How about developers start making some f'ing compelling games first and foremost. That's the absolute bottom line. I mean can't someone come up with a new SHUMP that is maybe a bit like rez but using the IR and the motion controls of both Wii controllers? Hell I couldn't give a crap if it looked 50% as good as Rogue Leader, just make it feel like something that hasn't been done before. This is what gaming used to be about, now it's all about rehashing every freaking genre and making it look better. And you wonder why Iwatta said at one point he feels like a Chef with no one to cook too. Seriously, what happened to not only gamers but developers. They became completely dependent on the same formula which eventually created this broken demographic of people who like this certain genre etc. and only improved graphics. Please for the love of GOD, for the gamers who knew what it was like to play a game that was never been done before sacrafice everything the gfx whores want and drop a bomb as big as Tetris did back in the day.
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Julian Eggebrecht: Wii developers are sloppy
- Thread starter TheWolf
- Start date
Unfortunately many developers took Nintendo's talk about the "it not about the graphics" thing, as a greencard to relax so much that they were in danger of soiling themselves.
They (willfully?) misunderstood the downplaying of the importance of technical abundance, as a general downplay of all the aspects of graphics and presentation of the game.
They (willfully?) misunderstood the downplaying of the importance of technical abundance, as a general downplay of all the aspects of graphics and presentation of the game.
So "great" means "above-average xbox game"? None of those look as good as Factor 5 or Team Ninja games. Hell, NMH is visually pretty poor, everyone's just banking on Suda making a good game for once. And Swords is on rails, it had better look good.LanceStern said:
It shows they can make a game that would get a B+ for visuals on the xbox. I know people are trying to play the "there weren't any GC devs" card, but Nintendo still managed to release a visually-mediocre for last gen Excite Truck (and "getting used to the new controls" doesn't hold much water with that game).
I almost have to wonder if this is the result of where the Wii sits in comparison to the others. Factor 5 is talented and it required some effort to make the GC sing like they did, I'm sure. They were aiming to deliver some of the best visuals on the system. With a lot of a later XBOX titles, developers were doing the same thing. You had a lot of teams putting in a lot of effort to deliver top notch visuals that pushed the system. Nintendo themselves have stated time and again that the Wii is NOT about visuals, however. What's the point of pushing the system to its max when visuals aren't even a selling point? Just deliver something that look pleasing enough and be done with it. There is no way that a Wii game could compete, visually, with the best on 360 and PS3...so why even try (I know, that's pushing it).
I just can't see many Wii developers going into a project intent on pushing the system from a graphical standpoint when it will still appear rather dated next to other software on the market. I don't think we will see many Wii developers delivering games on par with the best XBOX titles. Heck, at least XBOX supported 720p. Games like Tony Hawk and Amped 2 looked fantastic at 720p and a lot of the simplistic Wii games should easily have been able to support it (Wii Sports at 720p should never have pushed the machine, for instance).
I'd say the larger disappointment here is the fact that framerates are still not where they should be. Games like Sonic Wii SHOULD BE 60 fps. No question. There are FAR too many sub-30 fps titles on the Wii and there is NO EXCUSE for it.
I just can't see many Wii developers going into a project intent on pushing the system from a graphical standpoint when it will still appear rather dated next to other software on the market. I don't think we will see many Wii developers delivering games on par with the best XBOX titles. Heck, at least XBOX supported 720p. Games like Tony Hawk and Amped 2 looked fantastic at 720p and a lot of the simplistic Wii games should easily have been able to support it (Wii Sports at 720p should never have pushed the machine, for instance).
I'd say the larger disappointment here is the fact that framerates are still not where they should be. Games like Sonic Wii SHOULD BE 60 fps. No question. There are FAR too many sub-30 fps titles on the Wii and there is NO EXCUSE for it.
Unbiased Basturd
Member
The simple excuse is that 30 fps locked is great for most people and making the effort for 60 fps won't really give you more sales. I totally disagree with this way of thinking but they are totally right nonetheless. It's a business.
