MaxwellGT2000 said: MontanaHatchet said: Ahh damn, I thought you weren't pulling a double sarcasm. I am disappointed. Well, I'm just mad that High Voltage made a lot of bad games and then has the nerve to call out other developers. They should at least prove themselves first before being cocky. Normally I agree, but lots of the claims over the years have been pretty obvious that they're false and well SOMEONE had to say it might as well be someone that has shown what the hardware can do.  And hey man everyone starts out somewhere, Blizzard started out making pretty poor games until they made a couple that took off, Guerilla Games had almost the EXACT same track record of making terrible games until they made Shellshock Nam, was then bought by Sony, and now makes Killzone.

Whoa whoa whoa.  When did Blizzard make a bad game?  They ported some edutainment, but I don't think they've ever made a bad original IP.  I didn't like Warcraft 3 or World of Warcraft, but I definitely wouldn't call those bad.  They made some of my favorite SNES games, like Blackthorne, The Lost Vikings, and Rock 'n' Roll Racing.

MaxwellGT2000 said: MontanaHatchet said: Ahh damn, I thought you weren't pulling a double sarcasm. I am disappointed. Well, I'm just mad that High Voltage made a lot of bad games and then has the nerve to call out other developers. They should at least prove themselves first before being cocky. Normally I agree, but lots of the claims over the years have been pretty obvious that they're false and well SOMEONE had to say it might as well be someone that has shown what the hardware can do.  And hey man everyone starts out somewhere, Blizzard started out making pretty poor games until they made a couple that took off, Guerilla Games had almost the EXACT same track record of making terrible games until they made Shellshock Nam, was then bought by Sony, and now makes Killzone.

I agree Maxwell, I don't see them as cocky. They called out the larger third parties for saying the Wii isn't capable of graphical feats that are built into the hardware. Even if the Conduit turns out to be trash, they've still proved themselves from a technical standpoint. The simple fact of the matter is that third parties never learned the Gamecube hardware so they continually make themselves look foolish with the Wii.

Rogue Squadron 2 was Gamecube launch title it featured bump mapping, shaders, pretty much every effect the Flipper was capable of and it had a short development cycle. For third parties to claim that the Wii can't do things that the weaker Gamecube could do is laughable. Lucasarts wanted Factor 5 to port Rogue Squadron 2 and 3 to Xbox and they couldn't get it up in running because Xbox was incapable of running game at the same quality.

The Gamecube and X-box were more or less equal, so it goes with out saying that the Wii is more poweful than the Xbox. The Gamecube had the superior CPU, faster RAM, and a GPU with better lighting and texturing capability. The X-box had nearly 50% more RAM, a GPU with more raw power, and hard drive to cache to. The Wii has nearly 50% more RAM than the X-box, a far superior CPU, faster RAM, and a GPU with a higher fillrate/better lighting/better texturing. The X-box has two advanatages over the Wii though. It has a hard drive to cache to and it can output video in HD.

The Ghost of RubangB said: Whoa whoa whoa.  When did Blizzard make a bad game?  They ported some edutainment, but I don't think they've ever made a bad original IP.  I didn't like Warcraft 3 or World of Warcraft, but I definitely wouldn't call those bad.  They made some of my favorite SNES games, like Blackthorne, The Lost Vikings, and Rock 'n' Roll Racing.

 

On the same token, you can also ask when did HVS make a bad game?   With few exceptions they mostly made other peoples IP under budget contracts.  This is one of their few original games.

killeryoshis said: I just want to see how much the wii can handle on graphics and what's the best. I hope the conduit proves that FPS is not just for the PC

Are you also hoping that is proves that online play is not just for RTS games? You realize that this was proved conclusively in N64 days by GoldenEye, and you can refer to current heavyweights Halo/CoD for further proof. Or do you mean you hope it proves FPS are not just for systems with cutting edge graphics?

I can let you all in on a BIG secret...

The *real* reason that games tend to suck graphically on the Wii is...
...
...
...the hardware is actually quite complex & tricky to program, especially with respect to getting the most out the hardware...


Anyone goes around saying the Wii is simple to develop for and underpowered is speaking a load of bull$hit.

...and the reason I know this? Well, I'm slowly diving further into the depths of the Wii architecture/hardware every day now. And its a lot closer to the PS3 in architecture than it is to the 360...

Its *very* different

Honestly, I think High Voltage software's work on the Wii is an interesting contrast to Factor 5 and Free Radical Designs work on the PS3 ...

On one hand you have two established developers with a proven track record of developing high quality games who followed conventional "wisdom" and produced big budget blockbusters for the PS3; the scope of the project was too large, their timeline and budget were blown, and the quality and sales of the game suffered which resulted in the companies (essentially) going out of business.

