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Call of Duty: Modern Warfare: [R E F L E X] (Wii) Screens

EDarkness

Member
doomed1 said:
yeah, best not to expect anything in terms of media until after launch at this point, and even then the majority of it is going to be from the community (i.e. me and Mini Ditka).

kinda wondering if anyone would be interested in me giving weapon reviews and videos in as humorous a fashion as i can imagine.

also, some good open source video editing software would be great if anyone knows of some...

Doomed, just curious, why go through all the trouble for this game?
 

hellclerk

Everything is tsundere to me
EDarkness said:
I've seen the developer videos and such, but they really don't tell us much. I always take this kind of stuff with a grain of salt because as long as they're not letting people play it, it's all just marketing speak. They refuse to let people play it, and that's a bad sign.
but they DID let people play it. it was behind closed doors at GC and the impressions are generally positive. what they've been refusing people is footage. it's really a shame...

EDarkness said:
Doomed, just curious, why go through all the trouble for this game?
why not? it'd get buried otherwise. there are WAY too many good Wii games that get buried and i'm kind of sick of it. i love all games, from the high profile to the niche. i've already done everything i can for things like Little King's Story by praising it to almost an excess (that would actually be physically impossible), so i'll just keep on it.

i REALLY love games, and gaming on the Wii in my opinion is a step in the best direction. what's a shame is that very few outside of Nintendo seem to realize that. this game creates a kind of precedence, one that i will have an inglorious amount of fun on and will likely put hundreds of hours into, so why wouldn't i be excited?

donny2112 said:
Does it have to have these screens? We've already seen the results of one thread with them. :lol
as long as it's lampshaded, reactions to the screens should be minimal. people damning the games via screens won't have any reasons to be in the thread except to troll, and i'll be making note of that.
 

EDarkness

Member
doomed1 said:
but they DID let people play it. it was behind closed doors at GC and the impressions are generally positive. what they've been refusing people is footage. it's really a shame...

Yeah. I know they let people play it at GC, but that was a long time ago and things have been generally quiet. Impressions have been few and far between and extremely generic. The devs are keeping this thing to the chest until they shock people at release. That's the sad part of all this.


why not? it'd get buried otherwise. there are WAY too many good Wii games that get buried and i'm kind of sick of it. i love all games, from the high profile to the niche. i've already done everything i can for things like Little King's Story by praising it to almost an excess (that would actually be physically impossible), so i'll just keep on it.

i REALLY love games, and gaming on the Wii in my opinion is a step in the best direction. what's a shame is that very few outside of Nintendo seem to realize that. this game creates a kind of precedence, one that i will have an inglorious amount of fun on and will likely put hundreds of hours into, so why wouldn't i be excited?

I agree about liking the gaming experience on the Wii, but I've all but given up on games for it. So many of them are half hearted games thrown together on a shoestring budget or just poor decisions made by publishers/devs. It's a bit of a catch 22, I know, but I refuse to buy games that don't have some sort of quality that interest me, but more than that, I want them to experiment with controls and not fall back on the classic controller like so many games are doing these days.

It's good that you're excited, though. At this point, I can't see what there is to get excited about. Looking from the outside in, it just seems like some kind of throwaway game. My opinion may change in the next couple weeks, but I refuse to set myself up for disappointment. Heh, heh.
 

dark10x

Digital Foundry pixel pusher
DeaconKnowledge said:
So tell me dark, do you think the PS2 is capable of pulling off CoD4 to make it look even close to approximating Black?
Don't think I am suggesting that the Wii is less powerful than the PS2. The Gamecube was more powerful and, obviously, the Wii is beyond that (though not by much). I don't think it would ever look like Black due to a difference in art direction, but I do think COD4 could look MUCH nicer on both the Wii and the PS2, had there been a PS2 version announced. This just looks like a lazy port.

poppabk said:
But if the FPS genre has really moved forward in the way you think then there wouldn't really be any criteria that would allow CS to be considered current.
I don't know about that. Some people just enjoying sticking with what's familiar and have no problems playing a dated game. I think CS is pretty dated even in its Source form (which was a significant tech upgrade for the game, let's not forget).