* cries *
* cries *
dr3upmushroom
Banned
hate to agree...But yup, it's true... Sadly the Wii is DC 1.5 in terms of graphics...
dr3upmushroom said:
huh? I don't think anyone is particularly disagreeing with hatorade's post. Most of those trolls left sometime ago.
dark10x said:
Pretty much sums it up. There is no incentive to really put in an effort to pull off good graphics on wii. The ones that usually pull off great stuff are making 360/ps3 games and the I guess the wiimote hasn't exactly changed their minds. The thing with wiisports is that it showcase the wiimote for sports, which isn't what most of the teams outside of the ea studios etc. actually care about. In fact I would argue that the wiimote has done little to nothing to show the rest of the industry why making a game use the thing could be really cool. All that said of course money and pubs are always incentives and wii's graphics will get better over time. There's more to this, but I don't feel like writing it.
Someone is wearing rose colored glasses. Enhancing visuals and refining existing genres has been the focus of the industry for a very long time. If you really think developers weren't approaching SNES and Genesis games with such a mindset, you're out of YOUR mind.
How can you say Excite Truck looks mediocre even for a last gen game? I thought it looked great, like a good looking XBox game or something. I haven't played the final version, played the demo version of it back in last year, and I doubt the graphics got worse at least. And I didn't even see the best looking courses.No6 said:
The Wii breaks the natural cycle, though. With each generation, the hardware available was typically in line with everything else. There were machines with advantages in certain areas, but they were never a fully generation ahead. You were seeing similar results across the board. The PC wasn't as strong back then either (could hardly even handle a 60 fps side scroller in 1993).
The Wii is a full generation behind the other new consoles AND the PC. It's lagging behind the entire industry on that front despite offering something new in another area.
The DS actually stayed in tune with the natural handheld cycle (PSP broke that by skipping a generation). DS is to N64 as GBA was to SNES. In that case too, few developers are really focusing on visuals and even the best visuals on the system are certainly nothing to rave about. Wii is in a similar boat. You'll have your companies that push the system (just as you do with the DS), but I don't feel it will be the norm.
It does look mediocre for a last gen game, though. You have that generic shader water, a simplistic terrain engine with ugly objects throughout, average truck models, and an unstable framerate (with tearing). Nothing to write home about. Even on the GC front, I'd say stuff like F-Zero GX was far more visually pleasing than Excite Truck. Let's not even begin to compare it with stuff like Burnout Revenge (which smokes ET visually on PS2 even!).
Doom_Bringer
Banned
The Black Brad Pitt said:gamecube LAUNCH 2001
Wing Island 2007:
gamecube LAUNCH 2001:
Wing Island 2007:
PATHETIC
Absolutely ridiculous! WTF are thse developers doing??? BTW how much computing power would the waggle controls require?
You're right, I didn't know Nintendo contracted that one out. However, I still question whether a Nintendo-published title would be eligible for the "pants down" excuse, given that Monster Games' previous title was released in 2004.Linkup said:
It looks a lot like On Tour, which was decent looking but nothing special. Amped 2 was better looking technically.
I thought there was actually pretty much going on at once in the game, tons of trees, high speed, somewhat complex geometry (the changing part), and the water to me looks nice, and I didn't see framerate problems (the slowdown in the replays was just a slowmotion) or tearing.dark10x said:
Can't personally compare it to Burnouts (only seen it on videos, btw, Burnout 3 only has 2D trees?), but compared to F-Zero GX, I think they're pretty much equal. Well (hopefully) soon I'll get to play the damn game and see the final version myself (PAL release on the 16th).
