Inkmonkey
You keep arguing, but just make the concept sound more awesome. I have never seen that happen before in my life, and I'm impressed that you've managed to do it.

...

How is saying "Human beings would not be physically capable of playing this game" making it sound more awesome? You COULD NOT do those things without intense physical conditioning, unless they want to water down the action enough and take out 80% the awesome things that Kratos does. The only way they could add motion controls to GoW in any significant way and it still be playable would be to add in waggle, and that would just make your wrist hurt.

The appeal of God of War is that it makes it easy to do incredibly awesome things. I can hit square-square-triangle to throw a sword-on-a-chain at someone, swing my other sword-on-a-chain at the next guy, then slam both swords-on-chains at the ground to make a giant column of flame shoot into the air. I can press circle next to a giant griffin to grab it, rip off its wings, and throw it at the ground a thousand miles below me all while riding a pegasus.

Replicating all the things that Kratos does with motion controls would either lead to a game that's waggle-filled, unplayable, or needlessly complicated. And God of War is good because it's the EXACT OPPOSITE of unplayable and needlessly complicated.

Kohdok
A "Red herring" is a distraction from the actual arguement. What you were saying had pretty much nothing to do with what I was saying but was inflammatory none-the-less.

Yeah, the thing is that what you were responding to was me saying that certain games wouldn't work with certain types of controls. I'm guessing that you misunderstood what I was saying if you actually agree with that statement.

Lord Shplane

Inkmonkey
You keep arguing, but just make the concept sound more awesome. I have never seen that happen before in my life, and I'm impressed that you've managed to do it.

...

How is saying "Human beings would not be physically capable of playing this game" making it sound more awesome?

Well, I was essentially ignoring all your anti-Wii "buzzwords". If you strip away those, then basically you get the idea of a game where you spin the controllers around to do spinning attacks, yank upward to tear off enemies' wings, etc. With some skilled programming that could be really cool, and your idea is basically exactly the kind of games I've been hoping for from the Wii. You're just so dead-set on killing the whole motion control thing that you've somehow managed to accidentally describe an awesome game idea in your desperate attempt to devalue the concept to the rest of us.

Inkmonkey
Well, I was essentially ignoring all your anti-Wii "buzzwords". If you strip away those, then basically you get the idea of a game where you spin the controllers around to do spinning attacks, yank upward to tear off enemies' wings, etc. With some skilled programming that could be really cool, and your idea is basically exactly the kind of games I've been hoping for from the Wii. You're just so dead-set on killing the whole motion control thing that you've somehow managed to accidentally describe an awesome game idea in your desperate attempt to devalue the concept to the rest of us.

So you're saying that you want people to make games for the Wii that not only would they never POSSIBLY be able to actually make, but that you (Or anyone who isn't an Olympic athlete, for that matter) would be incapable of playing?

Lord Shplane

Inkmonkey
Well, I was essentially ignoring all your anti-Wii "buzzwords". If you strip away those, then basically you get the idea of a game where you spin the controllers around to do spinning attacks, yank upward to tear off enemies' wings, etc. With some skilled programming that could be really cool, and your idea is basically exactly the kind of games I've been hoping for from the Wii. You're just so dead-set on killing the whole motion control thing that you've somehow managed to accidentally describe an awesome game idea in your desperate attempt to devalue the concept to the rest of us.

So you're saying that you want people to make games for the Wii that not only would they never POSSIBLY be able to actually make, but that you (Or anyone who isn't an Olympic athlete, for that matter) would be incapable of playing?

I am? I thought I was saying that I'd like to see a God of War-style game that takes advantage of the motion sensing technology in a fun way. It's a good thing you're here to interpret my mad ramblings.

Inkmonkey
I am? I thought I was saying that I'd like to see a God of War-style game that takes advantage of the motion sensing technology in a fun way. It's a good thing you're here to interpret my mad ramblings.

In order for the game we both SEEM to be talking about to have any of what made God of War fun, in order for it to have the incredibly fast-paced and visceral action that God of War does and STILL emulate Kratos's actions in a reasonable way, it would require the person playing it to have INCREDIBLE physical conditioning and insane reflexes.

Now if they were to cut the action away to a huge enough degree that a human being could ACTUALLY keep up, then yes, it would be possible. But then the game wouldn't be fun because it wouldn't be have the insane action that GoW does.

Lord Shplane

Inkmonkey
I am? I thought I was saying that I'd like to see a God of War-style game that takes advantage of the motion sensing technology in a fun way. It's a good thing you're here to interpret my mad ramblings.