PS2 Black included. The Xbox version was quite a bit better anyway.
Why do people keep saying this? That was not true. Criterion focused heavily on PS2 development and all of their games looked virtually the same on both XBOX and PS2. In fact, the PS2 versions often sported effects and lighting superior to the XBOX versions. Black was no exception. Most XBOX ports were superior to the PS2 releases last gen, but that wasn't really the case with Criterion games.

do you have any potential intention to buy this game? if so, i have no issue with your concerns about the game: they're similar to mine. i just happen to be an optimist. but i suspect you don't have any plans to buy it, to which i will say good day sir, you have no place in this thread, nor any future thread unless you have a change of heart.
You may be one of the ONLY people in this thread with any intention to buy this game. It's fun to discuss, why does it matter if someone has an intention to buy it?
 

Razien

Banned
dark10x said:
I don't know about that. Some people just enjoying sticking with what's familiar and have no problems playing a dated game. I think CS is pretty dated even in its Source form (which was a significant tech upgrade for the game, let's not forget).


Why do people keep saying this? That was not true. Criterion focused heavily on PS2 development and all of their games looked virtually the same on both XBOX and PS2. In fact, the PS2 versions often sported effects and lighting superior to the XBOX versions. Black was no exception. Most XBOX ports were superior to the PS2 releases last gen, but that wasn't really the case with Criterion games.

Wasn't Black touted as the first time Criterion was exploring the Xbox's powers to make it look better on that console? I heard over and over about how the Xbox version was better looking (even if the PS2 version was incredible for the time).

And I disagree with CS. It isn't outdated, and the Source version is much worse. Adding physics to the objects scattered across the maps isn't "upgrade". There are many modern games that can't even have some basic stuff of semi-realistic shooters (like CS has) like proper (believable/gameplay fitting) bullet penetration on walls, characters and stuff.
I do agree with people comfortable with dated games and familiar stuff, though.
 

poppabk

Cheeks Spread for Digital Only Future
dark10x said:
I don't know about that. Some people just enjoying sticking with what's familiar and have no problems playing a dated game. I think CS is pretty dated even in its Source form (which was a significant tech upgrade for the game, let's not forget).
I think CS mechanics have reached the point where they are pretty much set, I would expect a CS game built from the ground-up today to play almost the same. Part of it is familiarity, but a lot of it is the optimization brought about by millions of hours of 'beta' testing.
 

dark10x

Digital Foundry pixel pusher
poppabk said:
I think CS mechanics have reached the point where they are pretty much set, I would expect a CS game built from the ground-up today to play almost the same. Part of it is familiarity, but a lot of it is the optimization brought about by millions of hours of 'beta' testing.
There's nothing wrong with that. Counterstrike and StarCraft can continue to exist as they are and be played by many. Doesn't mean games haven't evolved since their creation.

They are still great in the same way as the older Mario and Sonic titles were on the console side.

Wasn't Black touted as the first time Criterion was exploring the Xbox's powers to make it look better on that console? I heard over and over about how the Xbox version was better looking (even
I don't think so. They were always focused heavily on the PS2. Had they REALLY wanted to tap the potential of XBOX they would have dabbled in shaders and more advanced lighting models. Black has none of that.
 

Disguises

Member
Tried to preorder this today at gamestation, got told that I couldn't and to "wait a few more weeks" since they have no information on it. They also advised to check their website to order (gamestation have it on their website but I'd like to go to the midnight launch). Seems like HMV are having a midnight launch here so I might try my luck with them tomorrow. Only live in a fairly small city and I was surprised that GAME, gamestation and HMV are doing midnight launches for MW2 :).

I really don't get the deal with keeping media from being released, sounds to me like infinity ward are holding all the info away for some reason :/
 
Razien said:
And I disagree with CS. It isn't outdated, and the Source version is much worse. Adding physics to the objects scattered across the maps isn't "upgrade". There are many modern games that can't even have some basic stuff of semi-realistic shooters (like CS has) like proper (believable/gameplay fitting) bullet penetration on walls, characters and stuff.
I do agree with people comfortable with dated games and familiar stuff, though.

