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Spector on working with Wii, and Nintendo's quality...
"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."
Spector on the game originally being for PS3/360...
"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!'"
Spector on reinventing Mickey...
"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."
Spector on MotionPlus...
"We played with it 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."
Story Feedback
the characters and their animations look very nice , but the rest not so much . Certainly not on par to be a mario killer . Nice game anyway.
That's not good for you.
And, I think I know why I don't like the look of this game; the characters and environment don't look like they were made by the same artist.
That's one of the points of the game; contrast!
well i know that Warren Spector don´t want to release the game if is not the quality he wants, so if he looks necesary a delay i´m sure he is going to delay it to do a better job. i hope that
Either way, Warren Spector has my trust when it comes to game design. I'm glad he gets so many interviews now. It's time people read some honest and intelligent developer comments/stories instead of all this attention grabbing or scandal stuff that's going on usually.
@joltmasta
EDIT:
Just read more of the article, among it this:
"In September 2007 Disney acquired Spector's studio, Junction Point Studios, which was well into game concept work."
So much for being only one year in development. We do have 2009 now, right?
jejeje
Regarding those that don't know Mr Spector, look him up. He's a very respected (PC) games developer; on par with Miyamoto I'd say. Making Epic Mickey (or whatever it ends up being called) possibly one of the few games I could buy blindly without reading a single review. Yes my trust could be cruelly run over, but I'm willing to take the chance.
And let's be honest, even at this stage, it looks like more effort's gone into the graphics than the ModernWarfare screens we've been shown so far, and that's out shortly...
He is clearly putting all effort so far into design and gameplay.
The only problem I have is... that the Wii can actually do shaders pretty freaking well.
I'm curious how the trailer from today will look, but the problem I have so far is, when I look at the screens, the texturing or better, lack thereof. There is basically no painted texture on Mickey except the trouser buttons. And those are looking overly distorted due to the characters movement and are very low res. So they might be better off just sticking them on as flat polygons instead.
Unless the lighting and shading is dynamic and makes things look a lot better in action, I wish they would just paint in shadows and such as it used to be done before modern engine design switched to heavy multitexturing with shaders.
You can see it best in this
http://medialib.officialnintendomagazin ... _24767.jpg screenshot on the metal legs. The model looks completely unlit and the bit of lighting they painted into the texture doesn't do enough to define the form.
As much as I'd love to say good things, so far I hope they will heavily revise the textures.
There's no pleasing you is there?
@dandancc
This (peace).
I can imagine the fanboys out there going "Y SPCTR, Y DID U BTRY US?!?!?@!?!?!?!?@?!?!?!?!?!?@?#@#?$??!" when yet Spector was never "in favor" of those systems anyway.
@Eternal Rain
He thinks the game would look better on PS360 and feels it belongs there, because, you know, graphics are the only relevant part of a game.
I blocked him on AIM because I can't take him seriously anymore.
He bought Sonic Unleashed for Wii, btw. And he owns Zack & Wiki. The same guy who trolls Little King Story for looking like a kid's game owns Zack/Wiki.
he is satan
there is no other possibility, thats a big time guy there, who is interested in giving the wii "its due" who respects the wii for its abilities, and respects the mario and zelda games.
so, hes the devil in a sunday hat, yo. i called it here first
so, a game gets rebuilt LAST YEAR
and you want it to look better than this? because he said RIGHT HERE that he is more interested in the quality of the gameplay
@MoldyClay
no, i think you read it wrong, he saying he wanted it on wii from the get go, but they put it on the others, he eventually just went "screw it, ill argue my point" he was then offered a wii port, and he argued, no way, we need full quality, then was given wii exclusive
edit:
holy crap, scrapper mickey looks depraved in that icon
And didn't you say before that originally he refused to play Fatal Frame IV but then he ended up being the one to beat it first? (why the hell do I remember that?) Okay yeah I'm done trying to understand that guy. I saw his response to me before the admins deleted it too and... yeah...
@hcig
Chernabog confirmed then?
I don't know why this can't be easier to understand.