In order for the game we both SEEM to be talking about to have any of what made God of War fun, in order for it to have the incredibly fast-paced and visceral action that God of War does and STILL emulate Kratos's actions in a reasonable way, it would require the person playing it to have INCREDIBLE physical conditioning and insane reflexes.

Now if they were to cut the action away to a huge enough degree that a human being could ACTUALLY keep up, then yes, it would be possible. But then the game wouldn't be fun because it wouldn't be have the insane action that GoW does.

Haha, seriously? Well, I guess there are some people out there who still swing their whole arm when playing Zelda. The rest of us should be able to handle it, though.

Inkmonkey
Haha, seriously? Well, I guess there are some people out there who still swing their whole arm when playing Zelda. The rest of us should be able to handle it, though.

So you're saying cut it down to waggle? Because otherwise you'd have to use your whole arm to do some of these things.

You've never played God of War, have you? Because you'd have to add a LOT of stuff to be able to do all of the things that Kratos does. You'd have to do some REALLY complex moves, and chances are that, even if you COULD keep up physically, you'd end up frustrated with trying to get the Wiimote to realise that you're trying to fling a sword through the guy's face, not fucking GRAB him.

Unless, like I said, you want to dumb it down to waggle.

You ever notice what Link was doing in Twilight Princess? Simple stabs and jabs. NOT what Kratos does. Not even CLOSE.

I don't agree with Shplane's theory that people would need ridiculous amounts of physical strength and conditioning to play a game like that, although I have pointed out in other threads that such a game isn't possible on the wii. The technology just doesn't work that way. The motion controls in the wii detect force applied to the controller. With the way a human holds a sword, swinging horizontally and swinging vertically are BOTH read as sideways motion by the controller. The only way to approximate it is to take into consideration the rotational movement of the controller.

Problem is, the more complex you get with the controls and the more data it has to read, the more lag you get, making twitch action games like God of War unplayable. This is why games like Dragon Quest Swords actually use the pointer function to register the direction of the sword swing. The pointer data is exact and the line of motion doesn't need to be approximated based on multiple inputs.

Basically, the more precise the controls need to be in a game, the less likely the wii can handle them. Now I'm not saying a game like Inkmonkey is describing couldn't be made, but I think the two of you are talking about completely different ideas at this point. Inkmonkey's thinking on a much smaller scale.

Well, I don't doubt that things would get dumbed down a bit. I'm just saying that a quick flick of the wrist would be necessary to shoot a blade forward; you wouldn't actually have to pull back your arm and fling your arm forward as if you were actually trying to launch a sword on a chain. Admittedly basic melee combat would probably be dumbed down to simple waggle just to keep things consistent. The important thing would be that specific motions do specific things, even if general flailing registers as unspecific melee, thrusting forward would cause a forward based attack, etc.

I find it odd that you automatically assume my optimism must mean that I've never played God of War. That'd be like me assuming your inability to grasp a means by which to play the game on the Wii somehow means that you've never played a Wii.

isukun
Nintendo has been in a downward spiral since the end of the SNES. They made some of the greatest games of the 8 and 16-bit era and then came Pokemon. With the tremendous cash cow that was Pokemon came a shift in business strategy and Nintendo gave up on innovation and solid gameplay and instead alienated their audiences with poor design decisions in their hardware and repetitive games that all started to blend together.

Well isukun I'm afraid I'm gonna have to disprove that with solid evidence.

1. True their sales weren't as great as the SNES UNTIL they developed the gameboy system which then lead to the Nintedo DS another handheld system which actually increased the Nintendo profit by 77% along with the sales of the Nintendo Wii.

2. Gave up on solid gameplay and inovation you say? As for innovation, I'll use Brawl again as my example, you don't really get the chance to create your own fighting arena, take screenshots of battle any time, actually being able to add weapons to your arena and last but not least being able to play online and fight others across the world which is a rarity in most fighters.

Now for gameplay. For this I'll use The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, which is really all the proof needed.

Now, I know this runs counter to my whole "pro-Nintendo" kick through this whole thread, but I don't quite see how those things disprove what Isukun said. Granted I don't agree with Isukun, but I don't think that those examples are definitive proof that completely blows his theory out of the water.

Smash bros. is a great game and all, but the features you listed there (map creation and online play) aren't exactly new and innovative. And I'm not sure what their profit margin has to do with anything.

Dang it, I thought I had something!