When my brother plays a new shooter, the first question he always asks is "is there walling?" If not, he doesn't play it. "If a baddie takes cover behind a thin pillar, I want the ability to shoot through said pillar to kill him (without HAX)."
 

MiniDitka

Member
dark10x said:
Why do people keep saying this? That was not true. Criterion focused heavily on PS2 development and all of their games looked virtually the same on both XBOX and PS2. In fact, the PS2 versions often sported effects and lighting superior to the XBOX versions. Black was no exception. Most XBOX ports were superior to the PS2 releases last gen, but that wasn't really the case with Criterion games.

I've had both versions(only have the XBOX at the moment) and never noticed a difference in visuals, to me they looked the same.
 

fyzxwhyz

Neo Member
DeaconKnowledge said:
So, when's the part where people remember that Black was an intensely structured scripted experience with brain dead AI?

As someone who bought and played CoD: WaW for Wii, I can tell you why MW looks "like a PSP game" on Wii. It's Modern Warfare for the PC downscaled. Every bit of Geometry in the HD versions is essentially replicated in the less powerful Wii version, almost nothing was removed. I would like to see any developer come up with highly detailed Black Like Texture work in SD with open environments and 60 FPS gameplay with all that Geometry in a Wii title, much less in such a short turnaround time. Hell, even the HD consoles couldn't do MW in full HD!

Wish more people recognized this. You can get a lot more graphical mileage out of your game when you have the luxury of designing it around the hardware you're releasing it on. Cod4 obviously was designed for hardware much more powerful than the Wii, and when you downport it, there is only so much you can do without altering map geometry, reducing the number of AI chars, and making other unpleasant changes to the design and playability of the game.

We were forbidden contractually from making any content-based changes to the game - not that it would have been a good idea, anyway.
 

Kibbles

Member
DeaconKnowledge said:
So, when's the part where people remember that Black was an intensely structured scripted experience with brain dead AI?

As someone who bought and played CoD: WaW for Wii, I can tell you why MW looks "like a PSP game" on Wii. It's Modern Warfare for the PC downscaled. Every bit of Geometry in the HD versions is essentially replicated in the less powerful Wii version, almost nothing was removed. I would like to see any developer come up with highly detailed Black Like Texture work in SD with open environments and 60 FPS gameplay with all that Geometry in a Wii title, much less in such a short turnaround time. Hell, even the HD consoles couldn't do MW in full HD!
The Wii version is confirmed to be 30fps (if even that, judging by other Wii titles with the same engine. QoS? Ugh....). Try again.
 

fyzxwhyz

Neo Member
Kibbles said:
The Wii version is confirmed to be 30fps (if even that, judging by other Wii titles with the same engine. QoS? Ugh....). Try again.

You're right, it's 30, but his point still stands.
 
Kibbles said:
The Wii version is confirmed to be 30fps (if even that, judging by other Wii titles with the same engine. QoS? Ugh....). Try again.

Black was 60 FPS. That post was aimed at people comparing Black to WaW Wii. It's fun when people try to pick my posts apart out of context though.
 

MiniDitka

Member
fyzxwhyz said:
Wish more people recognized this. You can get a lot more graphical mileage out of your game when you have the luxury of designing it around the hardware you're releasing it on. Cod4 obviously was designed for hardware much more powerful than the Wii, and when you downport it, there is only so much you can do without altering map geometry, reducing the number of AI chars, and making other unpleasant changes to the design and playability of the game.

We were forbidden contractually from making any content-based changes to the game - not that it would have been a good idea, anyway.
2 questions

1) Are you the same person that's been posting over at GameFaqs

2) Where's the damn gameplay videos!
 

Disguises

Member
fyzxwhyz said:
2) no idea, treyarch doesn't have any control over that

It sounds like infinity ward
or activision?
don't want this game to get in the way of modern warfare 2. I can't believe they won't approve a trailer or even some decent screens. Crazy. I just can't get my head around it. It makes no sense.
 

