Wii60 Graphics on the way from Developers?
Immense console sales are all well and good for the bean counters and the Nintendo money bin, but when it comes to game titles the Wii has a fatal flaw: 3rd party shovelware and the piss-poor graphics contained therein.
With the occasional exceptions from a handful of talented 3rd party developers with the time and money to spend on their products, most of the high watermark visuals we’ve seen on the system have been spewed forth from Nintendo themselves.
This is mainly due to the majority of third party developers saturating store shelves with low budget, half-arsed attempts at games (or 1/4 arse attempts in the case of Far Cry and Red Steel) which, understandably, none of us ran out to buy.
This prompted game publisher suits everywhere to gather together in their respective boardrooms (around the company Dark Crystal, most likely) and decree amongst themselves that ‘the Wii isn’t viable, therefore lets not bother spending money on our Wii games’ – a decision which effectively kicked off the vicious circle of crap.
This situation, coupled with the popular urban myth that Nintendo owners don’t want darker, adult-orientated titles, has made the majority of 3rd party titles either remakes of last-gen games that have bugger all ‘remake’ factor in them, ports of yearly released next-gen franchises that get neutered to the point of looking like PS2 games, and then you have the usual cavalcade of horrible mini-game-fests that desperately try to emulate the approachability (and hence the visual simplicity) of WiiSports. Yes sir, if you’re a hardcore graphics junkie and you need to make yourself go cold turkey – buy a Wii, it’s your very best hope for rehabilitation.
Apparently we’re not the only people who have noticed this disturbing trend; Kerry Ganofsky, CEO and founder of High Voltage Software recently spoke out by saying “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. 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." Incendiary words indeed, and Ganofsky takes it one step further by stating “Most of the games on the Wii look like crap [and] we want to change that”.
High Voltage may have got just the thing to solve the problem too; with their newly developed Quantum 3 Engine which has been built from the ground up specifically for the Wii system. According to High Voltage and their decidedly impressive tech demo Quantum 3 supports real-time normal mapping, reflection and refraction, post process full screen effects, projected lights and textures, specularity and fresnel effects, emissive and iridescent materials, interactive water, real-time shadows, morphing, and much more.
If this graphical borax doesn’t mean much to you, we’ll break it down in layman’s terms: they could well be able to create environments an objects that are on par with graphics seen on some first generation Xbox 360 games – and all of it will run at a baby smooth 30 fps (which High Voltage plans to bump up to a full 60fps).
We know what you’re thinking; “Tech demos are all fine and dandy, but what’s the point in showing me these uber-slick graphics if I can’t crush any polygonal enemies, see them driven before me, and hear the lamentation of their NPC women-folk, right?” Well, High Voltage is all over that too apparently, with work already well underway on a Quantum 3 powered FPS called The Conduit.
Set in present day Washington D.C, The Conduit puts you in the boots of a secret service type named Agent ‘Ford’ as a full-scale extraterrestrial invasion occurs. This isn’t some garden variety invasion either, apparently there’s also a conspiracy afoot, and as Ford you will be tasked with approaching this with all the care and subtlety such a delicate investigation deserves – using a metric arseload of high-powered guns.
Not much else is known about the game at this stage, but High Voltage is describing The Conduit as a clear-cut first-person shooter game in the style of Halo, Medal of Honor: Heroes 2 or Resistance: Fall of Man – basically, swift, shoot-and-scoot battles using stylized weapons.
They’re also promising to deliver advanced enemy artificial intelligence which will deliver "human-like behavior" and a special device known as the All Seeing Eye (or ASE). According to the studio, this fine piece of ASE will allow players to "reveal concealed objects and enemies, providing a deeper level of puzzle-solving."
Using both The Conduit and their proprietary Quantum 3 Engine, High Voltage have stated a desire to be “the most technically innovative Wii developer on the planet" and from what we’ve been privy to so far, they’re already taken large strides toward achieving that goal. Whatever the outcome may be here, we’re hoping that all the other game publishers and developers are being inspired by the huge potential on display here.
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