Sonic Unleashed Wii - level design & engine different from 360/PS3 versions - ONM proved wrong as expected

Wii version specifics:

- split of 3d to 2d side-scrolling action is about 50/50

- hub areas for story return once again

- Wii version is not using the same engine as PS3/360, but the team is working hard to duplicate the look as closely as possible

- mix of speed and platforming

- Wii version is different in stage design and controls

- coding and stages for Wii version is being handled by Dimps, who was responsible for Sonic Rush/Sonic Rush Adventure

- Tomoya Ohtani from Sonic Rush will be the sound director

Sonic Team Producer Yoshihisa Hashimoto, via Play Magazine confirms the above information.

Link and Link

Wondering why I wasn't jumping up and down at the screen shots that ONM were claiming were from the Wii version of Unleashed? Like I said before, those screens at the resolution being displayed were not a possible representation of what the Wii version would look like. According to this latest report, not only were those screens not from the Wii version of the game but also the level design will be different and the engine will be different in comparison to the 360/PS3 versions. This will be to maximize the Wii's power since the system has a completely different architecture (which you already know). While it is nice to know that the Sonic Rush team is trying their best to make the Wii version look as close to the 360/PS3 versions as possible (and I don't doubt that the Wii version will look awesome graphically) this is further proof that the actual Wii version of Sonic Unleashed has yet to be seen. As for ONM, false hope and promises that they never follow through on have been a problem for them ever since they started publishing their magazine. This information is not a surprise and was pretty much expected. A high profile magazine really needs to be sure what game they are publishing and for what system it is on before they go to the press with it. Accidents like these seem to always happen to them and excuses as to the cause of it follow the storm of angry Nintendo fans posting in the forums of their UK website.

So to be clear to everyone that will comment on this:

We have not seen any real screen shots or trailers for Sonic Unleashed running on the Wii yet. End of story.

*EDIT: I've had to turn comment moderation on due to a certain person who refused to listen to my warnings of his extremely out of line comments and vulgar insults and continuous multi-posting. He disagrees with me on this post (its only news) and proceeded to go off the deep end with his childish ranting and out of control vulgarity. So I'm sorry to everyone else that really only 1 person had to ruin your smooth comment posting privileges, now you'll have to wait until I can read your comments and then post them on the site. It might take a few hours sometimes depending on if I'm busy or not, so if you post a comment just be patient and it will get posted as soon as its possible for me to do it.

I really should have blocked him from the start with his constant CAPS LOCK on......funny as it may be.

Disaster: Day of Crisis - new details

Details:

- Main character: Ray

- Ray lost a friend/co-worker, Steve

- Ray is trying to save Steve’s sister, Lisa, from kidnappers

- Ray has to deal with natural disasters, as well as a nuclear threat from a terrorist group

- Move with analog stick, point with Wiimote to aim, B trigger to shoot

- Ray can stop along the way to help people that have been hurt

- One level has Ray escaping a tsunami via car. Steer the car ala Mario Kart Wii

Link and Link

We are all just waiting until Nintendo blows the lid off this game so every little bit of news is big until that time comes. I've always been quietly looking forward to this game ever since it was announced back in 2006.

Target: Terror Wii review: Best game ever?

I've played this game in the arcade with my buddy and I have to tell you that it is something that you shouldn't miss out on. The game is so ridiculously bad that it is actually hilariously great. Shoot enemies a million times in the groin and see them wince in pain with the same repeating animation over and over. Oh and don't forget the very smart terrorist that pops up in the middle of the screen and opens up his jacket to show you his bomb strapped to his chest so you can shoot it and explode him to pieces.

This is a awesome drinking game and just plain fun to laugh at and might actually make you drink to enjoy it even more. $40 is way way too much to pay for this game though, I think the developer must be thinking that some people might see the black masked terrorist on the cover of the box and see the "M" rating and might actually think this game is worth the cash. I'm praying that this lowers in price to at least $20 so I will feel like getting it. Someone go buy it now and trade it in so I can find a used copy quick!

Animales de la Muerte announced for WiiWare

Another day and another High Voltage Software game announced for Wii. Animales de la Muerte looks to be really fun in the "Conker's Bad Fur Day" way. Cute (zombie) animals being gruesomely murdered all at a low cost of a WiiWare game (price is unknown at this time). Sounds like another winner to me.

Gyrostarr announced for WiiWare

From IGN:

According to High Voltage, "Gyrostarr challenges you and up to three other players to fly through a twisting, turning techno-plasma canal in space, collecting energy to penetrate an alien portal and warp to the next conduit. Without that energy, your space vessels will smash head-first into the unforgiving anti-void." Naturally, each track is guarded by different enemy spacecraft, all of them out to gun you down and "feast on your collected energy."

Gyrostarr seems to run in both 480p and 16:9 widescreen modes and features an electronica-influenced soundtrack that is well matched to the on-screen action. The WiiWare launch title will cost 700 Wii Points ($7) -- a good bargain. With games like this, LostWinds and World of Goo set to debut with or shortly thereafter the launch of WiiWare in America, we couldn't be more excited about the forthcoming service.

