thoughthead

The biggest question mark over the Nintendo Wii is whether the new Wii Remote controller will make or break the console. Motion control has been attempted in the past, in general though it has been a failing strategy. Before it’s launch many of the outspoken who follow the industry seemed to be split on the issue, some thinking the new controller will sling-shot Nintendo back to their former glory as king of the proverbial video game console hill, others speculating that the controller is but a mere gimmick and will end up Nintendo’s greatest downfall. With the console having been available for nearly a month certainly we now have a better idea about how this will all play out… right?

After a not-so-pleasant ordeal with an eBay seller, the Wii auction I won and paid for on November 22nd arrived on December 12. Since then I’ve had a good week with the Wii to put it through it’s paces. The console comes with Wii Sports, heralded as more of a bundled tech-demo then a game, also included in my auction was a copy of the latest Zelda, which from other reviews and opinion pieces seems to be the Wii’s killer-app. Picking out a 3rd title proved difficult, there seemed to be a drastic variance in opinions on the games available. One reviewer would give a game rave reviews while the next would rate it utter crap. Obviously we don’t expect everyone to hold the same opinions of games, but in a professional sense you’d expect them to at least be close.

Unlike their competitors Nintendo put far far less concentration on graphics and is instead boasting a console that can deliver fun as a result of it’s gameplay. Certainly they’re sticking their neck out with a radically different controller design. I, for one, welcome new controller designs. I find them to be one of the few things that can truly generate innovation in the game industry. Another interesting part of this move is that it shows Nintendo putting their money behind one of the oldest debates in interactive entertainment: Gameplay vs. Graphics. Nearly any game related forum you might pop into you’ll find cronies talking about how gameplay is the only part that matters and graphics take a back seat. At the same time we see people drooling over screenshots of some terribly generic up-and-comer with no idea what the gameplay will be like. I find it interesting that when the topic of gameplay comes up we automatically and vocally place it above graphics, but when graphics come up they’re so important it’s the only thing you should base your purchases on and other factors (like gameplay) aren’t even brought up. Kind of like someone who claims they’re looking for a significant other with a good personality, yet once they’re out there looking they run right by the uglies and straight to the shallow, good looking, scumbags.
I’m a strong believer that you can’t have one without the other and still expect to have a good overall game. If your game has terrible graphics, I don’t care how accurate, smooth and responsive your gameplay is, If I’m watching indistinguishable turds bouncing around on the screen made up of low-poly jaggy filled models so sharp they make my eyes bleed, it detracts from the gaming experience and I will put it away. Similarly if I feel the game can’t properly interpret my inputs into appropriate reactions in the game, it doesn’t matter how pretty it is, I will put it away. Does that mean the Wii is automatically total crap because Nintendo put gameplay first? No. Actually from what I’ve played so far the graphics are quite decent, the Wii finds themselves in a nice middle ground between last gen and this gen. They wont be wowing you graphically like the PS3 and Xbox 360 will but they are markedly better then that of the Xbox 1, or any of the other last gen consoles.

I wound up buying Red Steel as my 3rd game, you may or may not be familiar with the title, but before launch it was lauded as a revolutionary new shooter, it was going to be some kind of amazing shooter that was even more amazing because it utilized the Wii Remote. Browsing over reviews by gamers and professionals alike the opinions of this title swayed dramatically. I’m not one to listen to hype but I like to browse around a large number of reviews before buying a game I don’t know much about. When I finally decided to buy it I did so simply because I wanted to see how the Wii handled a shooter, and out of the shooters available Red Steel seemed to be the least worst option in terms of general opinion. It also helped that the game was built for the Wii’s controls as opposed to ported to the Wii with the controls being an afterthought. Red Steel isn’t the only game that suffers from this vast discrepancy among reviewers, nearly all of the Wii’s launch titles are subject to the same ambiguity of gamer opinion.

