Post by The Chupster on Sept 14, 2008 6:41:10 GMT -5
Yeah, I know the game is out on multiple platforms, but I have it on the Wii, and trust me, it's a different game.
First off, I played the demo on the 360, so I know how the game should look and act. And let me tell you, this is a FAR inferior product from what gamers will be getting on the true next-gen consoles.
Let's start with the graphics. They suck. The textures are handled horribly; they're overprocessed and overcompressed, which isn't too noticeable when you're playing, but during cutscenes you'll want to rip your eyes out of the sockets and fling them at the TV. Seriously, they're that bad. These graphics are right on par with the original XBox, and I'm not even talking about top-notch XBox graphics- these are jaggy, bland, dull, lifeless textures stretched on low-poly models. They're not the worst you'll ever see (especially on the Wii), but they damn sure aren't anywhere near "good."
Add in that during the opening level, during cinematics, there aren't even textures at some points. I remember there's one little scene showing an aerial view of a battle on the Kashyyyk outpost you're trouncing. While the camera wheels around, you see some Imperial Walkers- ones made up of maybe 10 polygons- marching through green nothing. No swamp or water texture, just... green. It really makes you wonder how much they had to cut out just to get the game to fit on the Wii. At least Darth Vader looks good- he's about the only one, though.
We'll move on to the controls. Now, I know motion controls are all the rage with the Wii- hell, it's the only thing the system has going for it, other than Nintendo licenses. These motion controls are responsive enough most of the time, depending on how you play. If you're dashing from character to character and slashing them and moving on, you're fine. But if you're trying to use some of the more delicate Force powers- like Force Grab, which, let's face it, is the main reason this game is going to sell like hotcakes- you're find of screwed. It's difficult to get items thrown where you want them. Picking up items is no problem; look around till the item you want glows, then hit and hold the Z button. At this point you can use the stick to move the item around, but if you want it higher or lower, you have to tilt the nunchuck attachment up or down respectively, while you push the thumbstick in the direction you want to throw it, then release the button. It doesn't sound bad, but when you're surrounded by troops and you're trying to fling a massive wall at them to kill a bunch at once, you're going to get shot to shit while trying to manage all of the control that goes into it. Not to mention that it's easy to forget to point the stick in the direction you want it to go, which results in the item being slammed into the ground, sometimes right in front of you, knocking you back.
If you've had the pleasure of playing the 360 demo, you'll know that this isn't the case. With the 360, the controls are somehow more precise, and tossing anything where you want it is a snap.
Here's a quick rundown of the (rather complex) controls:
Remote-
B button/trigger- jump
Move remote left/right/up/down- slash in the direction moved
Move remote forward- lunging stab
A button- Force Dash
Twist remote towards yourself while holding A button- Block (completely useless)
Hold down A button + slash sideways- Lightsaber throw (not in the 360 version, that I know of)
D-Pad left or right- move camera left/right
D-Pad up (hold) + move nunchuck thumbstick- look around 1st person
Nunchuck-
C button- Force Lightning
Z button + stick- Force Grab
Move nunchuck forward- Force Push
Hold down A+Z and point nunchuck + remote down- Force Repel (can't remember the exact name, acts as a radial Force Push, knocking everyone back)
Hold down A+Z+C+B to charge, point nunchuck + remote down- Force Maelstrom (same as Force Repel, but adds a flurry of Force damage)
Not too horrible, but the weak control detection makes some moves a total ass pain.
Let's move on to the technology behind the title.
One of the main selling points of this game is the combination of the Euphoria engine, which allows for a combination of uncanned animation and realistic AI that will do what it can to survive in any given situation, and the DMM material engine. With Euphoria, Force Grab a guy and he'll reach out to anything he can and grab on, even another trooper, to try to save his own ass. Hurl them through the air and they'll do their best to grab on to whatever they hit to avoid falling. Better yet, they'll fall differently each time, using a combination of an internal skeleton and ragdoll physics. With DMM, materials in the game world act like their counterparts in real life, allowing wood to splinter, metal to bend, and glass to shatter like their real components, instead of items being made up of preset 'broken' bits that they fall into when broken in-game.
You won't see either of those here.
There are ragdoll physics, and that's pretty much it. Everything else is completely absent from the game.
Not to mention the completely absent AI. In the 360 demo, whoever you ran up against would try to team up against you, take cover, anything they could to get you. Oh, it wasn't effective, I mean, they aren't Jedis, but you get my point.
In the Wii version, they're just plain stupid. A few might take cover, but most charge headlong at you, regardless of how many guys you just Force Pushed off of a bridge. The only time it's even possible to die in this game is when you're completely surrounded and trying to Force Throw something you've Grabbed with any accuracy, and even then they'll have to have a cannon on their side, drilling you with rapid-fire. It's amazingly frustrating, because you can pretty much phone it in throughout most of the game, but run into a couple of autofiring cannons and your life bar will shoot down if you're not paying attention- which you won't be, because you've been trouncing assholes left and right without having to even glance at your lifebar. Sad, right?