1) Compelling gameplay
2) Impressive presentation
Many of Nintendo flagship titles have both, it's dismissible because it's a 3rd party sucks up to the Wii? OK, buddy.
Audio Tour with Warren Spector now live.
While I've no doubt they will polish the graphics, first impressions are hard to rub off after the initial hype.
And then there's the nasty lack of WiiMotionPlus support (although the original article says they're just thinking about it). I think we've exhausted everything that can be done with the stand-alone Wiiremote and its time they deliver on the promise set by Nintendo way back in '06.
There's so many things wrong with this guy, he can hide behind his GAMEPLAY OVER GRAPHICS but giving the finger to developers who work on the PC, Ps3, 360 and Wii who do balance both is shallow-minded and comes off extremely arrogant
I honestly do not like this guy, biggest jerk right next to Activision.
And you gameplay>graphics guys also need to be reminded that Nintendo's own Zelda team was humble by Capcom's efforts with Monster Hunter 3 making the best out of the Wii hardware.
You can have both, live a little fellows.
Love his focus on gameplay, something not many do as their primary focus these days. Gamers in general are too obsessed with visuals, less on art style and gameplay, sadly.
Cannot wait for this. This guy's a new hero of mine.
I'll leave another comment later once Bethany makes a post for it, but that was pretty cool. I was hoping the final update would be a trailer, but then again I guess the London event hasn't happened yet if we still lack one.
To clarify, do you mean Spector with "this guy"? Just wondering if you do, whenever did he give the finger to any other devs or chanted a gameplay over graphics mantra?
As far as WM+ goes, I don't think we'll see much games at all going that route. Doubt that devs being affraid of bad sales of "proper" games are going to invest more time into something that might not bring them a lot more customers in best case or in worst cut their potential sales in half. Shame, but I guess to be expected after the whole idea of the Wii was about putting motion controls right into the box without the need to buy yet another peripheral. For the bit of time it lasted anyway.
@Chosenoneknuckles
I value art style over technical features any time, but in this case the problem is actually more the discrepancy between the gorgeous concept art and the transition to 3d in general, not because there's no normalmapping or other modern tech.
@Eternal Rain
I too hoped for a trailer, but I guess that will go up tomorrow then, since it's now 11pm in the UK. Or do they have some kind of midnight party for the reveal?
I just checked around, looks like the London event already happened... and yet there's still no trailer... my hype meter's acting weird right now. On one hand I feel like I hyped myself up today for nothing more than high res screens, but on the other hand I get this feeling something's not yet over... just can't figure out what it is.
Oh well, I'm not going to get myself down or anything. The new GTA IV expansion comes out tomorrow and I know for sure I'm getting it.
I can agree with that.
I'm also confused as to why our London event came without a trailer [seemingly]. I was out all day today so I figured it'd be posted when I came back on here. All I found was more 'Wii 2' rumours [yawn] and this thread.
His sentiments about devs missing the Wii boat and focusing over graphics was single-minded, like he has an agenda to push down our mouths. That's why my original statement was blunt and straight-forward.
They can risk it on Wii without worrying so much about huge loss if it doesn't end up good, I'm not mincing words with skepticism. I see him pulling the gameplay argument while ignoring major hits on Ps3/360/Wii/PC that use both. Batman Arkham Asylum would not be the same game if they didn't take such ridiculous high degree of polish.
Same with the original Metroid Prime back on the GameCube and despite it's age, the atmosphere provided solely by its presentation is hard to beat even today.
It's also a bit sad that WiiMotion Plus falls under the scenario you mentioned because the Wii games need to step up to the plate now that all consoles are more or less on equal grounding for their motion sensing capabilities.
Also, I think the game is supposed to look kind of barren and bleak, because the crux of the gameplay is that you can either destroy everything, or build the world up, bright and colorful. You're basically supposed to be restoring the world, ala Okami, in a way, and I'm sure once you get to doing more of that, the level graphics look much prettier.
But at the end of the day, while having Mario Galaxy graphics for this would be superb, what would be better if is it actually winds up playing well and being a lot of fun. That IS what's more important. I'm sorry, but I've played so many PS3 games that all look great, technically speaking, but just aren't all that fun to actually play. Uncharted and Infamous definitely come to mind.