Zoramon089
Banned
No6 said:
Comparing the two, Blur looks better than Amped 2 in my opinion. I just went to IGN and watch some vids, looked at the screens, and maybe it's all the visual effects a glow but Blur looks better and better than On Tour
dark10x said:
Uh I never said it wasn't the same case for 2d back in the day either. It sure as hell was true as it is today in 3d. I'm not saying any of this would stop me from playing games, but the industry is really starting to get squeezed well beyond what the 2D generation had. This is the 3rd itteration of 3d gaming and it's severly worse when we really only had 2 true itterations of 2d unless you want to count some of the ancient shit as a "generation" I suppose you could put Atari in there but the industry was in it's infancy, plenty of new genres showed up well beyond that time. My point is again sacraficing the thought of relying on all this power when you could come up with something wildly new and creative and use extremely basic graphics. I'm just waiting for the day some Indy group comes out with something the level of fun and Tetris was but it will be truely ground breaking.
_Alkaline_
Member
I do admit that developers aren't being serious enough (other than for games like Super Mario Galaxy and Metroid Prime 3 Corruption which look outstanding) but to me this interview was just HAY BUY PS3 BETTER THAN 360 LOL MONEYHATS LOL.
Dr. Kitty Muffins
Member
Well alot of the early Wii games are last gen multi platform ports and licensed games. Of course they aren't going to put much effort into them! The Wii exclusive titles are the ones in which you expect some effort put into.
TheIkariWarrior
Member
Doom_Bringer said:
the focus has shifted from graphics to gameplay. there's no time for graphics anymore.
with the next-gen Nintendo beyond Wii, i'm sure they'll add the graphics back in
seriously though, the Wii is capable of so much more than GameCube because of the ~3.5x increase in fast RAM alone.
OG_Original Gamer
Member
Excite obviously shows some lack in the benefits of having 64MBs of additional memory. It does look like its using alot fill-rate effects. I don't believe the engine is entirely Wii based.
Most titles are Cube ports, the engines are lackluster in effects and overall IQ. I think MP3:C has been given a major visual overhaul. Its probably safe to say, there will some shader based effects, not previously performed or in abundance on the Cube.
Two small developers seem to be making efforts, Godzilla(bump mapped snow), and Dewy(normal mapped boss). The big question for most tech heads. Does normal mapping need CPU assistance? Hopefully there's some form of vertex shading wedged in those extra transistors in Hollywood.
Most titles are Cube ports, the engines are lackluster in effects and overall IQ. I think MP3:C has been given a major visual overhaul. Its probably safe to say, there will some shader based effects, not previously performed or in abundance on the Cube.
Two small developers seem to be making efforts, Godzilla(bump mapped snow), and Dewy(normal mapped boss). The big question for most tech heads. Does normal mapping need CPU assistance? Hopefully there's some form of vertex shading wedged in those extra transistors in Hollywood.
That depends on the fixed function transform hardware on the Hollywood (same as Flipper?).OG_Original Gamer said:
Either way I think devs. would be better off focusing on getting good use out of the environment mapping bump mapping (EMBM) hardware instead. It's a much more flexible technique and I bet Hollywood is a lot better at it, since that's all we've been seeing so far in the few examples of bump mapping there have been.
It takes one more pass than normal mapping but isn't nearly as geometry intensive (if it has to be done on the CPU ).
It consumes a bit more fillrate, but Wii has lots of that for its resolution.
It's a shame really. I popped in a few really good looking GCN games and their visuals still really look great:
Starfox Adventures
FF:CC
F-zero
Rogue games
Soul Calibur
RE4
Those games look amazing, even a few years later. If more Wii games looked anywhere close as those, I don't think there'd be that much to bitch about.
Starfox Adventures
FF:CC
F-zero
Rogue games
Soul Calibur
RE4
Those games look amazing, even a few years later. If more Wii games looked anywhere close as those, I don't think there'd be that much to bitch about.
Squeak said:
Yes it's need the cpu to do assist but it's not as if Gecko/broadway wasn't built to aid in that area. EMBM applies to more than just bump mapping considering it's real title is indirect texturing.