After playing Red Steel for a couple of hours I began to understand why there has been such disagreement among gamers concerned with this game. It comes down to one simple factor… gameplay. Thinking back to other instance it makes more sense, Red Steel finds itself in a similar position that Perfect Dark Zero did when the Xbox 360 launched, it was a fantastic game but the gameplay suffered, and because of that depending on who you talked to the game was either amazing or horrible garbage. You look at games like Goldeneye, Halo, or more recently Gears of War and these are all popular games, while they were all fantastic graphically for their time they also had fantastic gameplay, the controls were responsive, accurate, smooth, and easy to pickup, in general they did these things above average and as a result they were extremely well received. PDZ on the other hand was sluggish and many of the controls didn’t make sense or were otherwise unresponsive, particularly weapon management and the cover system. As a result PDZ wasn’t the mega success it was expected to be, despite the fact that nearly all of the other factors that make a great game were in place. Similar to Red Steel reviews were all over the place some claiming the game was fantastic, others calming it was total crap.

I think gamers that have been around for at least a generation or two are spoiled with our gameplay. We’re spoiled because in the grand scheme of things it’s not very difficult to get good gameplay out of a standard controller. Controller design really hasn’t changed all that much over the last decade, and for a decade before that they were still pretty much the same sans-analog. Being that there is only so many ways you can play a particular genre with these generic controllers there was very little creativity involved, all you had to do was play a few other titles considered to be good and you had a good layout. As a result even a second rate developer was vastly familiar with how to get a game to play with with basic inputs. Good gameplay became little more then good timing, inputs are generally discrete, you push button A and Action 1 happens, there’s no mystery. Analogs are a bit more complex but not by much. We sort of forgot about gameplay because we were spoiled with how good games played in general, I think in many ways we even began to expand what gameplay means so we’d have more of a variation when we talked about it. The Wii changes this, a lot; its controls are extremely complex to program for, and interpreting human movement is not at all discrete, it’s more of an art as opposed to a science.

Here we find ourselves with a new controller, and much like the graphical potential of the PS3 and Xbox 360 developers seem to be having a hard time grasping the full potential of the Wii Remote. The results is that we have gameplay that is hit or miss, not just on a game by game basis but on an action by action basis within the games. It would seem that Nintendo themselves has the best grasp on the new tech, Wii Sports and Zelda obviously make far better used of the Wii Remote then any other titles, Games like Red Steel have their good moments as well as their bad. The result is gamers who are really unsure of what to think. For instance, targeting enemies, shooting, reloading and moving around are all very intuitive and make for an awesome shooter experience that veterans and new comers alike can enjoy, however at the same time looking around becomes difficult because you can’t look and aim at the same time, you almost have to do one or the other. Interpretation of movement isn’t as accurate as it could be either. Red Steel shows the potential of the platform, but it also shows you that it’s developers couldn’t fully deliver that potential, not even close. And while the first party titles are a whole lot better in that reguard, they’re not without their flaws either. For instance, driving the ball in Wii Sports Golf is a joy, while trying to make a short put can be overwhelmingly frustrating.

I’m happy that despite the fact that most developers haven’t fully wrapped their hands around the new controller, gamers are none-the-less lining up to get their hands on the console. That kind of enthusiasm will only encourage game makers to work more towards embracing the Wii and delivering games with better and better gameplay. Similarly gamers and reviewers need to understand the added difficulties involved. Interpreting data-points along a graph and determining that you want to swing your sword is a whole lot more difficult then swinging the sword whenever the X button gets pushed. If you’re going to review the game, or even just voice your opinion, take a moment to think about what it is exactly that bothers you about it, make an attempt to divorce gameplay into it’s own entity the same way we’ve segregated graphics, sound, and storyline, etc. This will help give other gamers a better idea about what the particular shortcomings are and developers a better idea of the areas where they need to improve. I think on a whole the Wii offers great gameplay potential, but in many respects it’s taking a step back before it can take two steps forward.