Nintendo Wii Fanboy

When Friedrich Nietzsche wrote his famous philosophical work Beyond Good and Evil in the late 19th century, odds are he didn't think that it would be a source of inspiration for video games over a century later. Namco proved him wrong with their trilogy of Xenosaga RPGs, each of which had a subtitle referencing a Nietzsche work (such as "Jenseits von Gut und Böse"). But it's another wannabe trilogy that owes its moniker to Nietzsche that's up for recognition.

Beyond Good & Evil was published at the height of the Christmas rush in December 2003, and despite its war-on-all-fronts release on the GameCube, PS2, Xbox, and PC, it simply failed to sell. The game received widespread critical acclaim, but competition from other games caused it to be given a jarring price drop mere weeks after its release. Even so, those in the know played Beyond Good & Evil and saw it for what it was -- a fantastic adventure with a unique world and an appealing cast of heroes. And though it took four years, Ubisoft finally gave a sequel the green light -- so it's time to show the original game some much-deserved love.

For more than 20 years, gamers have been taking whip in hand to navigate Dracula's dark castle and defeat the villain and his minions again and again. Castlevania has evolved considerably over the past two decades, with recent games in the series largely adopting the incredibly popular Metroidvania style of gameplay that first showed up in 1997's Symphony of the Night. The older games typically offer a more classic platforming experience, although RPG elements such as a leveling system worked their way into the series even as early as Castlevania II: Simon's Quest in 1987.

Castlevania has also braved the world of (gasp!) three dimensions with mixed results over the years, but in general Konami has managed to retain the feel of the classic 2D Castlevania adventures on an expanded scale. Rumors of a Wii game titled Castlevania Judgment have been floating around the intertubes for quite awhile, but when the news finally broke -- a Wii Castlevania really was coming! -- it wasn't quite in the form people expected. The terms "3D fighting game" and "Castlevania" don't really go hand-in-hand. Even if the fighter is a success, Wii gamers deserve a true Castlevania experience, and that's why the series is this week's entry into the library of games that are Born for Wii.

Katamari Damacy rolled onto the gaming scene in 2004, bristling with the unanticipated fury of a budget title with mass-market appeal. Damacy's success and popularity in the United States, where it has quickly achieved a devoted cult following, is remarkable for a game that's so distinctly ... Japanese. However, anyone who's played the game can instantly grasp the appeal -- a delicious layer of charm coats the inner goodness of straightforward, addictive gameplay, and that's why Katamari Damacy is this week's game that is Born for Wii.

When the irresistibly alluring, slightly fruity King of All Cosmos accidentally destroys the heavens, his solution is a novel one -- roll up piles of junk and send them skyward to replace the fallen stars. Fortunately for us, he's far too lazy to do the grunt work himself. And that's where we come in as the tiny Prince, charged with the daunting task of restoring the stars to the sky with the aid of a magical ball (a katamari, of course) that sticks to damn near everything.

Stylistically, it's been compared to Half-Life and Perfect Dark. What games have inspired design choices in The Conduit?

Rob: One of our goals from the very start was to make a fast-paced accessible FPS. To that end we looked at and stole shamelessly from mega-hits like Halo and Half-Life, recent titles like Resistance: Fall of Man and Metroid Prime Corruption, as well as classics like Goldeneye for the N64. We wanted to pick the best features from these titles, the things that made them fun and memorable and have features like those in The Conduit.

Matt: We've done art direction for so many different titles, and we've learned a lot about establishing a strong and cohesive visual style. The Conduit's art direction has come mainly from taking real world styles and locations and combining them with our own alien technology concepts and aesthetic design preferences. I suppose that it looks similar to those other games, but in the end it's The Conduit's own unique premise that has largely driven the artistic vision. When combined with the features that are specific to our engine tech, The Conduit will look stunning by the time it reaches the player's hands.

Will there be a calibration option, so we can "aim down the sights?"

Rob: One of the things we learned in our development process was that customization of controls is essential to an enjoyable gameplay experience. To that end, we allow players to customize sensitivity, dead zone sizes, as well as control layouts. But, if you mean, can you actually use the iron-sights of your guns, that answer is "not exactly". The reason being that several of our weapons are alien in nature and don't even have iron-sights... but you will have sort of an alien vision mode with some of the weapons.

Matt: There'll be on-the-fly, in-game look sensitivity adjustments, as well as a fully map-able control scheme, down to the button, in the game's front end UI. Players will be able to map the game's controls completely to their own liking. There'll even be a couple of alternate control methods for those that don't care as much for the Wii pointer style of directional turning. There'll be lots of options for maximum playability.



