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Grampy on 09 September 2008
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Onyxmeth said:
Grampy said:

I was just over at Metacritic to checkout some current games especially multiplatform ones, expecting, of course to see how badly the critics were slamming the Wii version.

Maybe not! Some of the results surprised me.

Madden 09 - Xbox360 (85), PS3 (85), Wii (82) – Near Equality?

Tiger Woods 09 – Xbox 360 (84), PS3 (84), Wii (84) – Equality?

Guitar Hero Aerosmith  - Xbox 360 (70), PS3 (70), Wii (73) – WTF?

Star Wars Force Unleased – Xbox 360 [5 reviews] (71), PS3 [2 reviews] (70/56), Wii [1 review] (75) – Watch this space!

Is it possible that the Wii won’t always be the redheaded step child?

Or maybe those other games deserved their half-assed scores for being half-assed games?

This may not be you personally Grampy, but I see these two conflicting arguments constantly. One is that third party developers aren't trying on the Wii and the games suck, and then the second argument is that they're unfairly getting reviewed poorly. Make up your mind people. Either the games suck and the reviews are fair or the games or the reviews are unfair so stop complaining about bad third party developers.

I think you picked a very odd time to make this particular argument. I don't think anyone ever dismissed Madden, Tiger Woods or Guitar Hero as half assed games. They are have been very successful IPs on all platforms. There is no evidence that the Wii has any particular advantage on Guitar Hero but it has done well. The first time Madden and Tiger Woods have made a serious effort to build a version for the Wii with All Play, the scores and the sales show an immediate and dramatic increase.

I would say that this supports the argument that when developers quit shoveling poor quality ports to a platform that is fundamentally different and make versions for the platform from the ground up suddenly the competition is tighter on a more level playing field.

For example the critic from Cheat Code Central (not a particularly Wii biased site) said:

“By far the most exciting aspect of Tiger Woods 09 is the Wii-specific control. It's executed wonderfully and after playing with the Wii Remote, it's going to be hard to go back to the traditional analog-stick control schemes.”

“it's nice to see a game that really takes advantage of the system's capabilities and provides a genuinely immersive, satisfying control experience. The Wii Remote gives you an awesome amount of control over your swing and employs nearly one-to-one reflection on-screen of your actions with the remote (imagine what they'll be able to do with MotionPlus!)”

So I’m not trying to have a damn thing both ways. I think, these results support what a lot of us have been saying all along. If that point is apparently lost on you, I’m sure it will not be on game developers.