We (Wii) Ski - First Looks

[RTSDaddy2]

Holy  !!!!  Man do I hope that plays as sweet as it looks!

(edit - forgot the link, here it is):

http://www.worthplaying.com/article.php?sid=50901

(edit 2):  The only thing missing that I wish they had done was Wi-Fi races.  If the gameplay doesn't suck, that would have been really neat - I think - to have had online races for it to. 

I realize that Mario Kart Wii is just around the corner, BUT this looks like a promising third party title. 

[ChadTower]

Wow.  I may have to try that out since I'm getting Wii Fit anyway.

[Edgedamage]

Wow.  I may have to try that out since I'm getting Wii Fit anyway.

A strapping young buck like yourself needs a Wii fit?

[ChadTower]

Not need - want.     I enjoy outside the box game experiences.

[patrickl]

Sounds pretty cool, but I dread the poor realism of using a "set of two scales" to simulate 2 skis. Skiing is more than just shifting weight.

[RTSDaddy2]

Sounds pretty cool, but I dread the poor realism of using a "set of two scales" to simulate 2 skis. Skiing is more than just shifting weight.

I see your point, though I've never been skiing in my life but watched plenty of it on TV.  To sort of reiterate my initial point about great gameplay, my hopes would be that you would also have to use the Wiimote and nunchuck as ski poles and have to also use your arms as well as  your legs...go into tucks to gain speed (is that right?), etc. 

 It doesn't say that, of course - I'm just hoping the game play will be that strong.  If so, this could be a great 3rd party game.

[patrickl]

I was thinking more about "edging your skiis". I'm sorry don't know the english word, but to get "grip" in the snow you tilt the ski sideways so the sharp edges hit the snow. Steering is a combination of tilting your skiis and shifting the weight to the appropriate ski. At least if you are going fast (or if you hit ice). I guess for beginners and slow skiiing it doesn't matter much.

What I'm afraid of is that they only used the weight movement (and I don't see what else they can do). Lean on your left foot to go right and lean on your right foot to go left. So when you play the game you won't really hold a normal ski-pose, but most likely one would just hang over to a side or lift a foot or something.

But yeah you are right, sitting down and tucking in wouldn't be obvious from the balance board either. Not sure how they could use the nunchuck and wiimote for that.

[RTSDaddy2]

Edging made perfect sense to me...I understood what you meant, but great explanation. 

I don't know if they have these ski based arcade machines where you are, but the ones here are just about as simplistic (NOTE: at least the ones I've been on).  There's no real way to "turn the skis" so you guide with your feet and weight and - if you're me - pray you don't hit a computerized tree, person, cabin, or underwear (for you VeggieTales lovers).

Here's what I'm hoping: now that the Wii has been out for a while, the third party companies SEEM to be starting to "get it."  Wii Ski, along with a couple of other 3rd party games I've noticed that will be released within the coming months, have the possibility of turning the tide of poor efforts from others than Nintendo.  Whether the Wii wins the console battles or not, personally that's something I'd like to see happen.

[ChadTower]

Actually, the balance board has the ability, supposedly, to detect "edging".  It measures pretty finely.  Of course, you can't truly edge, but you can't truly punch someone in the head or roll a 14lb ball either.

[patrickl]

Actually, the balance board has the ability, supposedly, to detect "edging".  It measures pretty finely.  Of course, you can't truly edge, but you can't truly punch someone in the head or roll a 14lb ball either.

From what I understood it's got 4 sensors. One in each corner. It can measure how much you are leaning left or right and if you are leaning forwards or backwards (which actually also matters in skiing). It cannot see the orientation or balance of a single foot.

I know it will never be 100% accurate, but between "hanging a bit left and right" or "lifting a left foot or right foot" and the actual movement for skiing is quite a big gap. maybe the comparison to boxing works, because for me that's the worst simulation of the Wii sports set.