Add in that your character doesn't even have the same stance. If you're wielding your lightsaber in the 360, your character holds his lightsaber (while idling, not during all attacks) backwards, with the blade pointing back past his elbow. In the Wii version, he just holds it like any other Jedi you've seen- and he seems to have osteoporosis, because he slumps his head forward far enough that he looks almost hunchbacked. And while he's not exactly ultra-muscular in the 360 version, this Wii guy is damn near anorexic. You almost expect him to go sit in a corner listening to the Sisters of Mercy while cutting himself.
Sound is decent. I'm guessing it's pretty much the same. The only complaint I really have is that the guy they got to do Darth Vader's voice can sound completely like him one moment and turn around and fuck it up the next, and that really kills some of the immersion factor. Not to geek it up, but it does.
Boss battles on the Wii are a mixed bag. They're much like their 360 brethren- beat on your opponent until a button-press minigame pops up, sometimes multiple times, like God of War. Only with the Wii, the "button presses" end up being either moving the remote in any direction or moving the nunchuck in any direction- so it's like the same, but with only 2 buttons. Getting into a Force battle with a boss brings up a minigame where you have to rotate your nunchuck to a certain angle and then press forward a certain number of times before your opponent does; getting into a locker saber duel does the same, but with the remote. It's pretty neat on the 360, but it utterly fails on the Wii, because you'd have to be damned near brain-dead to fail the 'button press' bits, while the rotating bits are easy but at the same time complicated by the fact that the Wii is so bad at detecting this that you'll half-turn your controller, only to watch the visualization of this on the screen whirl like a goddamn pinwheel at times, regardless of how you have the remote's sensitivity set.
My only real other complaint- and this one's weaker than the rest- is that it feels like I'm playing one of a zillion other platforming hack & slashes available on the Wii. The controls are just too similar to the likes of SoulCalibur Legends or Kung Fu Panda for me to really get that immersion factor that felt so natural on the 360 demo.
Overall, that's it- if you ONLY have a Wii and want to play this title, hey, go get it. But if you want the full experience- or actually want to, you know, have FUN- the precision controls offered by the PS3 or 360 versions are what you're going to want. The Wii version is nothing but a hyper-watered-down port with a couple of extra Force moves that do absolutely nothing to make up for the fact that you're playing an ugly-ass, horrible-playing port of an awesome, fun-as-hell, ass-kicking Star Wars game.
First off, I played the demo on the 360, so I know how the game should look and act. And let me tell you, this is a FAR inferior product from what gamers will be getting on the true next-gen consoles.
Let's start with the graphics. They suck. The textures are handled horribly; they're overprocessed and overcompressed, which isn't too noticeable when you're playing, but during cutscenes you'll want to rip your eyes out of the sockets and fling them at the TV. Seriously, they're that bad. These graphics are right on par with the original XBox, and I'm not even talking about top-notch XBox graphics- these are jaggy, bland, dull, lifeless textures stretched on low-poly models. They're not the worst you'll ever see (especially on the Wii), but they damn sure aren't anywhere near "good."
Add in that during the opening level, during cinematics, there aren't even textures at some points. I remember there's one little scene showing an aerial view of a battle on the Kashyyyk outpost you're trouncing. While the camera wheels around, you see some Imperial Walkers- ones made up of maybe 10 polygons- marching through green nothing. No swamp or water texture, just... green. It really makes you wonder how much they had to cut out just to get the game to fit on the Wii. At least Darth Vader looks good- he's about the only one, though.
We'll move on to the controls. Now, I know motion controls are all the rage with the Wii- hell, it's the only thing the system has going for it, other than Nintendo licenses. These motion controls are responsive enough most of the time, depending on how you play. If you're dashing from character to character and slashing them and moving on, you're fine. But if you're trying to use some of the more delicate Force powers- like Force Grab, which, let's face it, is the main reason this game is going to sell like hotcakes- you're find of screwed. It's difficult to get items thrown where you want them. Picking up items is no problem; look around till the item you want glows, then hit and hold the Z button. At this point you can use the stick to move the item around, but if you want it higher or lower, you have to tilt the nunchuck attachment up or down respectively, while you push the thumbstick in the direction you want to throw it, then release the button. It doesn't sound bad, but when you're surrounded by troops and you're trying to fling a massive wall at them to kill a bunch at once, you're going to get shot to shit while trying to manage all of the control that goes into it. Not to mention that it's easy to forget to point the stick in the direction you want it to go, which results in the item being slammed into the ground, sometimes right in front of you, knocking you back.
If you've had the pleasure of playing the 360 demo, you'll know that this isn't the case. With the 360, the controls are somehow more precise, and tossing anything where you want it is a snap.
