Nintendo Wii lightsaber set for force flop?

[vashivihan]

Back in September, a generation of Star Wars fans got the news they'd been dreaming of for 30 years: full on lightsaber-simulation in a video game. Lucas Arts' The Force Unleashed promised the kind of blade-wielding realism that had not been possible until now. But it seems that this is perhaps not quite how things are set to turn out.

Our buddies over at CVG report that instead of using your Wii remote to scythe down Stormtroopers with a saber blade, you'll only have limited control over 'force powers'.
Dreams dashed?

So presumably, to 'force push' for example, you'll push the Wii remote towards the screen. But then how are things like 'force jump, 'force persuasion' and 'force speed' going to be controlled? Seems a bit of a crock, to us.
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While the technology inside Nintendo's Wii console and remote is nothing short of revolutionary, there have been few games that have pushed it towards fulfilling its potential. The idea of using the Wii remote as a lightsaber hilt has been dreamed about ever since Nintendo unveiled the console.

So it would be a real shame if once again those people who forked out £180 for a Nintendo Wii are left with software titles that fail to truly impress.

But then there's always the chance that these reports might be false. We'll just have to wait until we get more information about the game. If you're a hardcore Star Wars fan, send your force persuasion in Lucas Arts' direction, and may the force indeed be with you.

this article has got me worried.
heres the link http://www.tech.co.uk/home-entertainment/gaming/games-consoles/news/nintendo-wii-lightsaber-set-for-force-flop?articleid=1790268933

 

[WiitnessID]

Can they do it yes... will they hire billy lee no... so will it rock maybe not... billy lee is not on their dev team.

Hey but really FPS sword play could be sweet and one to one would suck unless your are a true fencer and it is not an easy thing to do. Other wise you would be doing it all ready.

Really are you even ready for real jedi sword fights? I mean really you wouldn't even last a second!

 

[Budo]

I'm pretty much used to being disappointed with the way the Wii controls are implemented in 95% of the games that have been released.

So I'm not surprised it isn't one to one, or even that - apparently - you only use the motion controls for force powers.

 

[laderer5]

They just should take Jadi Outcast II and make a sequel for it on the wii.

 

[hal2814]

I think a big reason that the Wii's controller is being used so poorly is that the current crop of game developers don't have a firm grasp of the skills necessary to make a free-flowing Wii-controlled environment happen, especially if that environment is in 3D. When you think about it, what do developers need to know about 3D environments these days to make 3D games? Not much. They have game engines and 3D modelers to take care of most of that. When you throw in this revolutionary controller that requires having a good grasp of building 3D environments to really take advantage of it, how are they supposed to handle it? These game developers outsourced their 3D grunt work years ago to the likes of id software. Anyone who knew that sort of arcane math is long gone.

I'm sure the Wii has some sort of API to translate the raw input of their controllers, but there is no real input engine available yet to interact gracefully with 3D environments and as long as outside developers (and even Nintendo) can get a way with gimmicking their way around the issue, there won't be a decent input engine any time soon.

 

[WiitnessID]

I think a big reason that the Wii's controller is being used so poorly is that the current crop of game developers don't have a firm grasp of the skills necessary to make a free-flowing Wii-controlled environment happen, especially if that environment is in 3D. When you think about it, what do developers need to know about 3D environments these days to make 3D games? Not much. They have game engines and 3D modelers to take care of most of that. When you throw in this revolutionary controller that requires having a good grasp of building 3D environments to really take advantage of it, how are they supposed to handle it? These game developers outsourced their 3D grunt work years ago to the likes of id software. Anyone who knew that sort of arcane math is long gone.

I'm sure the Wii has some sort of API to translate the raw input of their controllers, but there is no real input engine available yet to interact gracefully with 3D environments and as long as outside developers (and even Nintendo) can get a way with gimmicking their way around the issue, there won't be a decent input engine any time soon.

Actualy there are some good ones coming!

 

[Wiimoto]

Oh my god, im tired of people complaining about the Wii.

First of all, the Wii does NOT have bad games in ANY way, there are so many good games for the Wii, just because they don't take advantage of the wii remote doesn't make them a bad game.

Wanna see a game that took FULL advantage of motion controls? Warioware. Best motion game ever. Kickass. Nobody seems to care, just making up reasons to hate the Wii.

Second of all, the Wii's graphics are so much better then any last gen console, just the 3rd party titles make it look bad. If you've ever played Mario Galaxy, Metroid Prime 3, Zelda, basically any 1st party game by Nintendo, even Sonic has amazing graphics and kicks the gamecubes ass. Don't say the Wii is just a pimped out gamecube, its a hella different system. You can do things on the Wii people never dreamed about a couple years ago. You can own all your favs from your preview consoles on Wii, aim to fire guns, slash with swords, do so much more...

I'm not a fanboy, the 360 and ps3 are great! I'm a little dissapointed with the ps3, the 360 is a great gaming experience. In fact, I'd buy a 360 if I had the money cus of its great game selection and software. But dissing on the Wii is just fanboism when so many times Nintendo and other games have proved you wrong.

 

[AtomicB]

Oh my god, im tired of people complaining about the Wii.

First of all, the Wii does NOT have bad games in ANY way, there are so many good games for the Wii, just because they don't take advantage of the wii remote doesn't make them a bad game.

Wanna see a game that took FULL advantage of motion controls? Warioware. Best motion game ever. Kickass. Nobody seems to care, just making up reasons to hate the Wii.

Second of all, the Wii's graphics are so much better then any last gen console, just the 3rd party titles make it look bad. If you've ever played Mario Galaxy, Metroid Prime 3, Zelda, basically any 1st party game by Nintendo, even Sonic has amazing graphics and kicks the gamecubes ass. Don't say the Wii is just a pimped out gamecube, its a hella different system. You can do things on the Wii people never dreamed about a couple years ago. You can own all your favs from your preview consoles on Wii, aim to fire guns, slash with swords, do so much more...

I'm not a fanboy, the 360 and ps3 are great! I'm a little dissapointed with the ps3, the 360 is a great gaming experience. In fact, I'd buy a 360 if I had the money cus of its great game selection and software. But dissing on the Wii is just fanboism when so many times Nintendo and other games have proved you wrong.

Stop contradicting yourself.

I love the Wii more than half the people out there, but seriously. It has so much shovel-ware right now, it's ridiculous!

 

[raisinghelen]

Can they do it yes... will they hire billy lee no... so will it rock maybe not... billy lee is not on their dev team.

Hey but really FPS sword play could be sweet and one to one would suck unless your are a true fencer and it is not an easy thing to do. Other wise you would be doing it all ready.

Really are you even ready for real jedi sword fights? I mean really you wouldn't even last a second!

I agree, a true 1:1 sword game would be very difficult. Chances are most people would hack their own limbs off after about 30 seconds of play. It would need almost a motion bounding box kind of thing to prevent this happening.

A good set of preset motions would do fine, as long as they were acurate. If it used 9 directions (up, down, left, right, diagonals and forward) and could smoothly flow from one to another it would be great.

I wont take that article too seriously until theres some official confirmation, as it currently is a report of another sources report of another sources rumor.

Having said that, i could see the core gameplay being as they said but maybe with the Wii exclusive duel part offering some Wiimote controlled lightsaber action. If that was the case i would still buy it even if the lightsaber motion was just a minigame.

 

[Apocalypse]

I'd really hate if it was a flop, because this is a game I'd definitely get just so I can go duel my friends.