Why Does The Conduit Look So Much Better Than Other Wii Games?

[Xander]

Topic. Seriously, how they'd do it? Is everyone else developing Wii games just super-lazy? Judging from this Gamasutra interview with High Voltage's Matt Corso, that is apparently the case. The Conduit's sharply detailed look isn't the result of a wonder-engine, but of meticulous hands-on optimization work.

Quote: ... I would say that with systems like the Xbox 360 and PS3, you can use pixel shaders to deliver the great visual effects. With the Wii, things are a bit different, so we had to do a lot more under-the-hood optimizations to enable the system to do what it could do. And then, even from the art content creation perspective, the system is a real balancing act, because you do have more limited texture space and whatnot, so you need to keep playing with your textures and your geometry resolutions and your lighting schemes to really bring out the visual style. It's not as easy as building your models in Zbrush, mapping to your low-res cage, and then just turning on the cool lights and you're ready to go.

source

So, they are really taking a good look at what made the visuals on the other systems so good and tweaked what the Wii could do, by hand, to make them look almost as good. That's some dedication right there, way to go High Voltage.

[Ryngrf975]

Great nut shell inside scoop on how they are working with the inside..

Yet the screen isnt that impressive.
(give shout out to NW chicago burbs)

[Stephen]

Originally Posted by Ryngrf975 Yet the screen isnt that impressive.

If it were a PS3 game, no, probably not.. but this is a Wii game, so.. heck yes that screen is impressive. I was reading an article on another site regarding some off location demoing of this game, and apparently they were able to convince passers-by that it was a demo of an XBox360 game, now that is indeed impressive.

Now we can just hope that the game has a decent story, gameplay and all those other bells and whistles that make good looking games, truly good.. cause if it's broken but pretty, it ain't worth havin'.

[TheeFuzz]

Well with every screen the graphics seem to improve. But it doesn't look as impressive as brawl and galaxy.

[jbenhoff]

Fantastic news! If the final product is as good as I hope and expect it to be I think other developers might follow suit with High Voltage and start seeing what sorts of magic they can work with those "under the hood optimizations." I knew it was only going to be a matter of time before a clever team of designers began pushing the Wii hardware to its limits, looks like the boys at HV are going to be the first to have a major title showcasing some of that power.

[The Nartist]

Yeah, It's probablt Hi-def screen shots your looking at.
the game itself probably won't even look half as good
(not that I won't still buy it. :P)

[The Overlord]

Probally cause these people are ACTUALLY working on making a ACTUAL good game. :3

[Megas]

the game does look brilliant at the moment and i do hope that the game has wifi included :P

[Xander]

So far the game has 16 player death match, team death match, and capture the flag over wi-fi, it also has LAN play, but no split screen.

Wii speak is being worked on right now, and they are looking into using the balance board and wii motion + to make this game the ultimate wii experience.

[Megas]

Originally Posted by Xander So far the game has 16 player death match, team death match, and capture the flag over wi-fi, it also has LAN play, but no split screen. Wii speak is being worked on right now, and they are looking into using the balance board and wii motion + to make this game the ultimate wii experience.

I dont see how LAN would work.....

Wii Speak would be a great added feature to the game. but why would they add the Wii Balance board to the game? i know the Motion+ would give the game a big boost but why the Balance board?! Why?!?!!

[Pro-Shooter]

hmmmmm looks like a great shooter game to me, i hope u can play wi-if on it, the graphic looks awesome, looks like the people took some time making this game, i can't wait intill it comes out

[Xander]

Originally Posted by Mr. Ryan I dont see how LAN would work..... Wii Speak would be a great added feature to the game. but why would they add the Wii Balance board to the game? i know the Motion+ would give the game a big boost but why the Balance board?! Why?!?!!

LAN is pretty simple, the game cube could to it with Mario Kart Double Dash, you just need to have all the Wii's connected to the same router.

Don't mock the balance board, that thing is amazingly accurate, you can't really fool it.

The balance board can easily be implemented into one of two things:

1) Replacement for the nunchuck. Simply by leaning forward or backward the character will move, and if you lean left or right, he starts strafing.

2) Head dodging. With the nunchuck, we can use the balance board to be a form of head tracking. By leaning one way, the character will also lean that way, meaning you can dodge bullets/lasers without strafing, possibly look behind walls without exposing your entire character, and make aiming easier since you don't need to actually look up with the wii-mote and instead you can look up with the wii mote still pointing in the center of the screen.