It doesn't have to matter either. I enjoy Wii sport tennis. Even though I hate the annoyingly imperfect way they implemented it.

[ChadTower]

It cannot see the orientation or balance of a single foot.

Doesn't have to - you don't edge with your foot.  You edge with your knees and hips.  Your foot is always flush to the ski.  There's no real way to mimic that if you're not actually moving because you have no momentum to keep balance intact.

[patrickl]

It cannot see the orientation or balance of a single foot.

Doesn't have to - you don't edge with your foot.  You edge with your knees and hips.  Your foot is always flush to the ski.  There's no real way to mimic that if you're not actually moving because you have no momentum to keep balance intact.

The specific technicalities are not really my point. Imagine people playing this game. They would simply lift one foot if they want to go in that direction. Or they would lean over in the opposite direction. It's nothing like skiing.

It's a bit like with tennis where a flick of the wrist works better than actually swinging your arm. For me it ruins the whole simulation. Playing tennis on Wii Sports fun, but it's nothing like playing actual tennis.

[shmokes]

Even if the balance board could detect edging, it would be an awful simulation.  You need to be either on a steep slope, or going very fast in order to edge without falling over or breaking your ankle.  It would be like sitting on a motorcycle and leaning into a turn while the bike was parked.  Edging in Wii Ski would be retarded.  All they can do is balance shifting which, while it may not be entirely realistic, is certainly more realistic than controlling your skier with an analog stick on a gamepad.  So, hopefully that increased realism will amount to increased fun-factor. 

BTW, RTS, I would imagine that they will use the accelerometers to simulate ski poles, but here's a little wrinkle you may not have thought of:  What about the cord?  The cord prevents you from using the nunchuck and remote as ski poles.  You'd have to use two remotes.  Not a huge deal, since this is more realistic anyway in terms of feeling kind of like you're actually holding ski poles (albeit square ones).  But it does mean that you'd have to have four remotes to get a two-player game going.  Nyko's made a couple of products that make it so the connection between your Wii Remote and nunchuck can be wireless, but I doubt they've sold enough of those to have them supported in this game.  I suspect you'll need two remotes per player.

[SavannahLion]

BTW, RTS, I would imagine that they will use the accelerometers to simulate ski poles, but here's a little wrinkle you may not have thought of:  What about the cord?  The cord prevents you from using the nunchuck and remote as ski poles.  You'd have to use two remotes.  Not a huge deal, since this is more realistic anyway in terms of feeling kind of like you're actually holding ski poles (albeit square ones).  But it does mean that you'd have to have four remotes to get a two-player game going.  Nyko's made a couple of products that make it so the connection between your Wii Remote and nunchuck can be wireless, but I doubt they've sold enough of those to have them supported in this game.  I suspect you'll need two remotes per player.

A well stocked Wii home would have a complete set of four controllers. Or Nintendo could very easily include an extension cord suitable for the game. In any case, an experienced skier is likely not going to play any sort of skiing game on a regular basis. Even if they did, any experienced skier would have snapped enough ski poles to know how to ski without them anyways.

It's just a game. Until Nintendo gets around to making portable holodecks with an MSRP of $500, nobody expects true realism within a game. I know the racing games don't have much by way of realism and I still play the racing games anyways. 

[shmokes]

A well stocked Wii home would have a complete set of four controllers.

Okay . . . and . . . a Wii home that is not so well stocked . . . does not . . . have a complete set of four controllers . . . .     

It's just a game. blah blah blah nobody expects true realism blah blah . . .

Yes yes.  I'm aware of the, "If I wanted realistic, I wouldn't be playing a video game," argument.  It's nonsense.  Complete and utter, unadulterated nonsense. 

Either way, I said that controlling with the balance board is more realistic (comparative) than with an analog stick, not that it was realistic (superlative).  And I said that hopefully the increased realism amounts to increased fun-factor.  So I'm actually having a hard time deciding what would have triggered the realism lecture.

