rather than the centerline of the car (specificly, for presentation -- only to make the car look better on screen). I'm not sure you've ever noticed that a car is usually much harder to drive in 3rd person mode. Take a guess why. You may want to visit your local arcade and watch people try to drive racing games in 3rd person mode, and watch them crash over and over. If it wasn't for the fact that crashes in these games are not very punishing, the games would be unplayable. Hell, some people seem to enjoy playing the games even though they CAN'T control the cars at all. No wonder all the arcades I've been to in the last few years have been empty (except for the masses swarming around the Time Crisis Clone games).

Back in the late 80's, I've also used a relative-position joystick in place of a computer mouse to move a pointer across the screen. Guess why you don't see any of those devices on the market, anymore. I've also used those terrible Atari joysticks that didn't auto-center, so there was no fixed point of reference. That controller didn't survive, either. Tandy made one of those "sloppy" joysticks, too. Theirs suffered the same fate.

As an interface designer, I do have first-hand experience with these kinds of controls, and they are generally not very successful. Developers shouldn't program their games to mimick a control state over time (making the plane match the angle of the controller), but instead should use stateless sampling (making the angle of the controller govern the rate of direction change).

It looks cool to play, but in practice, it's very difficult to control. People tolerate it because it's "innovative."

Ever see a racing game where centrifugal force makes the driver's head (the camera) bob around? This is a very common technique believed to communicate the g-forces of the vehicle to the player, thus making it easier to drive the car. In reality, it makes the car *more* difficult to drive, because it represents the exact opposite of what the brain wants to do -- look towards the expected direction of travel. In the end, it's an unnatural representation that makes the game "look better". It would be more effective to do the exact opposite: point the camera slightly into the expected direction of travel. Developers keep making this mistake over and over because they don't understand how the brain interprets motion. Imagine a car chase or roller coaster scene where your point of view points away from the direction of travel. Not very interesting, is it?

In real life, we turn our heads. That's what the brain expects to see. Movie directors have understood this for decades. Game developers still don't get it.

Apparently, Nintendo, the media, and people excited about this game don't, either.

In the end, Nintendo is looking for a way to substitute an analog stick without *looking* like they're trying to substitute an analog stick. It's playable with a lot of practive, but not very intuitive and certainly not natural.

Innovation is simply change, not improvement. Intuition is much more important than innovation. The problem is, people are often so star-stuck by "new" stuff, they will tolerate interface difficulty. The novelty wears off, eventually, but by then, manufactueres are looking for the next big mis-interpretation of how we see reality.

But, hey, it looks cool. That's good enough for most people. I'm just worried this trend will continue to get worse, just because the media is going apes**t over it. Clueless publicity sells fads and destroys good design to no end.

By "originality", I mean games that really take advantage of the controller and do something that's nearly impossible to achieve on a traditional gamepad. Most of Nintendo's offerings so far are shallow button-mashers that either try to mimick a gamepad as much as possible, or intentionally use broken interface design just so they can say it's a different way of using an established control. 10 years from now, this game will look awfully silly, while any flight game that uses an analog stick (like a real plane) will still make sense.

And if they can't get a control mechanism to work, they can always do what they're doing with Wii Tennis: turn up the handicap to the point where the console essentially play the game automatically. Doesn't that defeat the whole point of playing a game?

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Ok, now imagine the same control style but for a remake/sequel to NiGHTS into dreams

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Waccoon, I would appear that I misjudged your experience with this kind of thing, and I feel that your second post offers much more significant explanation of your viewpoint. I hope you can see where I am coming from in responding to your first post, which was as brief as it was hostile. I understand your point about racing games and PoV issues, but in my experience most good (fun) games have an option where you can drive in first person, and this is the viewpoint I prefer. I think that your idea about using the relative angle of the controller to control the rate of change is interesting, and could be a lot of fun, but I don't see how that isn't "sloppy". If the controller is a direct representation of the plane, then your own intuition of what is level could tell you when the plane was straight, thus a self centering. If the controller only interprets the rate of change, finding the center could prove difficult. This discussion is purely conjecture for me, because I have never used a device like this, but I have always felt like the controls in flight sims, particularly on the PC, were very awkward.

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Waccoon, you seem to know your stuff.