Inkmonkey
Well, I don't doubt that things would get dumbed down a bit. I'm just saying that a quick flick of the wrist would be necessary to shoot a blade forward; you wouldn't actually have to pull back your arm and fling your arm forward as if you were actually trying to launch a sword on a chain. Admittedly basic melee combat would probably be dumbed down to simple waggle just to keep things consistent. The important thing would be that specific motions do specific things, even if general flailing registers as unspecific melee, thrusting forward would cause a forward based attack, etc.

I find it odd that you automatically assume my optimism must mean that I've never played God of War. That'd be like me assuming your inability to grasp a means by which to play the game on the Wii somehow means that you've never played a Wii.

See, the problem with THAT is that the Wii would have trouble telling what the hell you're trying to do. I've PLAYED Marvel Ultimate Alliance. It was hard as HELL for the system to tell one control from another.

And I was exaggerating a bit Isukun. Still, the average gamer wouldn't be able to play a game that tried to emulate Kratos.

Lord Shplane

Inkmonkey
Well, I don't doubt that things would get dumbed down a bit. I'm just saying that a quick flick of the wrist would be necessary to shoot a blade forward; you wouldn't actually have to pull back your arm and fling your arm forward as if you were actually trying to launch a sword on a chain. Admittedly basic melee combat would probably be dumbed down to simple waggle just to keep things consistent. The important thing would be that specific motions do specific things, even if general flailing registers as unspecific melee, thrusting forward would cause a forward based attack, etc.

I find it odd that you automatically assume my optimism must mean that I've never played God of War. That'd be like me assuming your inability to grasp a means by which to play the game on the Wii somehow means that you've never played a Wii.

See, the problem with THAT is that the Wii would have trouble telling what the hell you're trying to do. I've PLAYED Marvel Ultimate Alliance. It was hard as HELL for the system to tell one control from another.

And I was exaggerating a bit Isukun. Still, the average gamer wouldn't be able to play a game that tried to emulate Kratos.

Haha, ah of course. I should have known because one game wasn't programmed very well, then the very concept is moot.

Inkmonkey
Haha, ah of course. I should have known because one game wasn't programmed very well, then the very concept is moot.

Except that it wasn't programming, but was actually the design of the controls?

See, any motion you make with the Wiimote can easily overlap with any other motion. For example, moving "Up" with the Wiimote can be misconstrued as tilting it towards you. Moving "Sideways" can be misconstrued as moving in a circle.

Unlike buttons, there is no clear space between one action and another with motion controls, therefore the game has trouble processing what's going on.

So? Make the actions less specific. The problem with Ultimate Alliance was that it simply replaced button presses with wii movement. It was a very static system that was difficult to work with. A forward thrust is an entirely different action than a lift. However, if a midway action was placed between those that is similar to both, you'd be okay.

Basically you take a bunch of attacks that are more or quite similar, and fill in as many blank holes of movement as the game can handle without getting all choppy keeping up with itself. Differentiate between types of attacks by button presses or very unique movements (compare twirling the Wii remote to swiping it, which was one of the movements Ultimate Alliance could differentiate consistently). Not to mention you have both the Remote itself and the Nunchuk to work with, which just opens more doors.

Thing is, Shplane, you're not looking at this sort of concept objectively. You're deliberately looking for reasons why it must fail. I'm trying to stay within reason for what I know of the technology, and granted I may be a bit overzealous, but I can see ways through little problems. I'm not proposing the "Virtual Reality"-level interaction people were expecting when they first heard of the Wii, but I do think its wholly possible and in fact a very good idea to create a God of War style game that takes liberal use of the Wii Remote functionality. It would be fun and different. It could work.

Granted a few bad decisions on the programmers' parts could balls the whole thing up, but that's been true since computer games were invented.

Inkmonkey
So? Make the actions less specific. The problem with Ultimate Alliance was that it simply replaced button presses with wii movement. It was a very static system that was difficult to work with. A forward thrust is an entirely different action than a lift. However, if a midway action was placed between those that is similar to both, you'd be okay.

So a thrustward lift? Or a liftward thrust? wut

Inkmonkey
Basically you take a bunch of attacks that are more or quite similar, and fill in as many blank holes of movement as the game can handle without getting all choppy keeping up with itself. Differentiate between types of attacks by button presses or very unique movements (compare twirling the Wii remote to swiping it, which was one of the movements Ultimate Alliance could differentiate consistently). Not to mention you have both the Remote itself and the Nunchuk to work with, which just opens more doors.

See, the problem is that you'd end up doing those in-between actions instead of the ones you want. So instead of it being "WHY THE FUCK IS KRATOS STABBING WHEN HE'S SUPPOSED TO GRAB", it would become "HOLY SHIT WHY IS HE FLINGING THE SWORD INTO THE GUY'S FACE TO PULL HIM BACK TOWARDS ME WHEN HE'S SUPPOSED TO STAB?"