EatChildren

Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
Disguises said:
It sounds like infinity ward
or activision?
don't want this game to get in the way of modern warfare 2. I can't believe they won't approve a trailer or even some decent screens. Crazy. I just can't get my head around it. It makes no sense.

99% of the time it's the publisher who controls who does and does not get released, and when. So I'd point to Activision.
 

fyzxwhyz

Neo Member
Disguises said:
It sounds like infinity ward
or activision?
don't want this game to get in the way of modern warfare 2. I can't believe they won't approve a trailer or even some decent screens. Crazy. I just can't get my head around it. It makes no sense.

Ultimately it's up to Activision PR, but IW has a very large say in how anything with "Call of Duty" on it gets promoted. I'm told that more press material is "coming soon" but they've been saying that for quite a while now.
 

Scrubking

Member
Hey it's FyzxWhyz. I'd welcome you, but this place isn't very Treyarch or Wii friendly (look at this disgusting thread).

Anyway, thanks again for all of the info and for giving a damn when no one else did.
 

Disguises

Member
fyzxwhyz said:
Ultimately it's up to Activision PR, but IW has a very large say in how anything with "Call of Duty" on it gets promoted.
Still can't get my head around why they havn't released proper media yet :/. This makes me think that it's not even going to be advertised at all. I mean - last year in world at war adverts, they had a Wii logo. This year they can't do that and I doubt that there's going to be a seperate marketing campaign for Modern warfare: reflex edition.

Wouldn't it be in activisions best interest to market (or at least let people know about) BOTH versions of modern warfare since I know there'd be some people who will pick up both (myself and a few friends) plus there's people I know that only have a Wii and would only pick up reflex edition. This would only drive sales up, right?
nope, head still not getting around it :(

fyzxwhyz said:
I'm told that more press material is "coming soon" but they've been saying that for quite a while now.
Hmm - does this mean that there's a chance we might get some kind of media before launch?
 

EDarkness

Member
fyzxwhyz said:
Ultimately it's up to Activision PR, but IW has a very large say in how anything with "Call of Duty" on it gets promoted. I'm told that more press material is "coming soon" but they've been saying that for quite a while now.

They need to get on the ball. I was really excited about this when it was announced, but the lack of information is worrying. Whoever the power that be are, they should be told they're not doing this game any justice by sitting on the information and media. Unless the quality of the game is really bad and they don't want to highlight that fact. I enjoyed Call of Duty: World at War and if the game can hit that same level of quality, I'll be happy to buy a copy.
 

J-Rock

Banned
fyzxwhyz said:
Ultimately it's up to Activision PR, but IW has a very large say in how anything with "Call of Duty" on it gets promoted. I'm told that more press material is "coming soon" but they've been saying that for quite a while now.


That's a shame. Hope something happens soon. Again, thanks for all the info.
 

gabe90

Member
So there has been no media released after the initial batch? Did they get cold feet after the tepid reaction? I mean, the logical way to respond to that would be to put out better shots - assuming there are better shots which I think there are...
 

scitek

Member
Seems to me like they're hoping people snap this up who don't have knowledge of it not being Modern Warfare 2. World at War sold over a million copies, so not having something with the Modern Warfare name on the Wii would be silly since the buzz from the second game alone will likely net this one a few extra sales.
 

dark10x

Digital Foundry pixel pusher
Cod4 obviously was designed for hardware much more powerful than the Wii, and when you downport it, there is only so much you can do without altering map geometry, reducing the number of AI chars, and making other unpleasant changes to the design and playability of the game.
How much leeway were you given in regards to re-working original assets? Were the textures simply down-sampled from the original release or were new textures created?

Honestly, I find ports of this nature extremely fascinating and I'd be interested in any information you might be able to share in regards to its development.

So there has been no media released after the initial batch? Did they get cold feet after the tepid reaction? I mean, the logical way to respond to that would be to put out better shots - assuming there are better shots which I think there are...
The original shots released for World at War were extremely similar in terms of quality. I'm sure it will look a bit better in action, just like WaW.
 

scitek

Member
dark10x said:
How much leeway were you given in regards to re-working original assets? Were the textures simply down-sampled from the original release or were new textures created?