However, I fail to see how the Wii games shown are "button mashers", as most use only one or two buttons often, with the rest of the buttons being used for inventory, accesories, etc.

And not all gamers like 1st person games. I can't control a first person racer for the life of me, though I excel when I switch to 3rd person view. Same goes for shooters... 3rd person is much easier for me to control because I have a better vantage point.

As an aside, movies use reverse angles in car chases all the time. How many times have you seen a chase where the car is coming towards the camera? All the time. That's opposite the direction of motion, but works great.

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* Chris: "I think that your idea about using the relative angle of the controller to control the rate of change is interesting, and could be a lot of fun, but I don't see how that isn't 'sloppy'."

It would always be sloppy, because there is no fixed point of reference with the Wii controller. Calibration would also be an issue (the controller can't always detect gravity accurately if you are moving it around, so trim becomes a problem). This control scheme is what analog sticks are for. My whole point is that Nintendo is trying to force a broken control scheme to work. I'm seeing a lot of this with the early collection of Wii games. Developers are forced to use the motion sensor controller even if that scheme isn't appropriate for the game.

Red Steel is a very obvious good example, too. That game barely utilizes analog movement.

* Chris: "If the controller is a direct representation of the plane, then your own intuition of what is level could tell you when the plane was straight, thus a self centering."

That works in 1st person mode, but not 3rd person. Like I said, 3rd person mode is meant to make the game look good, not to make it more playable. Even with an analog stick, it's hard to determine when the plane is trimmed and level. The whole game design is wrong, and Nintendo is trying to use the controller to compensate. It's more confusing to have the plane in the frame at all. People play the game most effectively if they can mentally block out the plane altogether.

The other problem with using the controller to represent the level of the plane is that the game has to "match" the controller's angle over a certain amount of time. This is what really makes the controls feel sloppy and sluggish. Stateless controls work much better for this kind of task. But, that's been "done before", and is thus not on the table as far as Nintendo is concerned.

Different, but not better.

* Chris: "This discussion is purely conjecture for me, because I have never used a device like this, but I have always felt like the controls in flight sims, particularly on the PC, were very awkward."

That doesn't surprise me, since true flight sims on PCs are among the most complex games available in terms of controlls. I haven't seen a flight sim I liked since Red Baron II.

Some people cannot play a flight sim unless the controls are reversed (pusing the joystick makes the plane go up). Making something feel natural can be difficult depending on the player's interpretation of motion. Most people, however, tend to interpret motion the same way, and in predictable ways. Good thing, too, or I'd be out of a job. :)

*vidGuy: "However, I fail to see how the Wii games shown are 'button mashers'"

I meant they were putting too strong an emphasis on using the controller (particularly with rapid motions) and not enough on the play mechanics (what you have to accomplish).

* vidGuy: "And not all gamers like 1st person games. I can't control a first person racer for the life of me, though I excel when I switch to 3rd person view. Same goes for shooters... 3rd person is much easier for me to control because I have a better vantage point."

People tell me this occasionally, but I don't believe it. I've watched people actually play the games. I remember seeing people play Daytona USA when it first came out, and most people played the game better in 1st person view, or 3rd person with a REALLY high camera angle. My guess is that in 3rd person view, the car is small enough so people don't even see it, so it effectively emulates a scaled-up 1st person view. I have a tendency to look at the car when playing in 3rd person mode, so I *REALLY* suck with that kind of camera.

Then again, Daytona USA was a game where scraping the walls didn't really hurt you very much. People seemed to have fun playing that game even when they sucked at it. I guess that's why Sega continues to use that "feel" with all their racing games, while real racing games, like Hard Drivin', are all but dead.

Of course, I also have real racing experience in my WRX, and I excell when playing games like Nascar Racing 2003. Arcade physics confuse the hell out of me, because the cars don't behave in ways that I expect. ;)

* vidGuy: "As an aside, movies use reverse angles in car chases all the time. How many times have you seen a chase where the car is coming towards the camera? All the time. That's opposite the direction of motion, but works great."

That's because you're focusing on the car (the important element of the frame), and not the direction the camera car is traveling. Something moving towards you is going to get your attention. Guess why this is more effective with a reverse angle.

There are exeptions to the rule, but they are very few.

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