We know the Wii's meant for innovation and not visual splendor. But why are the games looking barely above GameCube level? We've examined the system's under-performing visuals and what can be done to fix the Wii's little problem.
When a console's best-looking game is the same as it's predecessor, you've defined mediocrity.
Resident Evil 4. Metroid Prime 3. Super Mario Galaxy. Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles.
If you ask around for good-looking Wii games, those are the four that keep coming up. It's been almost a year since the system's launch, and yet, the only really Wii games that hold up graphically in this day and age are two titles from Nintendo themselves, and one GameCube remake from Capcom.
Not very surprising, considering most developers probably have enough trouble figuring out how to implement the Wii remote in their games.
However, for a system that people call a buffed-up GameCube and just a "little more powerful" than the original Xbox, the Wii certainly seems to be able to do a lot more than the GameCube could.
THE PROOF
Earlier this year, courtesy of IGN, we learned that Factor 5's (Rogue Squadron, Rebel Strike, Lair) president Julian Eggebrecht was extremely surprised by the lack of developers who have managed to take advantage of the Wii's hardware.
Resident Evil 4 was a beautiful GCN title. Rogue Squadron was doing things at launch that developers still haven't done on Wii. Why do you think that is? Are studios getting sloppy on Wii?
Julian:
Yes. I'm so disappointed knowing exactly what the Wii can do -- and I still think nobody knows it better than we (no pun intended) [laughs]. I really have to say, boy, am I disappointed!
They all have finally figured out, five years into the hardware's life cycle, how to do at least basic shaders and a rim light, but that's what everybody does. But I still don't see enough bump and normal-mapping, if any. I still don't see enough post effects, although you would have insane fill-rates with Wii. I don't see any of that. I was digging out Rebel Strike the other day and was looking at it, and we had some people who were visiting ask, "Why isn't anybody else doing this on Wii?" And I am at a loss. I really am.
Then, along came Konami saying that they were indeed doing normal-mapping on the Wii. This was even confirmed later in an interview with IGN about Dewy's Adventure.
IGN Wii: This may be the first game that we have seen with normal mapping. We weren't really sure if the Wii supported it.Mukaitoge: Really? We used normal mapping for some of the bosses in the game. If you look closely at the trailer, you can see normal mapping on the boss character at the end.
Finally, you have Metroid Prime 3's director Marc Pacini revealing to Play what Retro could do on the Wii that the it couldn't on the GameCube:
Play: Okay, gotcha! So moving on to the visual side of things, I was wondering if you could talk a bit about how developing for the Wii is different from developing for the GameCube.
MP: Well, our production pipeline was similar, so it was a lot faster for us to get up and running on the game hardware, which was great. But we were also able to make a great deal of enhancements to the game world. There's more polygons, higher-res textures, bloom lightinga lot of graphical enhancements that we were able to make on the Wii that we couldn't do on the GameCube.
If you hadn't read these quotes in the past, I'm pretty sure you're baffled as to why more developers aren't taking advantage of the Wii's graphical hardware. On one occasion, ATI themselves have stated that the Wii's video card is capable of more than people suspect.
Far Cry 360 + Layer of Vaseline= Far Cry Wii
WHAT CAN BE DONE?
Why then, have we not seen this graphical prowess demonstrated in any Wii games released up until this point? Could it be that, unlike the 360 and PS3, the Wii doesn't enjoy the benefits of a standard engine on which excellent-looking games can be made? Everyone still says Gearbox Software has modified (read: dumbed down) Unreal Engine 3 to work on the Wii, but I'm not sure if that will work nearly as well as people hope.
Perhaps it's time for a studio to start developing a Wii engine that they could license out to other developers? It's certainly a smart move from a business standpoint. Just a couple of weeks ago, a friend and I were discussing the probability of id's "megatexturing" technology working on the Wii. John Carmack has already confirmed that Tech5 wouldn't run on the Wii's hardware, but that doesn't mean a customized Wii engine that uses megatextures isn't doable. As far as I know, the only reason megatexturing wouldn't work on the Wii is due to the lack of a hard drive, because the technology requires a fast-streaming media format, and I'm not sure if DVDs are up to scratch. SD cards almost certainly aren't.
As for shaders, the reasons for that are obvious. The Xbox used DirectX, which is why shaders were easy to implement. On the Wii, however, developers would need to write code for shaders from scratch as there is currently no middleware that supports them.
WHO CAN DO IT?
Still, if there's anyone who can really take advantage of the Wii's hardware, it's Carmack. What with id's experience with OpenGL shaders, you think he'd already have done it. He isn't the only one, though. As Capcom have proven, they are more than capable of churning out good-looking Wii games, even if they run on GameCube technology. There have also been rumours flying around lately that Factor 5 has finally decided to work on a Wii game as well. Whether or not they will run on their GameCube engine is unknown. Square Enix is, of course, a given. However, apart from Crystal Chronicles: The Crystal Bearers, the studio has yet to show off anything visually impressive on the Wii.
And then there's Nintendo themselves. Although they chances of it happening are low, the company would most definitely benefit from licensing out their own engines to various third-party developers. Studios like EA and Ubisoft who are really pushing the Wii, but have still not managed to create any awe-inspiring graphics on the system would surely be able to take advantage of a custom engine built for the Wii's hardware.
Hopefully, someone will be able to pinpoint the exact problem and come up with a solution for it. Innovation is excellent in my opinion, but regardless of what anyone says, presentation does matter.
http://www.games.net/blog/32453/why-do-wii-games-look-like-crap/
