Wii

Posted on 15 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii | 3 Comments

Update: Details below

Famitsu has the first scans for and information for yet another Wii horror title. You may remember that there were some leaked videos released a number of months ago for The Calling, a game that was rumored to be developed by Hudson. Now the game has finally resurfaced. While we wait for more details, scans can be seen below.

– Horror (survival) game
– uses a phone in the game, you can receive text message, record audio and video
– 70% complete
– mystery girl, mystery old man and high school girls trio

Posted on 15 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in DS, News, Wii | 0 comments

Posted on 15 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii | 6 Comments

Upending tea tables and kidnapping employees are just some of the actions that Shigeru Miyamoto has been known for during development cycles. Even with that in mind, however, one might be surprised as to how Miyamoto interacts with other members of a team. Check out this blurb below, which discusses development of Wii Sports Resort:

Iwata: Okay, while taking that into account, could you tell me what the harshest thing was that Miyamoto-san said to you?

Shimamura: The harshest thing was…

Iwata: Given that he makes no allowances for planners…

Shimamura:
It came as quite a shock when he said “Make another mode!” He would also constantly tell us things like: “You can’t do this!” He’d say things like: “If you carry on like this, we’re never going to get this finished!” He would always be kind enough to give us this kind of “advice”.

All: (laughter)

Iwata: I see – “advice”. (laughs) How about you, Yamashita-san?

Yamashita: I worked on a cycling race about which Miyamoto-san said: “This is incredibly dull!”

Iwata: He doesn’t pull any punches, does he? (laughs)

Yamashita:
He said: “What’s fun about this?” I had no choice but to respond by saying “Ah, okay. I see…” but actually it was really harsh.

Iwata: Calling something “incredibly dull” is indeed harsh. There’s nothing positive you can take away from that.

I don’t think he’s really a bully or anything, but it is interesting to see that he would call someone else’s work “incredibly dull.” But hey, it’s Miyamoto! I think that in these instances, he is striving to create a quality game, which is evident in the snippet below.

Shimamura: Anyway, as H-san was overseeing archery, he was incredibly good at it. Normally he would have no problem in hitting the bulls-eye time after time.

Yamashita: But during the progress report meeting, when he was demonstrating archery, he was shaking really badly.

Shimamura: If you looked at the screen, you could see that he wasn’t able to hold it steady at all. I’d never seen anyone shaking so bad before when playing the game so I said: “You’re shaking!” He replied: ”It’s nerves!” (laughs)

All: (laughter)

Yamashita: Then after having it pointed it out to him, the shaking got even worse.

Shimamura: The arrows were flying all over the place. I wonder if the Wii MotionPlus is the world’s first device that’s able to detect whether someone is nervous.

Iwata: (laughs) So did he get through that nerve-wracking presentation without Miyamoto-san giving him the thumbs down?

Shimamura: On that occasion…

Yamashita: As you might be able to guess, Miyamoto-san did indeed give him the thumbs down!

All: (laughter)

Yamashita: But following that, it improved greatly.

Source 1, Source 2

Posted on 15 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii | 0 comments

Even though Red Steel 2 is considerably different than its predecessor, the development team that created the first title is comprised of many members who worked on the original title. Creative director Jason Vandenberghe spoke about this with the press last week, in addition to the fact there was a goal in mind to make Red Steel 2 “really killer, really awesome.”

“The game has actually been worked on in one way or another pretty much since the end of Red Steel 1. The core team for Red Steel 2 is made up of largely the same people that did Red Steel 1. So there’s a lot of continuity there.

There was a lot of work being done in terms of research [and] about gameplay. What are we going to do? How can we make it great? The team wanted to make the next one really killer, really awesome. So we spent a lot of time really looking at the core mechanics, looking at the technologies, rebuilding that from the ground up. Making sure we can get the absolute most we could out of the Wii. There was a lot of questions amongst the team about can we really make this work with the basic Wiimote.

We tried a lot of things and certainly we got a long way. But when the Wii MotionPlus showed up, it was like “Oh okay. Well, [laughs] this is how this game should work!” was pretty much our response. When we plugged it in and tried that, wham! What happened is that [Red Steel 2] went from a shooter with a sword in it, to a sword game with guns in it. We really shifted the focus and that let us sort of go down and take our setting apart and look at it again. We created this new hero from the inside out based on that gameplay.”