Someone
Thing is, Shplane, you're not looking at this sort of concept objectively. You're deliberately looking for reasons why it must fail. I'm trying to stay within reason for what I know of the technology, and granted I may be a bit overzealous, but I can see ways through little problems. I'm not proposing the "Virtual Reality"-level interaction people were expecting when they first heard of the Wii, but I do think its wholly possible and in fact a very good idea to create a God of War style game that takes liberal use of the Wii Remote functionality. It would be fun and different. It could work.

See, it would be "Different". You're assuming that being "Different" would make it fun. And it DOESN'T. Though yes, some games ARE fun because they're "Different", being "Different" doesn't instantly make it better.

This game would be needlessly complex and would break almost EVERYTHING that makes God of War fun.

Someone
Granted a few bad decisions on the programmers' parts could balls the whole thing up, but that's been true since computer games were invented.

True, but it has RARELY been as easy to fuck up as it is with the Wii. People either think it's some kind of magic VR machine or that it's somehow capable of replicating ANYTHING you do. And it's NOT. It's basically any other controller except the replaced the second analog stick with something more likely to sprain your wrist.

In retrospect, I feel a bit silly for arguing so much about a game that doesn't exist to a person who isn't going to listen to me anyway...

And I'm not sure what their profit margin has to do with anything.

True, I don't think I ever brought up how much money they made. Quite honestly, it really doesn't have anything to do with the quality of their hardware of software. Look at Apple, they make one of the crappiest personal media players on the market, charge too much for it and still sell more units than anyone else.

I also don't really see much innovation in Phantom Hourglass (a lot of PC games use a similar, if not identical control scheme, so just another case of Nintendo borrowing from other markets), a game which suffers from one of the problems I've mentioned several times in this thread alone, it's too easy.

Lord Shplane

Inkmonkey
I am? I thought I was saying that I'd like to see a God of War-style game that takes advantage of the motion sensing technology in a fun way. It's a good thing you're here to interpret my mad ramblings.

In order for the game we both SEEM to be talking about to have any of what made God of War fun, in order for it to have the incredibly fast-paced and visceral action that God of War does and STILL emulate Kratos's actions in a reasonable way, it would require the person playing it to have INCREDIBLE physical conditioning and insane reflexes.

Now if they were to cut the action away to a huge enough degree that a human being could ACTUALLY keep up, then yes, it would be possible. But then the game wouldn't be fun because it wouldn't be have the insane action that GoW does.

not really. you could press certain buttons while pulling up the controller to do an attack that, in reality, talks a lot of strength. right? i'm sorta having trouble keeping up with this...

Okay isukun. I have several pieces of evidence here proving that Nintendo hasn't gone down the drain since the end of the SNES.

I bring back Nintendo's profit as my example. Why bring back the sales again you say? True the sales may not mean much for certain products like computers and televisions but, in this case the sales really do tell who good the product is.
Take Halo 3 for example even if though it isn't a Nintendo game, it still makes a good example. It may only apeal to the more hardcore gamers but, take a look at the sales. As of 2007 it was the best selling US videogame. Now take a look at the reviews.



1UP.com 10/10
Edge 10/10
Eurogamer 10/10
Famitsu 37/40
Game Informer 9.75/10
GameSpot 9.5/10
IGN 9.5/10
Offical Xbox Magazin 10/10
Metacritic 94%
Game Rankings 93%

Although it was critisized by certain reviewers but, no videogame is perfect.

If that's not enough take Super Smash Bros. Melee.

It was the highest selling gamecube game and was also ranked 92 out of 200 games of their time on the Electronic Gaming Monthly magazine. The game may not apeal to all gamers but, this where I'll present my next evidence piece.

The Nintendo Wii and DS, the systems which skyrocketed Nintendo's profits by 77%. The reason why the Wii is selling so well is because of it's wide demographic, Nintendo is aiming at gamers and even non gamers alike, they might not have much of a problem attracting non gamers now that they have the new Wii Fit system

Also isukun, it seems Nintendo cares just as much for the customer as they do their products. Proof:

"We're not thinking about fighting Sony, but about how many people we can get to play games. The thing we're thinking about most is not portable systems, consoles, and so forth, but that we want to get new people playing games."

So therefore Nintendo is innocent of your previous claims.

Also if that still wasn't enough, if Nintendo was really the worst company when it came to innovation, why would so many people be playing it? Why? Because the Wii itself is something new and innovative. And now I'll wrap this up with a video.