$7 (less than a SNES game)? That might be the best bang for you buck yet for WiiWare and makes Star Solider look kinda bad in comparison. To go along with having graphics like that make Gyrostarr a must download game in my opinion. Look for more on this game and The Conduit very soon....

The Conduit announced for Wii - A Third Party game with effort?

I have been screaming, you have been screaming and all Wii fans have been screaming for a Third Party game developer to put some effort into the graphics capabilities of the Wii. It looks like High Voltage Software is doing just that and building "The Conduit" from the ground up for Wii. Using a new high powered engine called "Quantum3" The Conduit will use special effects not yet seen in most- if not all Wii games released so far. IGN has the exclusive preview on their site and here is some bullet points from that article:

Special Effects The Conduit will feature:

Full 16-TEV stage material pipeline using up to eight texture sources and a host of innovative blend operations.

Dynamic bump-mapping (via tangent space normals or embossing), reflection and refraction (via real-time cube or spherical environmental maps), light / shadow maps, projected texture lights, specular and Fresnel effects, emissive and iridescent materials, advanced alpha blends, light beams / shafts, gloss and detail mapping, seamless resource streaming, projected shadows.

Heat distortion and motion blur, interactive water with dual-wave channels and complex surface effects, animated textures, and more.

High Voltage's Eric Nofsinger, chief creative officer and Kerry Ganofsky, CEO and founder, had a few things to say about other Third Party developer's efforts on the Wii and more about The Conduit:

"We think it's a real shame that publishers and developers aren't taking advantage of the technical possibilities of the Wii platform. Most Wii games don't even look as good as the later day PS2 titles and that's a real slap in the face to consumers," seconds Kerry Ganofsky, CEO and founder, High Voltage Software. "We believe that third-party developers need to step up to the plate and deliver. The Wii platform is capable of a lot more than what consumers have seen so far. We're hoping to raise a new bar."

Nofsinger takes it a step farther. "Most of the games on the Wii look like crap. We want to change that, so we've invested heavily in our Wii tech over the past year. We have real-time normal mapping, reflection and refraction, post process full screen effects, real-time shadows, projected lights and textures, specularity and fresnel effects, emissive and iridescent materials, interactive water, morphing, and much more all running with a rock solid frame rate on the Wii. Our goal is to be the most technically innovative Wii developer on the planet."

"There is this pervasive and cyclical argument that Wii consumers don't want mature titles, when there aren't those types of products available to them. And even more frustrating is the claim that Wii consumers only care about great gameplay. Of course they care about gameplay, but we believe if given the choice, they would want great graphics as well. It's just a cop out," says Nofsinger. "With Conduit, we are trying to make a Wii game that looks like a 360 title."

Below is a tech demo for the "Quantom3" Engine running on the Wii in real-time:



Yes the game is a bit cliche with the Alien FPS gameplay, but really this is what the Wii needs. A hardcore Mature game with a high budget. Third Party Mature games haven't sold very well on the Wii because there isn't very many to choose from and the ones that the Wii does have are usually crappy PS2 ports (excluding RE4 and NMH which are great). Resident Evil 4 was a port and it has sold almost 2 million copies so far. If The Conduit gets a good publisher that can advertise! advertise! advertise! the heck out of it, then you know that the nearly 11 million Wii owners in the United States will be buying this game come this Holiday. For now, be happy that we have a Mature FPS coming to the Wii that has nothing to do with the PS2 - at all. If you look at the forum topics about this game, you will see that people aren't stupid and they can see when effort is being made and demand for The Conduit is already extremely high because of this.

Okami Wii - first hour of the game

The style, the music, the gameplay - all beautiful. I suggest buying this game and you'll be rewarded with a rich experience you probably won't forget. Okami is supposed to be as deep as Zelda.....is that enough reason?

Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World updated screens

IGN has an updated hands-on preview to go along with new screens. It sounds like if you liked the first game, than this will be just as good if not better than you hoped for. Tales of Symphonia was Namco's highest selling RPG so it makes a lot of sense that the sequel is going to be exclusive to the Wii.

Sadness still coming to the Wii

CALABASAS, Calif. (April 14, 2008) –Emergent Game Technologies announced today that the highly-anticipated psychological thriller Sadness for Wii™ is being built on the Gamebryo game development platform. The first Wii title to be presented entirely in black-and-white is in development by Poland-based game studio Nibris. Taking place prior to World War I, Sadness is a crime noir thriller with richly detailed characters and an engaging storyline.

“Without a doubt, Gamebryo is the most powerful engine available for the Wii. After getting familiar with the engine several months ago we made the decision to choose Gamebryo. Since then, our team has been working on Sadness and we are quite impressed,” said Tomasz Wisniowski, Project Manager of Nibris. “We will have quite a few graphical effects in our game, which some believe are impossible to attain on the Wii. Gamebryo helped make it possible. We are firmly convinced we made the right choice.”

