Mark October 16, 2008
Although MyWiiNews.com seems to be loading OK in FireFox and Chrome, it appears that we’re experiencing a page load issue with Internet Explorer (perhaps it didn’t like my last post?) We’re working to resolve. Sorry for any inconvenience
Mark October 14, 2008
On November 11th, Krome Studios and LucasArts will be launching Star Wars The Clone Wars: Lightsaber Duels, and we’ll once again see how the Wii is truly different from other game consoles. Unlike Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, which was a modification of the PlayStation 2 title, Star Wars The Clone Wars: Lightsaber Duels is built from the ground up for the Wii. There’s a lot of speculation and debate over which will ultimately have the better graphics and storyline, but quite frankly, I really don’t care. I’m in it for the lightsaber action! That said, since the game has been built specifically for the Wii, there are high expectations for a fairly realistic lightsaber experience. More on that in a moment.
There will be ten playable characters, including Anakin Skywalker and General Grevious and the duels themselves will take players throughout locations like Tatooine and Teth. You will also be able to interact with the game enviornment, demolishing structures and throwing the broken pieces at your opponents. To add to the experience, you can also shell out for Thrustmaster’s Glow Sabers
Back to the lightsaber experience. According to LucasArts, in Lightsaber Duels you can “Wield your Wii Remote like a Lightsaber and experience first-hand the unique weapon of the Jedi knights with intuitive controls, so no matter what your gaming experience you can become a Lightsaber master.” Hmmm. OK, I’ll take their word for it - expectation set! Despite their promises, however, I have a concern about the wiimote motion sensitivity. Will we really be able to wave our wiimotes quickly as in a real duel, or will it be more akin to an old man practicing Tai Chi in the park? The other thing that I’m curious about is what happens when lightsabers clash in battle? On the screen they will stop, but the gamers will follow through on their motion. Despite my hopes, I’m not expecting miracles out of the gate, particularly since the game will not use the Wii MotionPlus that Nintendo announced in August. Seems that Nintendo didn’t bother to tell LucasArts ahead of time. Needless to say, LucasArts probably isn’t too happy about not being able to integrate the MotionPlus 1:1 motion into the game initially.
Here’s the official LucasArts trailer to wet your appetite:
Mark October 13, 2008
Here’s the latest James Bond: Quantum of Solace trailer which
Activision/Blizzard released today. Available in the U.S. for the
Wii on November 4th. Looks pretty cool!
Mark October 12, 2008
John Davidson over at WhatWePlay.com broke the latest Wii rumor story last week: a Wii 2.0 HD console is in the works.
“High definition visuals are assured, as is a greater emphasis on digitally distributed and backwardly compatible content, indicating that the new system will feature some form of local storage medium such as a hard drive or large flash memory solution. It has also been indicated that Nintendo’s emphasis is again on what the consumer will hold in their hands and interact with, rather than the “console” itself.”
This ain’t no “pretty it up a little and they’ll buy it” approach, either. Nintendo is spending some serious money in research & development.
“Based on figures from Nintendo’s annual financial reports, the company is currently spending more than ten times as much on research and development as it was five years ago, and since the Wii was launched in 2006, R&D spending has more than tripled. While this could be attributed to any number of additional projects, the level of spending suggests that a large project is in the works. In 2003, Nintendo declared that $34 million was spent on R&D. This figure steadily climbed to $103 million in 2006 (the year that the Wii launched) and the following year bumped dramatically to $370 million.”
The 3 way dogfight with Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony will only continue to push R&D spending over the coming years. At this rate, our current consoles will be compared to Pong in 10-15 years…
Mark October 10, 2008
Brett Elston of gamesradar.com has an interesting post on “The Ever Changing Sizes of Mario and Bowser”, showing how the characters have evolved over the years.
“If you study the duo’s evolution over the course
of 23 years, it’s just plain funny how much Bowser
has shifted sizes, from roughly comparable to
Mario to Godzilla-sized beast of fury.”
Could this be the start of a Super Mario ‘roids scandal? Fun stuff. Check it out!
