As Dale highlighted earlier this morning, LucasArts has no intention of attending this year's muted E3 summit, but that doesn't mean that good old Georgie blew his load with The Force Unleashed, and has nothing left to show. In fact, depending on one's console(s) of choice, the best may be yet to come.
Thanks to Venture Beat, we finally know what that lightsaber battle game is that's been shrouded in secrecy for so long: Star Wars: The Clone Wars -- Lightsaber Duels, an exclusive for the Wii. If your curiosity has been piqued, and you wonder just how well the game is suited for Nintendo's fabulous Wiimote, then you are going to want to pay close attention to Ken Fox's recent interview with IGN:
"We've tried to make the lightsaber control as intuitive and fun as possible. It's not a Lightsaber simulator, but when you swing your Wii remote left to right; your character does the same. You use the thumbstick on the nunchuck to move your character and swing the Wii remote to swing your Lightsaber. The buttons all do cool stuff like use the force, block and dodge, but the focus is really on putting the Wii remote in the players hand and saying 'This is your Lightsaber!'"
Continued after the jump:
"I wouldn't describe what we're doing as one-to-one in the way that you might picture, but we really tried to make it feel like you get to swing your Lightsaber 'manually'. In short, it feels like the most natural and convincing sword type experience I've had on the Wii. And on top of that, it not just a sword, it's a lightsaber."
Come on now, you weren't really expecting the Wiimote to be capable of completely mimicking actual (were there such a grand thing in real life!) lightsaber battles... right? Nonetheless, LucasArts promises the finished product to be the best use of the Wiimote to date. With multiplayer being a given, this might be the game that reminds fans that the Wii remains a viable source for Star Wars entertainment. Are you buying it?
[Via Venture Beat and IGN -- Thanks, Jonathan]
Contest:
12:50 PM on 06.19.2008
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Just wait until we get to the age of the holodeck! Who says you can't mix SW ans ST?
I kind of liked your first spelling of gestures more. Just visualize that sentence again for a moment. Betcha can't keep a straight face!
Until the hardware can support 1:1 online lightsaber duels, I'll make due with my ForceFX sabers.
Don't screw this up, don't screw this up, pleasepleasepleaseplease don't screw this up...>.<
But hey, I'm not a dev, and the app that runs on the mac isn't exactly official, so I may be missing something.
If there's actually a deep combat mechanic I'll be VERY surprised.
Translation: This will be a casual game for casual gamers.
Don't bring up pixeljunk monsters! I love that game. I juggle it in between Cod4 online, MGS4 single player & monsters co op.
Game design is all about creating the illusion of complex control through a very basic input device. The best racing games out there are still using the extremely basic left and right on the control pad to convey a feeling of advance road traction.
With the wiimote people seem to through all knowledge of how game design works out the window, the wiimote is more than capable of providing a fully immersive light sabre experience, it is all down to the developer and their understanding of human interface design. So of course it can work.
My guess is that this will end up working like the lightsaber duels in Star Wars Trilogy machine as there's no way the Wiimote can pull off precise movements similar to the ones in the movies.
You and me. Outside. One hour.
They should have set it in the original trilogy. Then, they could have easily replicated the half hearted jerking overhand swings that passed for swordplay with the original movies.
The Wiimote could easily handle those two moves - "Blind Woodsman chop", and "Waiting patiently for blind woodsman chop with saber held in air".