BTW, why wouldn't an experienced skier play any sore of skiing game on a regular basis?  That makes absolutely no sense to me.

[patrickl]

Even if the balance board could detect edging, it would be an awful simulation.  You need to be either on a steep slope, or going very fast in order to edge without falling over or breaking your ankle.  It would be like sitting on a motorcycle and leaning into a turn while the bike was parked.  Edging in Wii Ski would be retarded.  All they can do is balance shifting which, while it may not be entirely realistic, is certainly more realistic than controlling your skier with an analog stick on a gamepad.  So, hopefully that increased realism will amount to increased fun-factor. 

Well like I said, I'm not so much thinking about the technicalities. To be honest edging is just one example of things they cannot sense/simulate. It's that they can never come even close to simulating skiiing with a balance board. So in the end it might be more fun, but it's nothing like skiing for real. I'm pretty sure someone using a nunchuck would beat a balance board player quite easily.

I wonder if they actually do the steering "ski-like". It's pretty counter intuitive to lean left to go right.

[tk_42_1]

BTW, why wouldn't an experienced skier play any sore of skiing game on a regular basis?  That makes absolutely no sense to me.

Same holds true for experienced Golfers, Tennis Players, or Bowlers, but that doesn't stop them from enjoying Wii Sports.

[shmokes]

Hopefully they will.  It may be counterintuitive, but as I imagine the game in my head, it just seems a lot more fun if you have to press down on the left foot and lift some weight off the right to turn, rather than the other way around.  It may be disorienting for non-skiers at first, but it sounds more fun to me.

[ChadTower]

Someone better warn all those experienced mushroom users not to play any Mario games.  They're just not realistic enough.

[shmokes]

And yet, the series has moved into the 3rd dimension and now sports advanced physics and AI models applied to the world and characters respectively.   

[knave]

As long as it's Fun I don't care how realistic it is/isn't.

[ChadTower]

I totally returned HOTD2/3 the other day because it felt nothing like shooting real zombies.

[patrickl]

So if Wii Sports wasn't a packaged game, would you have "returned" that too? Seeing how you were noticing it's not realistic and all ...

It's nothing like real tennis.  I was trying to play it like real tennis and kept getting destroyed by a bunch of guys that had never played tennis and were just flicking their wrists to control the ball.

BTW I preordered my Wii Fit a month ago. I'm just worried that using your body as a joystick will soon get boring/annoying.

[ChadTower]

So if Wii Sports wasn't a packaged game, would you have "returned" that too? Seeing how you were noticing it's not realistic and all ...

It's nothing like real tennis.  I was trying to play it like real tennis and kept getting destroyed by a bunch of guys that had never played tennis and were just flicking their wrists to control the ball.

I'm not the one saying the game isn't good enough because it's not like real tennis - you are.  All I did was note the difference.

BTW I preordered my Wii Fit a month ago. I'm just worried that using your body as a joystick will soon get boring/annoying.

So wait on Wii Porn.

[SavannahLion]

It's just a game. blah blah blah nobody expects true realism blah blah . . .

Yes yes.  I'm aware of the, "If I wanted realistic, I wouldn't be playing a video game," argument.  It's nonsense.  Complete and utter, unadulterated nonsense. 

Knock that ---steaming pile of meadow muffin--- off Shmokes, you're better than that.

[patrickl]

Well to be honest I'm unimpressed by all Wii games which attempt to simulate sports (or other real life activities). They all seem to be geared towards kids and/or drunk people. The only games where the Wiimote really works is in shooters.

I hope the Wii fit will be fun, but I doubt that playing "simulation" games with it will work well.

[Samstag]

Well to be honest I'm unimpressed by all Wii games which attempt to simulate sports (or other real life activities). They all seem to be geared towards kids and/or drunk people. The only games where the Wiimote really works is in shooters.

Are you kidding?  They don't even TRY to simulate recoil!  Where's the fun in shooting a desert eagle without all the wrist pain?

