(this is not a comparison thread, not a thread to 'attack' the Wii, but a serious discussion of what may or may not been limitations of the sensor technology)
Did anyone else read the hands-on preview of Red Steel at IGN? It raises some cause for alarm.
Yes, I have been a wiimote skeptic in the past, but it seems to confirm everything I've said in other threads. During the Nintendo press conference, I pointed out that the aiming in the video seemed jerky with a lot of 'oversteer' . Someone else pointed out that the 'RTS' movement style (move reticle to corner of screen to change view) would be problematic. Last week, after the Madden Wii interview, I pointed out that "gesture recognition" would be a poor use of the Wii, essentially replacing button presses. IGN's description of the sword fight shows why gesture recognition is a poor design choice: lag. One must do the action with one's arm, and then wait for the onscreen action to catch up moments later (with pre-canned animation).
The Wii Remote does have the potential to be revolutionary. And I think many of the people initially excited about it imagined it like I do (see Madden Wii "assumptions"), as essentially giving the console the ability to track your hand completely, and in real time, so that the Wii would interpret the movements of your hand exactly within the virtual world of the game. It would put your hand or whatever you imagined holding in it *in the game* as opposed to replacing a button click with a slash of the hand.
This means, if I imagined I was holding a hammer, and I swung a hammer in the game, I would see the onscreen hammer react smoothy and synchronously to the way my real hand is moving. If I was holding a ping pong paddle, the paddle would move in arcs and angles directly related to the way my arm is moving.
It's not clear from the Tennis video, if this is accurately being modeled, or if it is using simple trigger motions. The tennis game isn't exactly Virtua Tennis or Top Spin, so it's probably unlikely.
Now here's the real question (technical question. I am not asking if games could be fun if they didn't have fully accurate tracking):
1) does the remote have the accuracy and sampling rate to truly track the full range (over distances) hand motion to provide on-screen avatar function and put you "in the game"?
2) what are the limitations of the sensor bar setup, to wit:
Can this be calibrated away? How much drift is there, so when the user is making sweep motions in which they are not pointing at the sensor bar, what happens to accuracy?
I think everyone assumed, even me, that the core and central feature that Nintendo is resting their platform on -- the controller -- would have to work and respond to nigh perfection.
For now, it seems the readiness to hand of what should be the ultimate readiness to hand controller on one of the premier showcase games has issues to be worked out:
Is it just Red Steel? Why would the Red Steel developers have so many problems with sensitivity? Why the gesture recognition? Is Red Steel originally a GC game that was back ported to use the controller?
Did anyone else read the hands-on preview of Red Steel at IGN? It raises some cause for alarm.
Yes, I have been a wiimote skeptic in the past, but it seems to confirm everything I've said in other threads. During the Nintendo press conference, I pointed out that the aiming in the video seemed jerky with a lot of 'oversteer' . Someone else pointed out that the 'RTS' movement style (move reticle to corner of screen to change view) would be problematic. Last week, after the Madden Wii interview, I pointed out that "gesture recognition" would be a poor use of the Wii, essentially replacing button presses. IGN's description of the sword fight shows why gesture recognition is a poor design choice: lag. One must do the action with one's arm, and then wait for the onscreen action to catch up moments later (with pre-canned animation).
The Wii Remote does have the potential to be revolutionary. And I think many of the people initially excited about it imagined it like I do (see Madden Wii "assumptions"), as essentially giving the console the ability to track your hand completely, and in real time, so that the Wii would interpret the movements of your hand exactly within the virtual world of the game. It would put your hand or whatever you imagined holding in it *in the game* as opposed to replacing a button click with a slash of the hand.
This means, if I imagined I was holding a hammer, and I swung a hammer in the game, I would see the onscreen hammer react smoothy and synchronously to the way my real hand is moving. If I was holding a ping pong paddle, the paddle would move in arcs and angles directly related to the way my arm is moving.
It's not clear from the Tennis video, if this is accurately being modeled, or if it is using simple trigger motions. The tennis game isn't exactly Virtua Tennis or Top Spin, so it's probably unlikely.
Now here's the real question (technical question. I am not asking if games could be fun if they didn't have fully accurate tracking):
1) does the remote have the accuracy and sampling rate to truly track the full range (over distances) hand motion to provide on-screen avatar function and put you "in the game"?
2) what are the limitations of the sensor bar setup, to wit:
IGN said:
Can this be calibrated away? How much drift is there, so when the user is making sweep motions in which they are not pointing at the sensor bar, what happens to accuracy?
I think everyone assumed, even me, that the core and central feature that Nintendo is resting their platform on -- the controller -- would have to work and respond to nigh perfection.
For now, it seems the readiness to hand of what should be the ultimate readiness to hand controller on one of the premier showcase games has issues to be worked out:
IGN said:
Is it just Red Steel? Why would the Red Steel developers have so many problems with sensitivity? Why the gesture recognition? Is Red Steel originally a GC game that was back ported to use the controller?