There hasn't been much word on who the publisher for The Conduit is. Rumor has it, Nintendo is actually going to publish the game. Can you comment on that? Can you announce one at this time?

Matt: I can neither confirm nor deny this, senator. ;) All I will say is that thanks to the explosion of interest in this title, we've had a lot of publishers knocking on our door.

Control-wise, will there be options for other methods outside of the Wiimote and nunchuk? Will it support the GameCube controller? Classic controller?

Dan: There are movement and weapon functions in The Conduit that require the Wii Remote's pointer, accelerometer, depth, and cursor rotation functionality in order to perform. The Conduit isn't your standard ported-over-to-the-Wii style of game. Using the Classic or GC controller kind of defeats the purpose of what we are looking to do.

Matt: With The Conduit we want to redefine first person shooter controls. Hard core FPS gamers that have played the game have told me that they are now convinced that Wii is the best system for the genre. When you play it you'll realize very quickly that the Wii Remote is an incredible control device for this type of game. It just feels amazing to play.

Rob: I think if you are buying a Wii, you're buying it to make use of its motion sensitive controls, which are tailor made for an FPS game.

Aside from the controls, what are the game's strengths that separate it from other existing PC/console FPSes?

Rob: I would say that would be the ASE or "All Seeing Eye" device. In game, this piece of hardware allows a player to adjust the "phase state" of things. This makes invisible enemies and hazards not only visible, but able to take damage. It also makes invisible cover and platforms become solid, leading to more gameplay. We also reveal secret puzzle locks that must be solved to get to special weapons.

Dan: We've put a solid amount of effort into enemy AI for The Conduit. A pet peeve of mine is single player FPS games where the enemies just stand there getting blasted, and don't seem to be reacting to the world around them. In The Conduit, our bad guys can hear and see, understand the use of cover, have variable levels of aggression, use grenades effectively, advance and retreat, and can determine when the player is susceptible to attack (i.e. reloading, exposed and moving in their firing cone). I think focusing a higher than normal amount of the dev time on AI makes our single player experience better than most other FPS titles out there. Of course, the overall look we're able to achieve with our advanced engine tech is also something the makes The Conduit a superior FPS game IMO.

Matt: I think that going back to the Wii Remote, The Conduit has a unique control system that feels more like a VR experience than the typical spring loaded joystick controlled videogame. I also agree that the ASE device offers a unique style of gameplay that hasn't really been seen before in other games. Having the ability to discover and phase useful objects into the environment to assist with combat is a lot of fun. Beyond that, it's just rock solid action all throughout the game. There'll be fierce enemies, bad ass weapons, and white knuckle battles. It's going to be a hell of a lot of fun.

Does the game run at 60fps? 30fps?

Matt: If we can hit closer to 60, then that will be great! But for right now we are shooting for a steady 30fps, with zero drops in framerate. The whole team swears by the fact that a solid 30fps still feels great. Even our studio's most hard core PC FPS gamers think that The Conduit feels just right at 30fps. The quality will be there, and the game will look and run amazing by the time that it ships.

Dan: The game will run absolutely solid at 30fps. For HVS, choice is either to have less visual splendor and run at 60fps or achieve the look we want for the game and run at 30fps. 30fps is a frame rate that is plenty responsive for FPS gaming and we are valuing the increased visual detail we can offer over the slightly smoother gameplay we might otherwise get by scaling this back.

High Voltage has made an adventure game/minigame collection for the Xbox (Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude, also on PS2 and PC), and now they're making an FPS for the Wii. Is this ironic or strategy?

Rob: I like to think it's beautiful strategy. At the time Magna Cum Laude came out, the Adventure game market was woefully barren. So we found a title and a publisher willing to take the risk to revitalize that genre. Now we're trying to do the same thing with FPS's on the Wii. We feel that The Conduit will be like rain in the desert, which seems to be the case judging by the online response.

Matt: Diversity is key. We don't like to sell ourselves short by sticking with one genre or style of game. High Voltage knows that it's okay to try new things. We've learned a lot after 15 years working with so many different publishers, developers, and licensors. I could go on about how licensed game restrictions, publisher mandates, and drop dead unmovable release dates ultimately affect the quality of your game, but this project is very different. The Conduit is something completely new for our studio. This game will rock!

The company seems very (vocally) confident about the ability of The Conduit to revolutionize Wii gaming. Was it always in the plan to build up so much hype, or was the hype a natural product of enthusiasm? Has the hype been more than expected?

