Given the fact that my last job allowed me to rent a nigh-immeasurable number of Wii games for free, I've had a fair amount of experience with the system. And while I still like my Wii -- without it, I would have never known the pleasures of actually winning a boxing match -- it has to be said that the Wiimote, and its interaction with the television, needs (at least) two major upgrades.
Both of these complaints are directly related to control for FPS games. Granted, there's about a million complaints anybody could have with the Wiimote (speaker is of crappy quality, you're required to be far too close to the sensor bar, etc), but I've chosen to focus on these if only because their faults render the two main Wii FPS games (Red Steel and Far Cry) almost unplayable.
Are you a bad enough dude to withstand potentially redundant criticisms and angry (but mostly irrelevant) rantings?
If so, hit the jump.
1. Give us a gun mod, right now.
Remember when you first heard about the Wiimote's versatility? What were the first two things you thought of? Perverts and sissies aside, it's probably a reasonable guess that you wanted a sword fighting game and a really good gunplay game. While neither have been delivered to us yet, the Wiimote (in its current state) is at least adequately capable of recreating the experience of holding a sword.
It is not, however, even remotely capable of recreating the feel of a gun in one's hand.
The importance of some sort of gun peripheral is not only aesthetic -- it feels more fun to hold a gun than a remote -- but directly related to gameplay longevity. To put it simply: holding the Wii controller like a remote throws off your aim. When you play a light gun game, you aim down the barrel of your gun and, and you therefore have a definite idea of where your shot is going to hit. When you aim the Wiimote, you have nothing to aim down other than your own arm, or the Wiimote itself (which cannot be counted on for accurate shot placement, as the next section will describe).
Additionally, it's pretty rare that one's wrist will become tired from playing a traditional light gun game, but this is not the case when holding the controller like a remote. The grip is unnatural, unintuitive, and, in the end, can begin to make your wrist hurt a bit. This may sound like a pansyass complaint, but imagine if you played a Wii FPS as much as you played Halo: we're talking about bending your wrist in an unnatural way for hours at a time. If FPS games ever become really popular on the Wii (and they should, given their potential on the system), this problem will have to be addressed. One just hopes it'd be sooner, rather than later.
2. Let ME calibrate the pointer position.
The second (and, in my opinion, biggest) problem with the Wiimote is that it constantly assumes that the sensor bar is perfectly positioned in relation to your TV. This might make sense if the sensor bar was actually interpreting the Wiimote's actions instead of just acting as a random conduit for them.
What results is an almost universal inability for any Wii system to adequately determine when you are truly pointing your Wiimote at the center of the screen. I've played several different Wii systems on several different televisions, all with the same result: depending on exactly where your sensor bar is placed, the Wii cursor can be anywhere from a couple of inches to an entire foot off the mark.
And yet, we're only given two options to even minutely affect this problem: we get to tell the Wii whether the bar is ABOVE the TV, or BELOW it. This is sort of useful, but not really: since your Wii has no idea how large your TV is, it remains completely incapable of determining exactly WHERE the center of your TV is. Often times, I've found that the only way I could get my Wiimote cursor to appear in the dead center of the screen was by pointing my Wiimote directly at the sensor bar, which more or less completely defeats the purpose.
When I play an FPS, I want to be able to look down my Wiimote and see that my crosshairs are exactly where I'm pointing it. I want my movements to be perfectly mimicked by the onscreen cursor: arcade-style light gun games do this effortlessly, so why can't the Wii?Hell, the goddamned Super Scope allowed you to manually calibrate your cursor to the center of your screen. There's literally no excuse for why the Wii can't do this.
It is an ENORMOUS problem which prevents literally all FPS games from reaching their fully realized, totally immersive potential, not to mention all of the other pointer-reliant games like Wario Ware or Super Mario Galaxy.
The real question, though, is whether or not it's even possible to fix this problem. It seems ingrained in the system hardware, and given Nintendo's sluggishness in releasing Wii updates through WiiConnect24, I can't imagine this problem getting fixed anytime in the near future.
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Agree? Disagree? Am I insane, or a Nintendo hater? Hit the comments.
Contest:
7:07 PM on 02.13.2007
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I'M BAD
Unlike a light gun, where you point your remote at on the screen is NOT where the cursor of the remote will be. With light guns, if you want to shoot a specific spot on the screen, you point the gun at that point on the screen and it registers there.
Because the Wii remote isn't a lightgun, but operates off of the two IR lights, the point you're aiming at (if you had a light gun attatchment) wouldn't be where the shot will register. This is why you haven't seen and probably won't see a lightgun attatchment. Other than for the feel, it has no point.