On the other hand you have a tiny unknown developer who has mostly been focused on developing extremely low budget games on very tight timelines, who goes against conventional "Wisdom" and produces a more technically advanced "Core" game for the Wii. The overall result seems to be a game that is of decent quality and will most likely turn a profit; and more importantly for High Voltage (I would expect) it has given them the opportunity move themself out of the basment of the industry.

 

Now, as far as the Wii being "Underpowered" ...

A large portion of gamers still have very fond memories of (and some still continue to play) games from the Atari, NES, SNES, Genesis, Playstation, Saturn, N64, PS2, Gamecube and XBox along with many PC and Arcade games from the past 25 years. The Wii contains advanced enough hardware that it can duplicate and improve-upon any of these games and all it really takes is quality developers putting a solid effort into it.

Most people who complain about the Wii being "Underpowered" represent marketing for a company (who don't know how to sell a game without ever improving visuals) and people who develop the middleware that makes it possible to push new hardware to its limits. Most developers want an interesting product to work on and they don't (really) care that much whether they are developing for an iPhone, Nintendo DS or PSP or if they're targeting hardware that won't be on the market for a couple of years ... Certainly there is some value to producing advanced visuals, but there is also some value on developing advanced controlls.

The Wii was, and is always going to be behind the 360/PS3 - purely because of the lower resolution. There is no getting around this. But its an intentional decision on Nintendo's behalf, to trade off cost for fidelity (its no different from the comparison of a cheap DVD player/DVD vrs BluRay player/BluRay discs).

But the problem isn't the good looking Wii titles - its the shovelware at the bottom end of the market. And thats simply a marketing/business decision, and the nature of the market.

The most successful console was always going to have more 'casuals', which leads to more titles focused on casual gameplay - and less on graphics.

There isn't anything Nintendo can do about this - other than actually enforce some quality standards. I'm not *exactly* sure why they don't do this, but given their long-time reputation being crap to deal with re: 3rd-party developers - I'm sure they will take as many titles on their console(s) as possible. Quantity beats quality in the long run (as every console in history has shown).

shams said: The Wii was, and is always going to be behind the 360/PS3 - purely because of the lower resolution. There is no getting around this. But its an intentional decision on Nintendo's behalf, to trade off cost for fidelity (its no different from the comparison of a cheap DVD player/DVD vrs BluRay player/BluRay discs). But the problem isn't the good looking Wii titles - its the shovelware at the bottom end of the market. And thats simply a marketing/business decision, and the nature of the market. The most successful console was always going to have more 'casuals', which leads to more titles focused on casual gameplay - and less on graphics. There isn't anything Nintendo can do about this - other than actually enforce some quality standards. I'm not *exactly* sure why they don't do this, but given their long-time reputation being crap to deal with re: 3rd-party developers - I'm sure they will take as many titles on their console(s) as possible. Quantity beats quality in the long run (as every console in history has shown).

They already do (almost) everything they can do to limit "poor quality" titles on the Wii by limiting the number of developers on their system and forcing "Quality Control" (as in your game doesn't crash, not your game is "AAA") on all developers.

The problem is that quality is highly subjective, and while people would like games like "Barbie's Horse Adventures" to be prevented from being developed there is a market for the game and it isn't in Nintendo's best interest (due to licencing fees) to prevent any game from being released to market that functions well and sells.

HappySqurriel said: shams said: The Wii was, and is always going to be behind the 360/PS3 - purely because of the lower resolution. There is no getting around this. But its an intentional decision on Nintendo's behalf, to trade off cost for fidelity (its no different from the comparison of a cheap DVD player/DVD vrs BluRay player/BluRay discs). But the problem isn't the good looking Wii titles - its the shovelware at the bottom end of the market. And thats simply a marketing/business decision, and the nature of the market. The most successful console was always going to have more 'casuals', which leads to more titles focused on casual gameplay - and less on graphics. There isn't anything Nintendo can do about this - other than actually enforce some quality standards. I'm not *exactly* sure why they don't do this, but given their long-time reputation being crap to deal with re: 3rd-party developers - I'm sure they will take as many titles on their console(s) as possible. Quantity beats quality in the long run (as every console in history has shown). They already do (almost) everything they can do to limit "poor quality" titles on the Wii by limiting the number of developers on their system and forcing "Quality Control" (as in your game doesn't crash, not your game is "AAA") on all developers. The problem is that quality is highly subjective, and while people would like games like "Barbie's Horse Adventures" to be prevented from being developed there is a market for the game and it isn't in Nintendo's best interest (due to licencing fees) to prevent any game from being released to market that functions well and sells.

Nintendo limits the amount of games devs can come out with in a certain timeframe.

The Conduit is the best looking Wii game of all time