Here's a quick rundown of the (rather complex) controls:
Remote-
B button/trigger- jump
Move remote left/right/up/down- slash in the direction moved
Move remote forward- lunging stab
A button- Force Dash
Twist remote towards yourself while holding A button- Block (completely useless)
Hold down A button + slash sideways- Lightsaber throw (not in the 360 version, that I know of)
D-Pad left or right- move camera left/right
D-Pad up (hold) + move nunchuck thumbstick- look around 1st person
Nunchuck-
C button- Force Lightning
Z button + stick- Force Grab
Move nunchuck forward- Force Push
Hold down A+Z and point nunchuck + remote down- Force Repel (can't remember the exact name, acts as a radial Force Push, knocking everyone back)
Hold down A+Z+C+B to charge, point nunchuck + remote down- Force Maelstrom (same as Force Repel, but adds a flurry of Force damage)
Not too horrible, but the weak control detection makes some moves a total ass pain.
Let's move on to the technology behind the title.
One of the main selling points of this game is the combination of the Euphoria engine, which allows for a combination of uncanned animation and realistic AI that will do what it can to survive in any given situation, and the DMM material engine. With Euphoria, Force Grab a guy and he'll reach out to anything he can and grab on, even another trooper, to try to save his own ass. Hurl them through the air and they'll do their best to grab on to whatever they hit to avoid falling. Better yet, they'll fall differently each time, using a combination of an internal skeleton and ragdoll physics. With DMM, materials in the game world act like their counterparts in real life, allowing wood to splinter, metal to bend, and glass to shatter like their real components, instead of items being made up of preset 'broken' bits that they fall into when broken in-game.
You won't see either of those here.
There are ragdoll physics, and that's pretty much it. Everything else is completely absent from the game.
Not to mention the completely absent AI. In the 360 demo, whoever you ran up against would try to team up against you, take cover, anything they could to get you. Oh, it wasn't effective, I mean, they aren't Jedis, but you get my point.
In the Wii version, they're just plain stupid. A few might take cover, but most charge headlong at you, regardless of how many guys you just Force Pushed off of a bridge. The only time it's even possible to die in this game is when you're completely surrounded and trying to Force Throw something you've Grabbed with any accuracy, and even then they'll have to have a cannon on their side, drilling you with rapid-fire. It's amazingly frustrating, because you can pretty much phone it in throughout most of the game, but run into a couple of autofiring cannons and your life bar will shoot down if you're not paying attention- which you won't be, because you've been trouncing assholes left and right without having to even glance at your lifebar. Sad, right?
Add in that your character doesn't even have the same stance. If you're wielding your lightsaber in the 360, your character holds his lightsaber (while idling, not during all attacks) backwards, with the blade pointing back past his elbow. In the Wii version, he just holds it like any other Jedi you've seen- and he seems to have osteoporosis, because he slumps his head forward far enough that he looks almost hunchbacked. And while he's not exactly ultra-muscular in the 360 version, this Wii guy is damn near anorexic. You almost expect him to go sit in a corner listening to the Sisters of Mercy while cutting himself.
Sound is decent. I'm guessing it's pretty much the same. The only complaint I really have is that the guy they got to do Darth Vader's voice can sound completely like him one moment and turn around and fuck it up the next, and that really kills some of the immersion factor. Not to geek it up, but it does.
Boss battles on the Wii are a mixed bag. They're much like their 360 brethren- beat on your opponent until a button-press minigame pops up, sometimes multiple times, like God of War. Only with the Wii, the "button presses" end up being either moving the remote in any direction or moving the nunchuck in any direction- so it's like the same, but with only 2 buttons. Getting into a Force battle with a boss brings up a minigame where you have to rotate your nunchuck to a certain angle and then press forward a certain number of times before your opponent does; getting into a locker saber duel does the same, but with the remote. It's pretty neat on the 360, but it utterly fails on the Wii, because you'd have to be damned near brain-dead to fail the 'button press' bits, while the rotating bits are easy but at the same time complicated by the fact that the Wii is so bad at detecting this that you'll half-turn your controller, only to watch the visualization of this on the screen whirl like a goddamn pinwheel at times, regardless of how you have the remote's sensitivity set.
My only real other complaint- and this one's weaker than the rest- is that it feels like I'm playing one of a zillion other platforming hack & slashes available on the Wii. The controls are just too similar to the likes of SoulCalibur Legends or Kung Fu Panda for me to really get that immersion factor that felt so natural on the 360 demo.
Overall, that's it- if you ONLY have a Wii and want to play this title, hey, go get it. But if you want the full experience- or actually want to, you know, have FUN- the precision controls offered by the PS3 or 360 versions are what you're going to want. The Wii version is nothing but a hyper-watered-down port with a couple of extra Force moves that do absolutely nothing to make up for the fact that you're playing an ugly-ass, horrible-playing port of an awesome, fun-as-hell, ass-kicking Star Wars game.