Is this a good thing? No, I would prefer it like the old lightgun way, but its not a lightgun and it will never be.
How it works right now is that you naturally point on the screen randomly, then adjut your aim according to where you were aiming just prior. Rinse, repeat.
But overall, good post.
However, I think that, the more you play it, the better the control will feel...Using this time of control for games is very new for everyone, so even though people have different ideas of how it should be, we can eventually get used to it. For example, I find that traditional mouse and keyboard control to be HORRIBLE, but mostly because I've never played those type of games....the more I practiced it, the better it became.
Point being, I completely agree that the controls could be better, but as developers get better at finding out what works, and as we get more used to the idea of not having the pointer be EXACTLY where we point, the problem will become moot.
(My 2 cents)
But, because of it's similarity with a mouse and my PC FPS experience I found Red Steel completely playable. It was awkward for the first 30 minutes due to the different motion you used for a Wiimote compared to a mouse, but after that learning curve, I was actually really surprised at how the game worked. I had no idea that after reading the reviews I could turn a corner, have a guy pop out and give him one shot in the head and have him fall down, purely on reflexes with no aiming time required.
So really, the whole "I wish it pointed like a real gun" is a valid argument, as that is how the Wii was advertised to us but I believe that the argument "It's impossible to use as a gun" is completely false. I'm sure if some computer company just came out with a mouse for use with PC FPS (assuming we had never used mice before) people would think it was awkward to use, but it's just something you have to get adjusted to and train your brain to know just how far to move your arm to make that clean shot. People need to just give Red Steel some time, get over the first hour and get on to playing it.
Sexy that up a bit and release it Nintendo!
My issue with the controller? Less "shake the wiimote/nunchuck," more "slice upward to pwnz0r your foe, then follow up with a nunchuck to the side of his head."
"Darn you Nintendo for not having something every other day to download!"
And didn't people say that Metroid Prime 3: Corruption played like a DREAM? Didn't they say they ironed out just about all the kinks and it was a breeze to play...like how you hoped a FPS would play with the Wiimote?
I am not anxious for it...just fine tune and release MP3!
i was really excited for FPS games on the Wii, and i thought they were gonna be tops. however, after Call of Duty 3 i am in "believe it when i see it" mode.
You just don't do it via a menu on the Wii.
You calibrate the wii with the sensor bar position and your position in relation to it. The Wiimote is incredibly accurate if you make sure you are in the area it's designed for. Yes, this is a limitation of the Wii-mote, no question. But it's not impossible to get great results. I played CoD3 all the way through on the wii and it was fantastic. I had a friend over and made sure he was sitting in the right spot, showed him how to use it correctly and let him fly. He couldn't believe how accurate it was. He was blown away and wouldn't leave for hours.
Don't get me wrong, Red Steel has some serious issues but Far Cry should not EVER be used to judge the capability of the Wii-mote. Doing that is like saying the 360 controller sucks after playing sonic the hedgehog. Anyway, the wii-mote has some problems but accuracy is not one of them. You just have to know how to use it. I honestly went back to dual analog and it really felt shitty in comparison. I just hope devs can put out some more games that use it correctly like CoD3 and Excite Truck. Those games are fantastic demonstrations of the Wii capability.
As for a light gun, I have the guncon setup for my PS2 and its fun but unlike the wii-mote which you can easily aim from your lap, you actually have to hold a lightgun at eye level to aim. People bitched about the wii because it would make your arm tired. well, it doesn't if you rest your forarms on your legs/knees. The guncon however easily makes you sore within an hour or so of playing. I know, I've played time crisis3 all the way through and its murder.
As for the cursor position, I've personally had no problems. Manual calibration would be nice, though, just in case.
No one died after all this. Praise the reverend.
With Red Steel I just turn the sensitivity all the way up, and with COD3 I just turn dynamic aiming off and it worked beautifully. It was an adjustment but so was the first time I played an FPS with a keyboard and mouse after years of using a controller and now it's second nature.In Zelda aiming with the bow is a super sweet experience.Nothing as good on any other console.
My only complaint about aiming is when you have your Wiimote away from the screen and you have to bring it back.
Zelda prooved to me that the technology works,now more devs need to just work on adjustment an calibration so everyone can find their own sweet spot. As for fatigue,I put 80+ hours into Zleda and never noticed it playing for hours at a time.
I'm inclined to think the problem lies on the user end, not the concept of the controller.
Is it a high learning curve? A concept that's hard to grasp? Or is it just that since games like Red Steel and Farcry have done such a mediocre job, we're actually attributing to controller design what is better attributed to a developer's poor judgment/lethargy?
