Why does Wii games look so bad?

[DarkNight_DS]

shams said:

I don't agree at all. I have several Wii games I think look fantastic, and a long way beyond GC gfx already. And I watched my mate play RE4 on the Wii - and it looks real ugly to my eyes (esp. compared to other titles I have been played).

Some examples:

- Sonic & Secret Rings: some truly mind-blowing gfx in the levels. Lovely textures, animations, lots of geometry, 60fps frame rate. Pity about the game :P

- Red Steel: crappy frame rate (in places), but excellent level design, lighting & textures (in places). The hangar level especially stood out to me (looked really awesome), and the dojo in Japan is mind-blowing. A real demonstration of what the Wii can do graphically. Pity the game and controls lacked polish.

- Rayman: it may have "cartoony" graphics, but they are crisp, well textured, well animated - and look great. Probably never really pushes the hardware, so its a hard one to argue.

- Harry Potter: even with the "odd" lighting model, the amount of geometry thrown into some of the scenes is very impressive. Looking down the grand staircase with all those animating portraits, characters, moving geometry - and no frame rate drop - looks very impressive. Same for wandering around the main banquet hall.

...

All in all, I have been pretty happy with "1st-gen" Wii titles. Now I'm just waiting for someone to marry polished Wiimote control with improved visuals (including extra effects), and a strong game design... and I'll be happy.

 

 I have 2 of the games you listed, Sonic and Rayman and have played Red Steel.  None of these games come close to some of the best work done on the cube sadly.  Factor 5 made some great looking games on the Wii, as did Rare, Capcom, Sega and Nintendo.  For example, look at F-Zero GC, Metroid Prime, Star Wars Rogue Squadron, Star Fox Adventures, Pikmin etc.  These games look great and while playing Wii games you may forget these games existed but they did and they do look much better.  Wii devs have been either lazy thus far when developing graphics or have been rushing etc to provide us what we have.  Sonic looks at best like a late GC game, Rayman looks like a run of the mill GC game.  Redsteel looks horrible compared to some of the better shooters on the GC.  

I realize better looking games are on the way and I'm not complaining but I will admit that something hasn't been right with some Wii games and visuals.  Metroid Prime 3 should look pretty damn good as the other 2 are still amazing looking so that will hopefully start a trend towards better looking games.