[patrickl]

Well to be honest I'm unimpressed by all Wii games which attempt to simulate sports (or other real life activities). They all seem to be geared towards kids and/or drunk people. The only games where the Wiimote really works is in shooters.

Are you kidding?  They don't even TRY to simulate recoil!  Where's the fun in shooting a desert eagle without all the wrist pain?

I get plenty of wristpain from flicking the Wiimote about to deal with the simulated "punches", "sword swings", "box bashing" and whatnot

BTW it's not about realism so much as that it's using a controller poorly suited for the task.

[ChadTower]

Sony controllers are poorly suited for anything but people still use them.

[SavannahLion]

Sony controllers are poorly suited for anything but people still use them.

You have to grant that they're pretty comfortable for many people, myself included. Sony has stuck with that design through three different consoles and quite a few third parties reference the design for their own controller.

But you are right, the Sony controllers aren't exactly the best for every game situation.

[RTSDaddy2]

Shmokes, actually I DID consider the cord between Wiimote and Nunchuck and in my mind's eye, I thought it seemed goofy, but couldn't come up with anything else.

Like I've said before, I'm no expert on this stuff, far from it - your idea of two Wiimotes makes a heck of a lot more sense. 

Knave, you said a mouthful, and I totally second it (good god, I'm nearly forty and I'm using words like totally - have I been around you young whippersnappers too long?  )

[ChadTower]

You have to grant that they're pretty comfortable for many people, myself included.

I do not.  They are the single reason I can't stand the Sony platform.  The controllers are atrocious.

[SavannahLion]

You have to grant that they're pretty comfortable for many people, myself included.

I do not.  They are the single reason I can't stand the Sony platform.  The controllers are atrocious.

How do you figure? For a general purpose controller, the controller works out pretty well for what it offers. As it stands, I can only find a few annoying design faults with the controller. I'm ignoring the PS3 controller since I haven't played it enough to decide whether I like the motion detection.

What console controller do you prefer?

[shmokes]

I totally returned HOTD2/3 the other day because it felt nothing like shooting real zombies.

It's funny that you keep making my point for me.  The reason HOTD2/3 is good on the Wii is precisely because the Wii's control is more realistic than using a gamepad.  In fact, I half-suspect that you could not name a single game for the Wii that makes good use of the controls, but does not make the controls more realistic than using a gamepad.

The only reason any of you even pretend to disagree with me is that you are taking what I'm saying to illogical extremes that you know I don't mean.  Like a snowboarding game would be better if my living room were 12 degrees and crashing into a tree was likely to kill me.  You know deep in your bones that a snowboarding game has FAR more potential fun factor on the PS3 or Xbox 360 or Wii than it does on the NES, precisely because of its ability to simulate the actual physics of snowboarding.  Come on. 

Realism does not equate to a good game.  Donkey Kong is a better game than Rampage: Total Destruction on the Wii.  I'm not saying that you don't have to make a good game, so long as you sprinkle magical realism on it.  But, then, you know I'm not saying that, so why are we even having that conversation?

Also, realistic doesn't necessarily mean "like real life".  The Lord of the Rings was far more realistic than Willow or Labyrinth, for example.  And it was better for it.  Think about it.

[shmokes]

Well to be honest I'm unimpressed by all Wii games which attempt to simulate sports

Perhaps it's finally time for you to rethink what the Wii can do for sports.  This looks phenomenal.

Also, Camelot is making a poorly titled game called We Love Golf, for Capcom, that looks to finally nail golf on the Wii.  Camelot, BTW, is the company behind the wonderful Mario Golf and Mario Tennis series.

[shmokes]

What console controller do you prefer?

