All of the following information comes from Warren Spector…
“The reality is that we started Wii development in 2008, but before that we were a PC, PS3, and 360 title. It’s burned in my brain – Graham Hopper [Disney Interactive boss] pulled me into my office one day and said ‘What does it take to deliver on the goals we have for this product? And I said, well, you need enough time and enough money to be competitive. And it’d be awfully nice if we could focus on one platform. At that time we were talking about a Wii port and I was begging people – no, we can’t just port to the Wii, it’s not going to work. It needs to be its own game. A lot of the design ideas just won’t work on the Wii, we need to give the Wii its dues. Graham looked at me and said ‘What do you think about a Wii exclusive?’ And I went ‘Holy cow – yeah!’ They walked away from three other platforms – no other publisher on the planet would have done that. It was a magic moment for me. No-one has even mentioned other formats since that point.
“I think a lot of people missed the boat with Wii. I think a lot of people are enamoured with going ‘ooooh look shaders’. They like the idea of doing in real time what Pixar does with pre-rendered CGI. I guess it’s kind of natural that everyone always goes for the flashiest, glitziest, biggest hard drive sort of thing. But for me, I don’t know – I just look at Mario and Zelda and go to my friends: ‘where are the best games?’ Being able to focus on gameplay over flashy graphics is kinda nice – almost like the good old days of development. I mean that in an entirely positive way.”
“This is a labour of love for me. I’ve always been a Disney fan and I love Mickey – I love the character. It’s pretty obvious to anybody that looks at the character today in broad strokes what we need to do to bring him back to the top of the cartoon heap. In literally my first talks with Disney when they laid out their hopes for the project, we wanted to bring Mickey back to the world – to a whole new audience that doesn’t know him as a hero. And we want to bring him to gamers and make him a hero that they want to be.”
“We played with it [MotionPlus] and I think that it would be a great fit for our core mechanic, but the best I can say is that in the future we’d love to do more with it.
Thanks to NintenDaan for the news tip!
On a recent episode of Attack of the Show, Morgan Webb and Blair Herter discussed Ratchet and Clank Future: A Crack in Time. The two eventually moved on to the topic of A Crack in Time being one of the very few action-platformers available on the market. Webb felt that in some ways, Super Mario Galaxy may be a bit like an action-platformer, but also stated that the game “feels like its aimed so much for kids.” She went on, implying that it’s sort of insulting to play Galaxy as an adult.
“…And let’s be honest, there are no other action-platformers out there…This is it, this is it…This is the only game out there for people who like action-platformers. I mean, I guess Mario Galaxy, but Mario Galaxy feels like its aimed so much for kids. Whereas this is like for everyone, but you feel like you’re not being insulted when playing it as an adult.
Personally, I don’t believe Galaxy (nor Ratchet and Clank) is the least bit insulting, regardless of one’s age. Obviously children have played the game, but so have plenty of adults.
Thanks to Zero0 for the news tip!
The Wii Balance Board is a pretty novel device, but it doesn’t provide players with complete realism. The FriiBoard, however, is looking to improve on the experience gamers have with titles like Shaun White’s Snowboarding.
“Built for the Wii™ Fit Balance Board and associated Wii™ motion-oriented games. You haven’t experienced Shaun White™, Tony Hawk™, or We Ski™ until you’ve snapped your balance board into our FriiBoard!™ Put new life into your old balance board games! Make all your games MORE REAL. Great for Kids and Adults alike.”
As the official description notes, the Balance Board fits right on top of the FriiBoard and you can expect the peripheral to tilt/move in a more realistic manner. It’s not exactly the safest peripheral, though. Just make sure that you’ve cleared all objects away from in case you fall off or get tossed to the side!
– Developed by Monster Games (Excite Truck, Excitebots)
– 3D environments, 60 FPS
– Very similar to the original
– Can pull off a wheelie over opponents moving slowly
– Hit a vehicle to cool down your engine
– Japan, Mexico, London, US locations
– Numerous circuits for each
– Receive particular rankings based on performance
– Need A or B to progress, if you get a C you have to keep trying
– Also can obtain an S rank
– Two control options (up/down for changing lanes, tilt control to learn back/forth, second option is holding left/right on the D-pad to learn back/forward)
– Game keeps track of best times, notes which control option you used with an icon
– Can adjust camera to an angled view with A button
– Track editor just like the one in the original
– Can send tracks to friends through WiiConnect24
– Online multiplayer with friends or random players
Thanks to Rob for the news tip!
“I tend to forget those games [laughs]. I’m a big fan of the ‘Star Fox’ games. Every time we make a ‘Star Fox’ game I’m hoping people will enjoy it as much as I do. Of course the goal every time is to try and make it more and more fun but, at least in Japan, the people that purchase the ‘Star Fox’ games has decreased over the years. But we still try to make them more fun and hopefully people will see the appeal in those games.”
This goes to show that the Japanese and North American markets have different gaming appetites. I really, really enjoy Star Fox, though. And Zelda is another example of a series being more popular in North America than in Japan.
The latest software sales estimates in Japan from Famitsu have been released. Official Media Create numbers will be posted later this week. Also, we’ll be posting Famitsu hardware figures as soon as they are available.
1. [DS] Pokemon Heart Gold/Soul Silver
2. [WII] Wii Fit Plus
3. [DS] Tomodachi Collection
4. [DS] Inazuma Eleven 2 Fire/Blizzard
5. [DS] Rune Factory 3
6. [360] Forza 3
7. [PS3] FIFA 10
8. [PSP] Shin Sangoku Musou 5 Special
9. [Wii] Wii Sports Resort
10. [PS3] Uncharted 2