Rob: The hype has certainly been more than I expected and I am grateful for it. However, it is a two-edged sword. While the hype has helped give us the pick of litter for a publisher, it does mean we have a LOT to live up to. But I think we are up for the challenge. =)

Dan: There aren't many large scale multiplayer games for the Wii at this point, nor any that push the Wii graphics HW to the extent we are. So, from these standpoints – The Conduit will be revolutionary for the Wii gaming market. It is HVS's belief that although there are great FPS games on the 360 and PS3 – what they all lack is the kind of unique motion sensing based control schemes that makes The Conduit for the Wii more fun to play. Giving gamers a great looking, great playing, great controlling FPS title is something we feel is worth hyping!

Matt: The plan all along was to maximize the potential of the system, and then build a game that showcases the engine tech and the fun of the Wii Remote. Every developer talks big about their own game, but no one at High Voltage could say for sure how well our audience would react to the screenshots and gameplay video release. We've always just been focused on making a great game, and the result is that The Conduit seems to be building its own hype. And we're very appreciative of all the kind words and support we've received from the Wii community.

Is The Conduit sharing tech with Animales de la Muerte? Where did the concept for that one come from? Is it still on track? Really, anything we could learn about Animales de la Muerte would be wonderful.

Dan: Animales is using the same engine tech as The Conduit, but in a much different way since it's a 'toon shaded game.

Matt: I don't want to say too much more about the title until it's closer to completion, but I will say that it's going to be bloody fun. By the way, much respect to our friends in Mexico. However, screw PETA...no animal in this game is safe!

Anything about multiplayer? Many of the folks interested in the game are looking to have some kind of online multiplayer, preferably something on-par with Medal of Honor: Heroes 2. Are you trying to implement Wi-Fi compatibility? Local multiplayer?

Dan: We are working closely with Nintendo to be able to provide the kind of multiplayer gameplay that we know the market wants.

Matt: Nintendo has been really helping us out with technical support but we still have more questions that will need be answered before we can release any specifics about our multiplayer modes. Obviously we want to be competitive with the other online console games, but we'd rather wait until we've got something great to show off before we make any announcements about this very important feature.

Thank you for taking the time to answer our questions!

For those of you who noticed the PS2 buttons make their way into the video, know that this does come from the PS2 build of the game. You see, Vicarious Visions, the developers behind Marvel: Ultimate Alliance for the PS2, wanted to include both Samus and Link into the game and apparently did without Nintendo's consent. There's a lot of confusion surrounding it and, supposedly, when Nintendo was shown the characters were included in the PS2 version of the game, told Activision to cut them out. The rest is just a bunch of confusing history.

The folks in Nintendo's PR department, gawd bless 'em, have milked yet another statistic from the Wii's early success: according to the firm, approximately 50 million games were sold during the console's first 18 months on the market -- and that's not including Wii Sports or Virtual Console releases.

This, declared Nintendo of America's Cammie Dunaway, compared favorably to the PlayStation 2, which Nintendo claims sold only 42 million units in its opening 18 months, the Xbox 360 (around 30 million), the first Xbox (28 million), and the PlayStation 3 (20 million). No mention of the Dreamcast, we notice. Got something to hide, Nintendo? Okay, well probably not.

"While we appreciate the impact the Playstation 2 had on sales and the industry, perhaps we are even more impactful," remarked Dunaway.

Japan just loves that Wii, as news breaks today of the console enjoying a very successful life in the country. Over 6 million units have been sold, which breaks down to 4.68% of the Japanese population owning a Wii. With over 128 million people living in the country, it's easy to see how incredibly impressive such a figure is.

The inevitable comparisons between the Wii and the PS2 are also something to consider. The PS2 has sold 20 million units in the region, but has been on the market since 2000. The Wii is gaining ground on it and has only been on shelves for about a tenth of the PS2's lifespan. Can the Wii keep up this level of success? Only time will tell.

With some great PS2 games getting upgraded for the Wii (Resident Evil 4 and Okami), as well as some Dreamcast games getting another spin on the system (House of the Dead 2 & 3 Return, Samba de Amigo), we were wondering if there were any games that you'd like to see get their own Wii edition? There's a lot of games to choose from out there, so you have to have at least one on your mind!

Is there a game that could benefit from the Wii treatment? Is it just something that would make good use of the Wii's motion-based controls, or a game that could really use the new audience?

Already having Okami for the PS2 is the most valid excuse for not buying the game on the Wii. If you fall into this group, you're probably still tempted to make the purchase because of the added motion controls. Should that not be enough to get your wallets in action, though, you might want to check out this side-by-side comparison video. We already knew that the Wii version looked better, but seeing the two compared with each other shows just how much.

The colors are much more vibrant on the Wii, and for a game that's main draw is its beautiful artistic style, that's kind of big deal. The 16:9 support doesn't hurt matters, either. Have any of you played both Okamis and noticed the difference for yourselves?