N64, I believe is his answer.  I don't blame him.  That's a great controller (though I prefer the Gamecube's)

I agree that the Playstation controller is lame.  I hate the feel of the D-pad, but not half so much as having the D pad in the default position where the left analog stick should be (for-Christ's-sake-we're-more-than-10-years-into-3D-gaming-Sony-pull-your-thumb-out-of-your-ass).  Additionally, the naming scheme for the buttons is . . . I swear to god, there is no word.  Retarded doesn't begin to do it justice.  Ridiculous?  Not even close.  THEY NAMED A BUTTON "BOX".  I have not touched a Super Nintendo in years.  Probably a decade.  I can tell you off the top of my head where every button is.  If I put a Playstation, Playstation 2, or Playstation 3 controller in my hand today, in spite of the fact that they've been using EXACTLY THE SAME CONTROLLER FOR THE LAST 15 YEARS, I can not tell you where any of the ---smurfing--- buttons are.  Tell me to press X or Triangle (  triangle) and I have to look at the controller.  It's inexcusable (again, not nearly strong enough an adjective to describe the naming scheme for Sony's controller).  Every aspect of the controller that doesn't suck monkey balls, is just neutral.  It's not particularly comfortable or uncomfortable.  They periodically update it to incorporate whatever Nintendo puts in its controllers (analog sticks, rumble, accelerometer, etc.).  It's either boring, or a piece of ---steaming pile of meadow muffin---, depending on what aspect of the controller you are talking about.

edit: hyphens.  needed more hyphens.

[patrickl]

Well to be honest I'm unimpressed by all Wii games which attempt to simulate sports

Perhaps it's finally time for you to rethink what the Wii can do for sports.  This looks phenomenal.

Because the game plays like a shooter. They don't use the accelerometers that much (if at all?). I saw a commercial and the player points the wiimote at the screen and presses buttons. I don't like soccer though.

Sure the IR sensor adds a lot to the Wii controller, but it's the accelerometers that don't seem to get used very well.

I already think the Wii controller should allow for a great game of tennis. I'm hoping Top spin tennis is going to bring a better game of tennis.

[shmokes]

I know that it uses the accelerometer in the nunchuck for shooting.  Dunno if it does for anything else.  Also, what the eff?  I didn't know you could be European and not like soccer.   

[ChadTower]

The only reason any of you even pretend to disagree with me is that you are taking what I'm saying to illogical extremes that you know I don't mean. 

Stop being a toolbag.  I have been agreeing with you all along.  I'm disagreeing with patrickl.

I do really like the N64 but honestly I prefer the mini third party Cube controllers from MadCatz.  I have average sized hands for a man and still think some stuff is spread too far apart.  I like my stuff compact.  I end up using the mini MadCatz controllers for every system they released them on.  I have some great minis for the Xbox that are way better than the M$ controllers.

I can't stand the Playstation controllers because the shape is uncomfortable and I have no interest in pressing a freakin' triangle.  No matter how much time I spent on the platform I would always end up so annoyed with the labeling scheme that I rarely finished a game on any of the Playstation platforms.  It's a very simple concept that goes back many years - A submit, B cancel, start pause.  Sony had to try and transcend language by using universal symbols and ended up making it suck for everyone.

[shmokes]

Chad, I'm arguing that a greater amount of realism typically makes a game better and you keep saying things like:

Someone better warn all those experienced mushroom users not to play any Mario games.  They're just not realistic enough.

I totally returned HOTD2/3 the other day because it felt nothing like shooting real zombies.

I'm pretty sure you were being sarcastic in those posts, and that you don't actually think they aren't realistic enough.  And both of them came directly after my posts about realism in games.  You didn't quote patrickl or give any other indication that your comments were aimed at him rather than me.  Whether I'm right or wrong, I had every reason to believe they were aimed at me.  And in any event, I'm obviously responding to Savanahlions as well as your posts.

BTW, I have four wireless Xbox Microcons.  They're just that good.  I had to replace all my Xbox controllers with them.  My favorite controller of all time is the Gamecube controller, but it's a damned close call with the Wireless Microcons.  We agree on one thing, anyway.