Honestly, I find ports of this nature extremely fascinating and I'd be interested in any information you might be able to share in regards to its development.

This.

I LOVE when developers come on the board and talk about their job. I'd love to know more about how a port like this is done on the Wii. Please don't hesitate to share whatever you can with us.
 
Ignorant me thinks that all you need for a Wii port is essentially like dialing down the graphics options in the PC version. Shadows? Off. AA? Less/off. Number of corpses? Low. Textures? Low.

This is why I'm not a dev.
 
Lone_Prodigy said:
Ignorant me thinks that all you need for a Wii port is essentially like dialing down the graphics options in the PC version. Shadows? Off. AA? Less/off. Number of corpses? Low. Textures? Low.

This is why I'm not a dev.
They just seeming to strip the game down until it worked instead of actually using the hardware. I'm starting to wonder how many devs are actually talentless hacks because they fail at making a good looking Wii game.
 
That's horrible, the CoD franchise is going down the tubes at a rapid ratre. THey are doing so much asshattery, IW and Activision WTF?

Let me see....;

  • UK price for console version of MW2 £55!
  • PC version has infated £45 price point
  • This joke of a Wii port.
  • DLC developed concurently
  • No servers for the PC version at all, it's matchmaking (WTF!!!??)
  • No mod support (Again WTF?)

Why shaft PC gamers so blatantly. I bet it will be a direct port graphically too. No advantage for my juicy hardware just 256 MB of compressed 360 stlye textures.
 
silverbullet1080 said:
They just seeming to strip the game down until it worked instead of actually using the hardware. I'm starting to wonder how many devs are actually talentless hacks because they fail at making a good looking Wii game.


Well, it isn't so much that these devs are talentless (though, there certainly are a fair number), it's that publishers put D level teams with F level budgets on making these games.
 

Gilby

Member
So it sounds like this will have all the (seemingly obvious) control options similar to the Conduit, but any word on if it will include the (also obvious) option to LOCK THE CURSOR AT THE CENTRE OF THE SCREEN?
Please, it would make things smoother playing if developers just added a couple lines of code to do this. Keep the movement area the same, just let us lock the aiming reticule, just like PC/analog FPSs, please.
 
BoloTheGreat said:
That's horrible, the CoD franchise is going down the tubes at a rapid ratre. THey are doing so much asshattery, IW and Activision WTF?

Let me see....;

  • DLC developed concurently

Why is "DLC developed concurrently" asshattery?
 

Disguises

Member
Finally managed to preorder this today at HMV except it has a release date of 27th October on their databases. They also have a listing for modern warfare 2 on the Wii for 27th November, lol (both wrong, obviously). This is the worst organised semi-big release for a game ever. Good news is that I can get it at HMV's midnight launch. Should be fun even if I will be the only one buying the 2 year old port. :D
Gilby said:
So it sounds like this will have all the (seemingly obvious) control options similar to the Conduit, but any word on if it will include the (also obvious) option to LOCK THE CURSOR AT THE CENTRE OF THE SCREEN?
Please, it would make things smoother playing if developers just added a couple lines of code to do this. Keep the movement area the same, just let us lock the aiming reticule, just like PC/analog FPSs, please.
I think they have an option in place for this in ADS mode - the reticle stays in the center (like the PC version?)
 
OscarMalory said:
Why is "DLC developed concurrently" asshattery?


It shows how money hungry DLC has made publishers this gen.
Rather than adding it to the disc and selling it with the game, they develop it to sell separately at the same time.
 
OscarMalory said:
Why is "DLC developed concurrently" asshattery?

It takes time and resources from the dlopment process whist at the same time withholding content in order to wring you out for it later, if content is ready on day 1 then why is it not on my disk?
 

EatChildren

Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
Lone_Prodigy said:
Ignorant me thinks that all you need for a Wii port is essentially like dialing down the graphics options in the PC version. Shadows? Off. AA? Less/off. Number of corpses? Low. Textures? Low.

This is why I'm not a dev.

That's kind of the problem. In ports like this they're extremely limited in what they can do, and are ultimately stuck scaling assets until things run in a stable way. They are dialing down the graphical options, quite literally, until it works.

