This is a pet peeve of mine. You should really replace the term "graphics" with the term "game engine".

What you want is a good quality game engine to produce good fidelity on the art assets and an appropriate game world.

What you also want is good artistry in the game to make that world come to life.

So good art on a good engine should yield you great looking games.

One question I have to ask is: Does Nintendo offer their game engines for use by third party developers? If not, why the hell not? Sony does this, and so does Microsoft... So it should be a given that developers have access to a good basic game engine.

The Wii was actually a pimped gamecube, even Ninty admitted to it, thats why an article says the Wii was 2 gamecubes duct tape together, so 3rd parties that developed GC before knows the ins and outs of the Wii. The problem was they didnt pursue on pushing Wii's graphics even they knew its only a pimped GC.

 Are you talking to me?

I agree, Wii games should look at least as good as the top xbox games not worse than most ps2 games.

 Actually I think Nintendo usually make a game specific engine.... occasionally they willimprove upon an old engine for a games sequel (like LoZ:TP used the same basic engine as WIndwaker, but they stripped most of it down to change it)

The reason 3rd parties are not making an effort is that they are trying to use engines designed for PS2 on the Wii... hopefully the Wii will break out of this when people realise it's popularity is not going to wane suddenly, and therefore dvelopers will start making multi-purpose engines for it that can be loaned to companies.

Didn't you hear? A couple developers are already working on such engines. High Voltage has one that automatically gets effects and shading though the TEV, so developers don't have to write for them and can just focus on solid graphics.

The Conduit is already showing it off. Its textures are in relatively early stages, but trailers are already showing off effects on the level of Super Mario Galaxy and Metroid Prime 3. 

yeah, there are developers using a specific engine just for the Wii like High Voltage so theres no excuse for developers/publishers to optimized the Wii's graphics capability.

Ugh, this thread is awash with half-assed delivery of ideas and some of the worst grammar I've yet seen. Some of you need to reread your replies before you hit the "post" button. Damn.



As per the Wii's graphical capabilities. Super Mario Galaxy showed that there are tons of lighting and shadow effects that the Wii can handle. There's no exucse for developers not being able to strive for similar quality. We're at a point now where all shadows should be real-time and not just some stupid black circle under a character.

God of War showed what kind of immense graphical quality the PS2 was capable of pulling off, and that was the weakest of the last generation. The GameCube was substantially more powerful, graphically. The Wii is twice as powerful as the GameCube, so there's no excuse AT ALL for having lackluster graphical presentations in Wii games.

Thinks should look at least as good as, if not better than, Metroid Prime 1-3, Ninja Gaiden Black, Halo 1 & 2, God of War, Resident Evil 4, Eternal Darkness, Resident Evil Remake, Super Mario Galaxy, Super Smash Bros Brawl, The Conduit, Mad World, etc.

The minimum standard should be God of War.

My opening post was wrong then, there is more power on the Wii than I think it is, if the minimum standard was God of war then the Wii can have a somewhat similar 360/ps3 graphics without a HD graphics.

Uh, not quite. The Wii is vastly more capable than the PS2, but nowhere near the X360 or PS3.  The GameCube could handle more detailed textures and far more polygons than the PS2, and I believe there were some other advances--again, the PS2 was the weakling last time.  The Wii is a double-powered GameCube, essentially, and it can handle more complex physics, vastly more particle effects, more real-time lighting and shadows, and bloom lighting to name a few.  In theory, it's ever so slightly more powerful than the original Xbox which was the workhorse of the last generation.

So, some of the dissenters are somewhat right when they sell the Wii short in saying that it's "only got last-gen graphical capabilities."  However, Wii games should look at least as good as the best on the Xbox which--keep in mind--was killed off before any developer had pushed it to it's limits.  Even Halo 2 and Ninja Gaiden Black didn't push the Xbox to it's graphical limitations.  Just as, I'm quite sure, Super Mario Galaxy, Smash Bros Brawl, and Metroid Prime 3 didn't push the Wii to it's limits.

When talking about it's graphical capabilities, these are the things that we should no longer see in Wii games:

Flat circular shadows.
Blocky, low-poly characters.
Blurry, undetailed textures.
Flat surfaces (as it can handle degrees of bump mapping).
Loads of pop-up.

Wii games should now be showcasing:
Realtime lighting and shadows, as well as more dynamic light and shadows.
Bloom lighting where applicable.
Bump mapping.
Refractions through glass/water.
Smooth, high-poly characters.
Large, expansive areas without visible pop-up (clever artistry and programming can hide this as well).
Massive, detailed characters.
Intricate, detailed textures.
Particle effects, and glowing particles with real-time lighting (as can be seen in Metroid Prime 3).
Distance blur (where items/characters/etc that are closer are sharp in in focus, but background imagery, say, a building or characters in the distance, are blurred in much the way real cameras and eyesight works).

Some Wii games suffer from not having stark enough contrast.  Instead of stark black shadows, we're getting weird washed-out grey shadows.  There's not enough definition there.  I don't mean the shadows on the ground, I'm talking about the shadowing on a character (building/item/etc) that is generated by an in-game light source.  There's a washed-out "greyish" haze that seems to appear over some games that's a little unsettling.  Hopefully it'll be cleared up by the time said titles are released. 

Clever design can allow the Wii to handle even higher poly counts, better looking textures, and much more dynamic light and shadows.  No doubt, a black and white game like Mad World or Sadness can get away with a lot more unique graphical options since the engine doesn't have to churn out much in the way of color.  I recently viewed gameplay footage of Alone in the Dark supposedly running on the Wii and I felt that the light and shadows and such looked pretty good.  AitD will often feature fairly small areas--render-wise--because everything is surrounded by thick darkness. 

In my view, God of War was the game that pushed the PS2 to it's graphical limitations, and knowing that the Wii is twice as powerful as a GameCube, and that the GameCube was already fairly superior to the PS2, then I think no game should be "less" than God of War in terms of graphical quality on the Wii.  There's just no excuse for it.

Also, just because the Wii can't support 1080i or that high definition stuff doesn't mean it's totally last-gen analog crap.  It can output to 480i (as I recall) meaning that, while not quite as good as it's big brothers (X360, PS3), it is made to be able to offer some advantages on a High-Def TV.  It's just not high-def enough (or "as much" if you like), that's all.  It's entirely possible that a firmware update on the Wii may allow it to go one level higher than 480i, but I don't think it could handle more than that--and it would be a similar upgrade to the 1080i that the Xbox360 offers--essentially "stretching" the image to work "better" for a 1080i display.  The Xbox360, per my understanding, doesn't actually output graphics in true 1080i.  The PS3 does, but only a handful of the games actually use it.  The HD stuff is, overall, somewhat underused and is hyped more than it realistically should be.  There are still an awful lot of people playing their PS3's and Xbox360's on non-HD television sets effectively making the HD capabilities a moot point in many cases.  Not all people with HDTV's are gamers, and not all gamers own HDTV's.