And once again, I will say sales don't mean anything. Luigi's Mansion was among the top five games for the gamecube in sales, but it's reviews were in the mid 7's. Wii play got horrid reviews and has managed to outsell Halo 3 on the global market. Quite honestly, I don't like to look at the reviews, either. Halo sells on hype and it wouldn't surprise me in the least if a lot of those scores got boosted with a little green. After all, you will frequently find certain developers seem to get a little more leniency from the reviewers when they release a flawed product. Microsoft and Nintendo seem to be among those developers the reviewers go easy on (and you'll find the review scores often are directly proportional to the money spent hyping a game).

Profit margin also fails to count for much when you consider the fact that Nintendo isn't taking any risks this generation. They launched their system using previous generation hardware so that they could earn a profit on every system sold. The DS uses a similar tactic. It isn't that the DS outsold the GBA, because it didn't. It just made more money because Nintendo jacked up the price.

As for their demographic, Nintendo's demographic is actually pretty specific. They are targeting non-gamers. The proof is in your sales figures which show a complete reversal of sales trends from the previous generation. The more gamer friendly titles tend to rank much lower than your Wii Sports, Wii Play and Mario Party titles. Even Mario and Sonic at the Olympic games outsold Metroid Prime 3, which just barely beat out Link's Crossbow Training and Carnival Games. The system may not be all party games, but they certainly sell better than anything else on the system.

Also isukun, it seems Nintendo cares just as much for the customer as they do their products.

That's rich. PR bullshit isn't proof of anything. Companies stretch the truth or even outright lie to make themselves look good. Nintendo isn't any exception.

Also if that still wasn't enough, if Nintendo was really the worst company when it came to innovation, why would so many people be playing it?

If the iPod is the worst media device when it comes to innovation, why do people keep buying it? It's called hype and Nintendo has put a lot of effort into playing the media for all they're worth this generation. The PS2 sold more units than any other system last generation, was it the most innovative as well?

isukun
Profit margin also fails to count for much when you consider the fact that Nintendo isn't taking any risks this generation.

Really? I thought the whole motion control thing was a pretty big risk. I mean, I know that they're saving money on parts, etc., but there was always the chance that the whole thing would just be too different and die on the vine. I'd say that this is the riskiest generation Nintendo's ever had conceptually, if not in simple numbers.

Nintendo has its dedicated followers. Even if the wii didn't take off like a rocket, they could have still rode out the generation on their fan base due to the fact that the hardware was designed to earn a profit from the start. Worse comes to worst, they still would have broke even on the wii and continued to make a profit from the DS. The gamecube was a bigger risk financially than the wii. It was more expensive to manufacture and was coming into the market off of the negative hype the N64 generated from Nintendo's poor marketing decisions (restricting game content and structure as well as losing most 3rd party developers) during the 32-bit generation.

Hype, huh?




If any company was so overatted it'd be Sony.

Well, just because other companies brag about pointless crap doesn't somehow mean that Nintendo doesn't.

I know this is a needlessly extreme example, but this reminds me about the whole Hitler v. Stalin thing. According to some historians, Stalin actually killed more people than Hitler, but he did it in a different way, and since he was our "buddy" in the past history books have been more polite to him.

Inkmonkey
Well, just because other companies brag about pointless crap doesn't somehow mean that Nintendo doesn't.
I know this is a needlessly extreme example, but this reminds me about the whole Hitler v. Stalin thing. According to some historians, Stalin actually killed more people than Hitler, but he did it in a different way, and since he was our "buddy" in the past history books have been more polite to him.

Well no of course not, not all companies are perfect but, what I was trying to get at was that the hype dosen't always boost the sales.

I never said hype ALWAYS boosts sales. Advertising is heavily dependent on your ability to connect with your audience. Even people who like the PS3 will admit their advertising campaign early on was an utter failure.

I also like that last video you posted. Just further proves Nintendo can capitalize off of other people's ideas by remaking existing games and printing "Nintendo" on the label while telling people they're new and innovative titles.

You can keep posting videos of press events till the cows come home, they don't prove anything. The whole point of PR is to show the human side of a company that otherwise doesn't give a crap about you, the consumer. Doesn't matter who gets up on that stage, their intent is ALWAYS to take your money, not to give you something you want or need. They are ALWAYS going to present their products in the best light they possibly can and throw out buzzwords like "innovation," "advancement," "revolutionary," "unique," etc. The whole point is to make themselves look new and different.

Hey, Shplane, you don't need to mimic exact movements, 'kay?

"You can keep posting videos of press events till the cows come home, they don't prove anything."

Orly?