Wii Games making good use of physics

[Mobius1aic]

We don't know the real specs on the Wii, but the system seems to be uncanny when it comes to physics simulation (at least with simple box objects) thanks to the likes of Elebits and Boom Blox. It makes me think of physics tech demos except these are games themselves and I have yet to see a real physics pushing game on the 360 or PS3, of which I'm guessing Star Wars Force Unleashed is going to be the first I think. Maybe it's our regular encounters with the likes of ragdoll?

For Boom Blox and Elebits, the physics simulations did have noticeable slowdown to catch up with the calculations, but considering I can find Elebits create mode user made videos with upwards of 150 block like objects at once being manipulated, I find that impressive. Here's some vids to get the idea:

482 Objects Test
162 Objects Test

Boom Blox

I really want to check out Boom Blox, looks like good fun with physics. Now I'm sure you guys would bring up "there's no AI, or much of anything else going on outside of physics" in which case you're perfectly right, however I do think this is pretty impressive for extended GC hardware and goes to show you can still have a nice physics based game on the Wii. Makes me wonder how well Half Life 2 could translate to the Wii :smile: On a side note about Elebits, it uses the Open Dynamics Engine Physics Engine. Supposedly many other games including STALKER and Call of Duty 4 use it. But back to the topic at hand, like I had opinionated, the Wii is doing some pretty cool physics stuff, kinda like all the 2D physics based Indie games out there, except these are the next steps up as they are 3D instead. Supposedly one more cool thing is Boom Blox will support Headtracking as an easter egg, which I've come to understand will require 2 wiimotes and an LED Headset a la Johnny Lee's experiments. Very very interesting.

 

[AlNom]

1) Console Forum Rules: Petty versus discussion is not allowed. Not a great thread title, so I changed it. Plus, you steer away from it anyway, discussing the Wii hardware by itself.

2) It's nice that there are games that can showcase a console's capabilities, but do not confuse the system's ability versus a game's needs.

3) An isolated tech demo presents and centralizes certain features that are not necessarily well translated into other games.

 

[Mobius1aic]

2) It's nice that there are games that can showcase a console's capabilities, but do not confuse the system's ability versus a game's needs.

3) An isolated tech demo presents and centralizes certain features that are not necessarily well translated into other games.

Both of those comments were already addressed:

"......Now I'm sure you guys would bring up "there's no AI, or much of anything else going on outside of physics" in which case you're perfectly right, however I do think this is pretty impressive......"

I think people around here would be smart enough to be implied the idea that these were controlled experiments/instances that have limited use in many other games that might be using a physics enabled environment but are still relatable interactions that would be used on a much smaller scale. It's what I like to call Crate [Box] Physics. Many games (most notably FPSs have it) from the likes of Jurassic Park Trespasser to Crysis and Call of Duty 4 have it in case you just happened to not know.

And upon bringing up Wii hardware, I think as long as a system like the Wii exists in the veil of much more powerful systems, hardware is inheritly going to be an issue as it is a limitation that many devs might not want to put up with. Reason I mentioned it is in my reaction to the games making use of something I never expected to see done so well on what is theoretically much weaker per clock cycle hardware.

 

[acaeus]

I think it's more like the companies targeting the wii spend more resources on gameplay, which includes physics (or is more directly related to gameplay). Simply because they cannot spend as much time/resources on pure eye candy (as they do for the HD consoles).
The budgets are relative to the possible income from sales, so you may end up having a bunch of games with beautiful graphics and lousy gameplay or great gameplay and lousy graphics, but *rarely* both. The *focus* cannot be on both due to limited budgets and short deadlines. Yes, there are exceptions and we call them AAA games. Yes, I'm exaggerating to make a point.

So even though I agree with your original idea, I think it's more like what the HD console developers aren't doing, rather than what Wii developers are doing in special.

 

[Mobius1aic]

I think it's more like the companies targeting the wii spend more resources on gameplay, which includes physics (or is more directly related to gameplay). Simply because they cannot spend as much time/resources on pure eye candy (as they do for the HD consoles).
The budgets are relative to the possible income from sales, so you may end up having a bunch of games with beautiful graphics and lousy gameplay or great gameplay and lousy graphics, but *rarely* both. The *focus* cannot be on both due to limited budgets and short deadlines. Yes, there are exceptions and we call them AAA games. Yes, I'm exaggerating to make a point.

So even though I agree with your original idea, I think it's more like what the HD console developers aren't doing, rather than what Wii developers are doing in special.

Even though it's more trivial in nature, I think Boom Blox does look very well put together graphically. Either it was intentional, or the "blocky" style helps to save polygons, and it lends to both the game and theme. It looks nice and clean that way as well as the colors cultivate a good feel too, I like nice rich colors. I also can't help but notice that every little piece has a nice little dynamic shadow to go along with it to help represent altitude for objects in their relation to the ground (as well as lighting issues of course).