Edit - EMBM is faster on the cube not slower and hardware was built for it.
On a totally unrelated note. I was watching the Turrican 2 'longplays' last night. I was surprised to see in the credits that Julian Eggebrecht was the producer. I didn't think he had anything to do with one of my favourite games of all time.
I respect this guy a little more now.
/derail
I respect this guy a little more now.
/derail
I rented Rebel Strike and I remember gawking at the graphics imagining how good a FPS would look using that engine.
Its a crying shame the GCN&Wii architecture is so untapped and it might be a few years yet before we see any decent progress. Hearing that Driver game is coming to Wii reminded me of a comment from that developer saying that the gamecube could technically not handle Driver! I mean wtf and now they are doing a cheap port to Wii to make money, pisses me off no end.
Its a crying shame the GCN&Wii architecture is so untapped and it might be a few years yet before we see any decent progress. Hearing that Driver game is coming to Wii reminded me of a comment from that developer saying that the gamecube could technically not handle Driver! I mean wtf and now they are doing a cheap port to Wii to make money, pisses me off no end.
AltogetherAndrews
Member
Martoo said:
From the sound of things, there's also a new Turrican underway
Jonnyboy117
Member
bigNman said:
I remember when 3DRealms said that GameCube didn't have enough RAM for Max Payne. Morons.
I expect we'll see Wii pushed quite a bit more than what we saw with GameCube... but it'll be mostly coming from Japanese dev houses. I don't see many AAA western studios really being all that interested when they can tackle PC/360/PS3 instead, where as in Japan Wii's looking like the clear favorite to replace PS2 as far as consoles. And PS2's biggest pushes came from Japan also...
Frenck said:
Apparently not.
Way to show how clueless you are about GC architecture. The PS2 useable ram for graphics was more than a dev would would ever get out of the small chunk of 24MB
offered to devs with the cube. Wanna keep debating what two pc devs have stated a ton of times about GC lack of ram devs go ahead, but I see no reason to doubt their wisdom considering what they have done in terms of graphics in games.
Jarrod if Wii takes off like it looks like it will these Devs will have no choice in terms $$$ as to where to take their titles.
Avutta1978
Member
This is ****ing ridiculous. I mean check these vids out. How can a gamecube game from 2001 look better than all the shit that is on the Wii at the moment. he is right sloppy bastards
http://youtube.com/watch?v=qFe6JrECIiE&mode=related&search=
http://youtube.com/watch?v=Mph0QnTQLNE
http://youtube.com/watch?v=qFe6JrECIiE&mode=related&search=
http://youtube.com/watch?v=Mph0QnTQLNE
@ Hatorade
First off, I don't care about PC devs, just look at Gabe Newell's first comments on the X360/PS3 CPU architecture.
I'd rather trust a console dev like Factor 5.
If Rebel Strike is possible on Gamecube Max Payne shouldn't be a problem either, but the devs were probably to sloppy or lazy to spend some time with the Gamecube.
First off, I don't care about PC devs, just look at Gabe Newell's first comments on the X360/PS3 CPU architecture.
I'd rather trust a console dev like Factor 5.
If Rebel Strike is possible on Gamecube Max Payne shouldn't be a problem either, but the devs were probably to sloppy or lazy to spend some time with the Gamecube.
AndoCalrissian
Member
The level of graphic quality that Factor 5 pulled off on Cube is just amazing. They need to make a middleware engine for Wii, no doubt about it. Get on it, Reggie.
Frenck said:
I could careless less what valve says about anything at this point after cs, their constant whining about consoles, and how they deal with disruptive types that use steam I don't trust them no matter how good HL maybe.
You're right Max Payne would be possible on cube but not as is it would have to be redone, which from I know 3d realms said it wasn't going to do which I mentioned originally. You're completely correct in your assumption about the devs being lazy, but then again something like that should bolster Julian's point even more so.
Smiles and Cries
Member
poor Wing Island... its getting a beating in here