The problem is the base coding of the engine is not built for the Wii's hardware, so it's not as simple as dialing it down until it works, because you may need to dial it down stupidy far due to engine and hardware incompatabilities.

It's why the best looking Wii games, or games for any platform, will always be those built exclusively from the ground up. Engines built in a way to milk every juice from hardware, and optimised in that the engines understand the hardware.

Modern Warfare, hell the CoD4 engine in general, was in no way built for the Wii's hardware archecture, thus scaling down assets ends up with a needless ugly game simply because less work could be done on the engine.

I'm positive that if the template for Modern Warfare was taken and rebuilt with a whole new engine for the Wii you'd end up with a very nice looking game. Sadly, that is the nature of ports.

As a whole though it is also what makes the Wii such a cunt to port to. Even with three similar platforms (PS3/X360/PC) you often end up with slight graphical difference, rendering issues, etc. With the Wii you not only have totally different hardware that a vast majority of engines are in no way built for, but the raw power is so much lower you have to scale the shit out of art assets as well.

It's a terrible port platform. I know people really want ports, but for the cheaper system it would ironically be likely more expensive and time consuming to develop a really faithful, successful, and top quality port of a game primarily built for stronger systems.
 

dark10x

Digital Foundry pixel pusher
silverbullet1080 said:
They just seeming to strip the game down until it worked instead of actually using the hardware. I'm starting to wonder how many devs are actually talentless hacks because they fail at making a good looking Wii game.
It still requires effort to produce a good looking Wii game. The fact that the hardware is dated doesn't make matters trivial.
 
EatChildren said:
That's kind of the problem. In ports like this they're extremely limited in what they can do, and are ultimately stuck scaling assets until things run in a stable way. They are dialing down the graphical options, quite literally, until it works.

The problem is the base coding of the engine is not built for the Wii's hardware, so it's not as simple as dialing it down until it works, because you may need to dial it down stupidy far due to engine and hardware incompatabilities.

It's why the best looking Wii games, or games for any platform, will always be those built exclusively from the ground up. Engines built in a way to milk every juice from hardware, and optimised in that the engines understand the hardware.

Modern Warfare, hell the CoD4 engine in general, was in no way built for the Wii's hardware archecture, thus scaling down assets ends up with a needless ugly game simply because less work could be done on the engine.

I'm positive that if the template for Modern Warfare was taken and rebuilt with a whole new engine for the Wii you'd end up with a very nice looking game. Sadly, that is the nature of ports.

As a whole though it is also what makes the Wii such a cunt to port to. Even with three similar platforms (PS3/X360/PC) you often end up with slight graphical difference, rendering issues, etc. With the Wii you not only have totally different hardware that a vast majority of engines are in no way built for, but the raw power is so much lower you have to scale the shit out of art assets as well.

It's a terrible port platform. I know people really want ports, but for the cheaper system it would ironically be likely more expensive and time consuming to develop a really faithful, successful, and top quality port of a game primarily built for stronger systems.





Problem is building a Wii engine from the ground up is really pretty pointless in a wider sense. On the PC/360/PS3 there are games tailored to ther specific strenghts BUT the base line similarites between the systems (PS3 and 360 pretty much have equivelant graphical capbilites and similar processor architechture being PowerPC based, the 360 having most of it's games throttles through DirectX makes PC/360 much more simple etc etc) make it appilcable to the other systems.


Making a game engine for the bottem end hardware of the Wii has one use, the Wii.
 

EatChildren

Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
BoloTheGreat said:
Problem is building a Wii engine from the ground up is really pretty pointless in a wider sense. On the PC/360/PS3 there are games tailored to ther specific strenghts BUT the base line similarites between the systems (PS3 and 360 pretty much have equivelant graphical capbilites and similar processor architechture being PowerPC based, the 360 having most of it's games throttles through DirectX makes PC/360 much more simple etc etc) make it appilcable to the other systems.

Making a game engine for the bottem end hardware of the Wii has one use, the Wii.

I know, and is just another problem to add to the list, and also why the best looking Wii titles will almost always be exclusives.
 
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