I'm not saying that in the end we'll all like playing FPSs on the Wii, or that it is better than good ol' sticks. I'm saying that to say it is abysmal is wrong, since many people like it. However, to say it works perfectly is wrong, since many people don't.
That said, I DO believe that times where it seems that the controller is "unresponsive" are in fact user error where you are just not performing the correct action or not doing it properly.
I guess the Destructoid editors are just waiting for someone else to write an article so they can just paraphrase it.
And The Brain, you sit 3feet from a tv at knee level and you complain about the sensor not working properly? Did you read the instructions at all?
Back on topic I think it is entirely possible to become used to the way a wiimote behaves, however it is a critical flaw that the system only uses the two IR points to judge positioning. I would gladly duct-tape sensors to my TV in order to have more accurate aiming.
Anyways. As somebody mentioned, the aiming with the bow in Zelda was a dream compared to aiming in Red Steel. Right now I think its like 70% developer error, 10% user error (or inability to try something different), and 20% just the remote not working properly.
Its a new kind of controller. Nobody is truly used to it yet, especially for FPS'. Was the control great in Red Steel? No, it sucked ass. Was it better in Call of Duty after you changed the controller options? Hell yes, it felt much much better. Do I think companies will have better aiming systems and more options for calibration in future games? Yes.
Give it time. Its not a lightgun, so don't expect it to act like one. If not being able to shoot right where you're pointing really annoys you, you'll always be disappointed.
That said, the controller is not perfect, and WAS falsly advertised in those fucking red steel commercials.
Fuck red steel. I can't believe how well it sold...
However, that such an obvious calibration tool is missing from Nintendo's own lineup points to it likely being intentionally missing - they probably want people to 'think different' and get used to using the Wiimote in a more generic manner without the fuss of calibration. Time will tell if that's the right way to go, or like how Apple stuck to its guns about one button mice for the longest time.
I'd have to say that the firefight gameplay wasn't bad but repetitive and the story was nothing short of awful. My biggest problem with it is that I have to move the cursor to the edge of the screen to turn. I should be able to lock the cursor at the center and turn my whole viewing area. Still, I prefer the wiimote style of play to the regular gamepad but yeah it can always use some upgrades for the better.
wireless sensor bars have been around for quite some time. Google is your friend
But that doesn't mean it 'doesn't work'.
When playing Call of Duty 3 , I play from a seated position , placing the wiimote in the pit of my groin(just left of my knob(being lefthanded).This makes for steady aiming and tracking , and reduces tiredness .Then I move the aiming cursor more like a mouse . Its not a lightgun and just doesn't act like ome .I find this way works well for me .
I play very relaxed and with my elbow on the couch and just use little wrist movements.
1.no way to save GC saves to the SD card
2. no way to save GC saves to the internal memory
3. no way to use GC mem cards as internal wii storage or wii saves
4. the gamecube management system sucks. "move single file. are you sure you want to move file? yes. no really, are you absolutlely positive you want to do this? yes." for every single one of my fucking saves.
I recently put six 8 mb GC cards onto one 128 mb card (I have like 50 RE4 saves alone, at 8 blocks apiece) and let me tell you, doing it one by one is the biggest pain in the ass. it took me two and a half hours. I own a lot of gamecube games
I tried to transfer game saves of 4 wii games from one wii to another and none of them worked.
(Metal Slug, Wii Sports, Warioware, Elebits)
Yes I read the manual before, during, and after attempting this. There is no section titled "One Wii recognizes your memory card completely and another Wii will only recognize the photos". Also no section titled "You just can't backup your save game for some Wii games, we made it this way to fuck you, enjoy."
Isn't that the same procedure you would have done on the cube?
1 file at a time between memory cards?
Sure, I wish they would integrate the memory controllers but I'm guessing there are different controllers for GC cards than there are for the SD/flash.
I think the GC memory is just fine seeing as it works exactly like the GC did.
My complaint is that you can't automatically save your Wii games to the SD card, or run your VC titles from the SD card. Not integrating the GC memory makes sense from an architectural limit of the hardware, but not integrating the Wii system memory and the SD memory shoult not be difficult.
"When I play an FPS, I want to be able to look down my Wiimote and see that my crosshairs are exactly where I'm pointing it. I want my movements to be perfectly mimicked by the onscreen cursor: arcade-style light gun games do this effortlessly, so why can't the Wii?Hell, the goddamned Super Scope allowed you to manually calibrate your cursor to the center of your screen. There's literally no excuse for why the Wii can't do this."
Ha ha that is never going to happen. It is not a light gun and it never will be. Only prats from the ads do that...lol. The Wiimote is like a 3-D mouse it will never ever be a light gun.