“From the early stages of pre-production with Sadness, Nibris realized that they would need development technology that allowed for an extreme amount of flexibility in the creative process, which is a cornerstone of the Gamebryo framework,” said Geoffrey Selzer, CEO of Emergent. “Sadness is designed to push the bounds of Wii technically and creatively. We are thrilled to be a part of Nibris’ ground-breaking product. We’re really looking forward to playing Sadness on Wii.”

Gamebryo gives Nibris’ developers a considerable head start by implementing numerous Wii development features that do not typically come with standard SDKs. Loaded with rendering and animation tools, a Wii-specific viewer, extensive libraries and APIs to simplify pipeline integration, Gamebryo provides Wii teams everything they need to optimize and deliver visually stunning games on time and on budget.

Sadness is a horror adventure game aimed at adults with strong nerves. Players will need to confront their greatest fears and protect themselves in hopes of not getting trapped inside the main character’s nightmare. The game has eight different extreme endings each with their own premise, which are assigned to a player based on specific factors during the game. To compliment the intense gameplay, the Wii-mote and Wii Nunchuk control the main character’s hands so players feel as though they are in the psychological thriller."

Link

I was never really expecting to see this come to the Wii, but it looks like it does actually exist. I'm excited that they are using the same engine (Gamebryo) as Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and would like to see more games use this as well. We will most likely be seeing more info and screens on Sadness soon.

Disaster: Day of Crisis new screens

This is a small scan from Japan Magazine Famitsu, but it shows the progress the game has been making. I'm looking forward to seeing more information on this game hopefully very soon with a translation of this and a new preview.

Dragonforce = New Kings of Metal

I don't ever talk about music on my site, but I'll make a weekend exception. Dragonforce is an amazing band that many people have started to find out since one of their songs is a bonus track in Guitar Hero 3. I have never been much of a Guitar Hero fan and after seeing many people play the game on YouTube with them saying how great they are (looking ridiculous too) when they aren't playing a real Guitar made me even less of a fan. All the exposure that Dragonforce got from the game made me recently check them out and give their last album they released "Inhuman Rampage" a full listen. To say this band is amazing is a bit of understatement because the quality of Metal they are pulling off at the absolutely insane speeds shouldn't be humanly possible but they do it and are very good at it. I had to see some live videos to convince myself that what they are doing on CD was actually possible live because it really has to be seen to be believed. Granted they could use some more variety in their sound because most of the songs have a "they all sound the same" vibe to them, but that is really the only thing I can knock them on.

In this stupid era of Guitars being tuned way down and either screaming or Death Metal growling taking center stage and disrupting the actual music, Dragonforce is something that the Metal scene hasn't seen in at least 15 years, or maybe ever. The lead singer ZP Theart actually sounds good and melodic and doesn't have to rely on hardcore screaming. The lead guitar player Herman Li is basically the new Van Halen and the drummer Dave Macktintosh (funny how all the good Metal drummers have first names of Dave) is totally insane with amazing double bass and even some blast beats peppered in here and there but never too much.

That is why I'm such a fan of most of the 1980's Thrash Metal bands, because they had a good mix of melody to go along with the intense Metal. If more bands followed the trail that Dragonforce is making and ditch the vocalists that do more bad for those bands than good and actually learn how to play their guitars, I can see Metal making an exciting rebirth. So start practicing you Metal bands of today because once you hear these guys play it makes you all look like a bunch of screaming whining babies that are so angry at their lives that you forgot (or never learned) how to play guitar because you've seen so many other bands get away with it for so long. Some bands did it right with the screaming (like Pantera) but far too many just do it too much and sound really lame in the process.

If you haven't been a fan of today's Metal scene then I urge you check out Dragonforce and be pleasantly surprised by their amazing skills. If you don't believe me you can take Metallica's Kirk Hammett's word for it from this quote: "I really like this absurd band called Dragonforce," Kirk said. "Those are the fastest guitar players I think I've ever seen. They're like Yngwie [Malmsteen] on steroids. No, they're like Barry Bonds on guitar. It's amazing. I saw one video and I swear to God the guy must've played 75,000 notes."

Link to Kirk's quote

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed experience video

I'm glad that the developer is at least really pushing the PS2 as far as they can since that is what the Wii will be getting.....unfortunately. The game does look very fun regardless of the fact that it is based on the PS2.

Sonic Unleashed Trailer

It is unknown which system the trailer is from but most likely PS3/360. I really do hope that the Wii version is based on the PS3/360 and not the PS2.....I can't believe Sega is releasing a PS2 version. We know that the Wii can do better graphics than the PS2 but if developers keep porting over games like they have been doing then no one will see the point to actually putting some effort into the Wii's graphics abilities. It's frustrating for sure. We can only hope that if Sonic and the Secret Rings is anything to go by, then Sega will hopefully be making the Wii version look as much like the PS3/360 versions as possible since we know the Wii is able to do it.

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed Wii screens/info

Link to preview

Click on the bottom screen to see in detail how this game will control using the Wii remote and Nunchuck. The game looks good enough graphically, but the control is the real selling factor in my opinion. Finally some real lightsaber action for the Wii and a must-buy for the summer.