The Conduit will support Wii Motion Plus and Wii Speak

[Queasy]

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High Voltage Software has received heaps of attention for ?The Conduit,? a hardcore-focused shooter designed from the ground up for Wii.

The studio is intent on making full use of the Wii?s capabilities, High Voltage COO Eric Nofsinger told me at Nintendo?s fall summit in San Francisco yesterday.

?The Conduit? will support both the Wii MotionPlus accessory ? they just received development kits ? and the ?Animal Crossing?-linked WiiSpeak.

?We?re hooking it [MotionPlus] up,? said Nofsinger. ?We want to support it. Probably for this version of the game there?s not going to be a whole ton of really extensive use of the Wii MotionPlus. For the sequel to the game, we definitely do want to incorporate more melee and things like that. We want to support it.?

Supporting MotionPlus does come with its hazards, however.

When I spoke with the developers of ?de Blob,? they told me access to MotionPlus might have overcomplicated their control scheme. There might have been a tendency to introduce more simply because they could.

?I think it is something to be cognizant of,? said Nofsinger. ?I think one of our early mandates in design and with the control in general is we didn?t want to be gimmicky. We do have a lot of Wii-specific controls with some of the weaponry, but we didn?t want to be a waggle Wiimote kind of game. There?s nothing in the game like that. I don?t know if we had done that even if we had Wii MotionPlus and been too reliant on it.?

MotionPlus will be supported when ?The Conduit? arrives early next year, and Nofsinger admitted they?ll be play testing how it changes the game.

?Right now it?s probably too early to really say,? he said. ?We?re pretty recent in having our hardware and actually integrating it. There may be a competitive advantage to that kind of thing. We want to make sure anything we do incorporate doesn?t just break the whole experience and a lot of that just comes through a lot of testing. We play the game constantly, and in these upcoming months we?ll have an army of testers working on it.?

The bottom line to Nofsinger, however, is whether the base game is fun ? even a gamer doesn?t have all the peripherals ?The Conduit? will end up supporting.

?It would be a mistake for a developer to require too many peripherals or things like that,? he said. ?The game has to be fun with just the Wiimote and nunchuck. Even if you don?t have connectivity online, even if you don?t have WiiSpeak, even if you don?t have Wii MotionPlus?if you don?t have anything but your Wii and the game, it?s got to be fun.?

?The Conduit? does not yet have a publisher, but Nofsinger promised word on that soon. For now, what do you think of their approach to MotionPlus?

I don't like that the Wii Motion Plus is coming out so long after launch as an add-on. Feels like it should have been included from the start. Hopefully devs will actually use it to make FPS type games better on the Wii. However, they bring up a good point here...this means Devs now have to program for the Wii Motion Plus and without it and still have the game perform the same for the most part. An additional level of difficulty/concern.

 

[Auryg]

Originally posted by: Queasy
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I don't like that the Wii Motion Plus is coming out so long after launch as an add-on. Feels like it should have been included from the start. Hopefully devs will actually use it to make FPS type games better on the Wii. However, they bring up a good point here...this means Devs now have to program for the Wii Motion Plus and without it and still have the game perform the same for the most part. An additional level of difficulty/concern.

I never thought of that. Lame. And it's lame how expensive a single (full) Wii controller is already..with the motino plus? Ugh. Buying a Wii may be cheap in the short run, but if you want more than one controller a 360 is a lot cheaper.

 

[Imaginer]

Originally posted by: Auryg

Originally posted by: Queasy
Link

I don't like that the Wii Motion Plus is coming out so long after launch as an add-on. Feels like it should have been included from the start. Hopefully devs will actually use it to make FPS type games better on the Wii. However, they bring up a good point here...this means Devs now have to program for the Wii Motion Plus and without it and still have the game perform the same for the most part. An additional level of difficulty/concern.

I never thought of that. Lame. And it's lame how expensive a single (full) Wii controller is already..with the motino plus? Ugh. Buying a Wii may be cheap in the short run, but if you want more than one controller a 360 is a lot cheaper.

I don't know. If you look at the cost of the retail wireless 360 controllers, the last I looked it is well up at $65 roughly. Not to mention even if I do find myself with the Arcade, probably like anything else down the line, I would also end up getting a hard drive (adding to that cost) and with my setup, a wireless adapter, etc.

Considering what the Wii controller in all can do, I think it is somewhat justified.

And of course the developers of de Blob would have mentioned that it overcomplicated it because for that game they just made, they did not require the extensive functionality of the Motion plus. But I am sure future titles will find a way to make full use of it.

To say it would have come out sooner, it just maybe due to bad timing issues with the acquisition process of the device itself and working it with the design of the already finalized Wiimote at the time of creation. And, if it was included with the Wiimote, the cost of the base Wiimote would have been more.

At the very least, one isn't forced to get the device, much like I am not forced to get that zapper shell. And if you look at gaming over time costs, it wouldn't be as much of an impact anyway instead of looking at gaming costs all at once type of purchasing.

 

[Imaginer]

As far as The Conduit supporting the device, I think the game is far in the development cycle to go back and try to have their entire control scheme adapted for it. It would just be a huge programming nightmare having to rework your code so you can claim support. No doubt, I would definitely see the next iteration having full support for it.

I envisioned swapping weapons from the typical light gun fighting mechanic and to the swining melee weapon of doom of choice and back again. Hell even if a game makes use of TWO Wiimotes with the Motion Plus doing this making you be able to dual wield would just be that awesome.

 

[Queasy]

Originally posted by: Imaginer
I don't know. If you look at the cost of the retail wireless 360 controllers, the last I looked it is well up at $65 roughly.

MSRP for 360 controllers is $50. You can find them for $40 or less regularly though.

 

[blurredvision]

Originally posted by: Queasy

Originally posted by: Imaginer
I don't know. If you look at the cost of the retail wireless 360 controllers, the last I looked it is well up at $65 roughly.

MSRP for 360 controllers is $50. You can find them for $40 or less regularly though.

Was going to post the same thing. If he's paying $65 for a wireless 360 controller, you're getting ripped off. Hell, GH guitars aren't even that expensive.

If you pay more than $40 for a wireless 360 controller, then you just aren't looking hard enough.