Source

Posted on 15 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii | 7 Comments

While most would agree that The Conduit features one of the better online systems on the Wii, there have been reports of glitches popping up during multiplayer matches. In fact, Austin has told me that he’s encountered a number of “spawn under the map” glitches. Austin got in contact with the good folks over at High Voltage regarding his issues and it looks as though the company is working with Nintendo in an attempt to iron out multiplayer bugs.

“We have received a few emails from fans regarding multiplayer snags and I assure we’re working hard to fix those issues. It’s difficult to address “glitches” post-release, but we’re working closely with Nintendo to come up with potential solutions.”- Jaramiah Severns, Associate Producer

Posted on 15 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii | 3 Comments

“We were really hoping to raise the quality bar of games on Wii. All the developers and publishers we’ve talked to, I think they’re playing sort of ‘wait and see’ just now. If it does well and the gamers support it, then I think we’ll see a lot more titles like this. Otherwise we’re going to see a lot more games with Fit and Sports in their name.”

I know we’ve said this probably one hundred times on the site before, but developers are definitely watching to see how The Conduit performs. NPD sales figures for June will be released next month, so we’ll get a chance to see how the game is doing in North America.

Posted on 15 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in DS, News, Wii | 1 Comment

Famitsu has posted a listing of the top 10 best-selling games in Japan for the month of June. We have the translated results below.

1. Wii Sports Resort – 6/25 release (Wii) – 353,827 units
2. Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days – 5/30 release (DS) – 171,242 units
3. Friend Collection – 6/18 release (DS) – 170,490 units
4. Ace Attorney Investigations – 5/28 release (DS) – 65,863 units
5. Sloane and MacHale’s Mysteries – 5/21 release (DS): 57,359 units
6. Monster Hunter Portable 2nd G PSP the Best – 10/30 release (PSP): 51,590 units
7. Dynasty Warriors 6 Empires – 5/28 release (PS3) – 49,059 units
8. Infinite Space – 6/11 release (DS) – 48,397 units
9. Atelier Rorona – 6/25 release (PS3) – 47,456 units
10. Ken to Mahou to Gakuen Mono 2 – 6/25 release (PSP) – 45,282 units

Posted on 15 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii | 3 Comments

With a title like Red Steel 2, one would think that there would be a good amount of blood in the game. However, that’s not actually the case. The decision not to make Red Steel 2 a bloody game was a conscious decision.

“We get asked this a lot. In fact, we asked ourselves this question at least a thousand times before we made the final call…Building our game with realistic violence in it would, for many players, interfere with just having a good time with a sword and gun. And, that’s sort of the whole point of all the work we’ve been doing. Blood and gore just isn’t what this game is about, and we want to be true to the game we are making. That won’t necessarily make everyone happy, but we believe that at the end of the day, if you like the idea of swordfighting, we’ll have a game that is worth your time.” – Jason Vandenberghe, Creative Director

Mr. Vandenberghe also discussed how the team is “trying to make something entertaining, something truly fun to play, a game where you play a real hero, a badass with a sword and a gun.” So, rather than creating a truly gruesome and violent game, the developers are focusing more on the aspect of creating an overall enjoyable experience.

Posted on 15 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii | 0 comments

Posted on 15 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in DS, News, Wii | 0 comments

Journey to the Heart of Africa Where You Control the Wild Kingdom!
REDWOOD CITY, Calif — July 7, 2009 — Pack your bags for an African adventure as EA Play Label of Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ: ERTS) today announced SimAnimals™ Africa for the Wii™ and Nintendo DS™, the sequel to the highly enjoyable SimAnimals™ game. In SimAnimals Africa, gamers play with and tame all new exotic animals including lions, elephants and gorillas as they explore exotic landscapes from savannas to jungles. This must-have Wii game for the holidays is great for kids and features challenges and mini-games that players solve to unlock new items, animals and levels to explore!

“SimAnimals Africa offers players a whole new, wild world to explore, take care of, and discover,” said Tim LeTourneau, General Manager of the SimAnimals Franchise. “Kids are in for hours of entertainment as they explore new terrain, and for the first time, play as wild animals where they can run, jump, kick and charge, adding another dimension to the fun.”

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