The PlayStation 2 is one of the most wildly successful video game consoles to have ever graced the face of the earth. It's the highest selling system worldwide, and if you're a gamer, there's a good chance that you own one yourself. Amazingly, though, the Wii has been even more successful in Japan during its first full calendar year than the PS2 was in its first or third (see the above graph, which was made by NeoGAFfer JoshuaJSloane and is based on figures from Famitsu). Also, since the chart only tracks the first 51 weeks of Japan's Wii sales in 2007, it's entirely possible that the numbers will exceed those for the PS2 in 2002 as well.

The success of the PS2 led to an extensive games library for the system, full of almost every genre imaginable. But, the question remains: Will this happen with the Wii? Clearly, it's too early to tell, but as you can see from the graph, the Wii is off to a good start. In any case, cheers to a good 2007 for the Wii, and let's hope to see more to come.

[Via NeoGAF]

NeoGAFfer JoshuaJSlone has devoted a serious amount of time to compiling weekly hardware sales figures in Japan, as they appear in Famitsu. That sounds like a task of almost Sisyphean proportions, but it's not all thankless. This week, for instance, his legwork and terrifying table of numbers (mercifully translated into the graph above) threw up an interesting little factoid: lifetime sales of the Wii in Japan have now surpassed those of the GameCube. Which is darn impressive, considering the Wii has been in Japanese stores for just 54 weeks.

Our new favorite NeoGAFfer also took the time to compare those first 54 weeks of the Wii's life with other consoles. Turns out the GBA needed only 40 weeks to reach where the Wii is now, and the DS an almost identical 53.7 weeks. What could have been in a world without Wii shortages, eh? Interestingly, the Wii is even outperforming the PlayStation 2, which required approximately 66 weeks to reach the Wii's current total.

For more graph-related tomfoolery, and to see how the PS3 is faring against the Wii (clue: it's not faring well, but let's not be complacent), head past the break.

Christian Svensson, Capcom's VP of Strategic Planning and Business Development, posted on the Capcom blog about the process by which a PS2 non-starter ended up being earmarked for a high-profile Wii port. Really, it makes total sense to people like us, but on the face of it, porting a poor-selling game like Okami is kind of strange business.

But as Svensson tells it, the Okami Wii port is born almost entirely out of fan demand. After seeing the outcry for a Wii version (before, during, and after the original game's release), Svensson started discussing the idea with Capcom in Japan. They realized that a release of the game on a system that was not at the end of its lifecycle may do better, and decided it may be a good move to give Clover's adventure another shot.

We love getting to look behind the curtain a bit at the inner workings of game companies. The post actually goes into a bit of detail about dealing with Ready at Dawn and the state of Okami's code.

In what has to be the least surprising leak ever, it seems an early version of the PS2's unedited Manhunt 2 surfaced on the internet late last week. Early suspicions pointed to a source inside Rockstar for the leak, but parent company Take-Two has moved quickly to squash video and other media from the title, and now "unnamed hackers" (who have possibly been named as 'Team Slonik') are being blamed for the game's release into the wild.

While we certainly do not condone piracy in any form, we can't help but harbor a hope that someone keeps a copy of this alleged leak around for comparison in the fall, when the official, cut version of Manhunt 2 hits retail outlets. Of course, what's out there may not be the actual unedited cut -- and if it's exactly the same as what gets released, we're sure that will be the precise reason given -- but since the ESRB will not speak to the changes, perhaps this build will.

[Via Digg]

Could the Wii end up outselling the PS2? Satoru Iwata seems to think so -- at least, that's what he told Reuters in a recent interview. He even waved away the impending PS3 price drop and redesigned PSP as likely having little-to-no effect on sales of the Wii and DS.

The PS2, however, is a legendary juggernaut in the world of consoles, with more than 120 million units shipped to date. The Wii is estimated to hit around 20 million by next March, and if Nintendo wants to catch the PS2, they better fix that whole shortage problem. But it's still early in the cycle of the system, and at the current rate, anything is possible.

We here at Wii Fanboy are pretty intrigued about Endless Ocean, because it looks like such a unique gaming experience-- underwater treasure-hunting mixed with adventure game elements. But, strictly speaking, it is not unique at all. It is, in fact, another entry in the Everblue series of diving adventures for the Playstation 2.

Well-rounded and experienced gamers though we are, there is a big old hole in our gaming history in the shape of the Everblue games. This is especially embarrassing for us, as we are possibly alone in our fandom of Arika games like Technic Beat and even the Street Fighter EX series.

We figure somebody out there has played one of the Everblue games. We'd love to know what you thought of the experience. Should we stop caring about Endless Ocean? Should we be getting Endless Ocean tattoos? Also, do you think this game is the sort of thing that waggle can genuinely improve?