I see. Guess one could label me a Spector fanboy, but I don't think that he has any agenda like that, at least not suddenly just because he went for Wii. If you look at Deus Ex or his other games, they never really focused on graphics as much as they did on doing something with the gameplay and I remember Deus Ex getting a bit of flak about the graphics even.
This isn't me downplaying graphics btw. Just saying the man never really focused on that part to begin with.
Actually I was surprised he said why he chose the Wii so straightforward. As in that the target audience for a more colorful game is there. Anyone else would've at least started with how it was the only way, with the motion controls and all. Stuff like that is why I like him and don't think he has any agenda except making a game that does open up some gameplay that others don't try, even in a "kids game" like Mickey. Don't think there really is any other dev who would've gotten Disney to implement a kind of moral system in a Mickey title like this.
I agree about development costs and Batman and Metroid and all that. Can't deny I would love to see a triple-A PC FPS game in the vein of Deus Ex or that fantasy concept he mentioned. As things are I'm glad that the man finally got a long leash again after the Deus Ex/Thief III stint as producer only. I'll never forget how he basically said in an interview that his fault was that he gave out control instead of doing things himself.
So all that said, I'm looking forward to what he can do with this game and hope his art team does the best to improve the looks.
The last thing I wonder about is how the future will turn out in regards to motion controls. Since you correctly mentioned that the other consoles are soon not behind anymore on that front. Since WM+ is just as much an extra purchase as the other console's magicks will be.
Hear hear, my thoughts exactly. And thanks for the background information, I didn't mean to slander the man.
It's the atmosphere around Wii development that makes it hard to single out the people who do care vs PR talk to defend a low-budget game (not that I'm saying this is a low budget game).
"
Hey NeoGarfield
So yeah, Epic Mickey.
Looks good! Definite tinge of Super Mario Galaxy, and a little Kingdom Hearts. The real time world changing stuff is really impressive, allowing you to destroy bits of the world and stuff.
Good / Evil dynamic sounds good, and fixes a lot of problems you have in games like inFamous and Fable - Mickey is always going to be a hero, so you don't have to worry about the dissonance of being the evilest guy in town but also saving the world.
You're simply deciding whether to be helpful and heroic, or selfish and impudent. The latter makes you stronger and gives you more tools to wreak havoc, but the former gives you more friends and allies.
It's very much a Spector game - which is a pretty big complement. Much like Deus Ex, you'll be given tonnes of different ways to solve puzzles. There's a spinning blade that Mickey needs to pass, and Big W says he can think of at least five different ones. Some are; stop watch to slow time, be helpful and a friend will stop it, find a secret entrance with destruction.
Everything is based on Disney concept art, Disneyland rides, scrapped concept art and whatnot. The game is super meta, self referential and breaks the fourth wall in a big way - the world is based on the fact that Disney is a packrat for unfinished cartoons and scrapped concept art, and Oswald is a resentful, bitter tike based on the Universal / Disney kerfuffel. (I don't know how to spell that - Firefox suggests Garfunkel)
Game is also far from finished - lighting is very early, so don't be too critical of the screens.
If I can think of anything else, I'll let you know."
but get ready for a dissapointment: it's approaching The Conduit's hype levels.
(I loved the Conduit though)
maybe you didnt realize this
but dead space is a RAIL SHOOTER
this is an adventure game
it is a different development style all together
For sure. Look at the difference already in already shots of Sin & Punishment 2 vs. the most recent. Huge difference.
Oy vey.
If Wii haters want to piss their pants because this game isn't coming to their console (just like they do for every other game that doesn't, such as No More Heroes, Muramasa, Scribblenauts, etc.), that's perfectly fine. All I keep hearing from those types is how much better games like God of War 3 or Modern Warfare 2 are going to be SO much better than anything coming out for Wii, so really, they have no right whatsoever to whine that a Mickey game isn't coming out on their system.
They'd probably just complain that you can't perform bloody decapitations anyway, thus making it decidedly "un-hardcore".
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