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Wii

New York Comic Con Day One Thoughts

by Neal Ronaghan - February 6, 2009, 9:45 pm EST
Total comments: 20

Let's begin with my favorite place of the day: the Sega booth. I'll write in greater detail at the end of the Con on my theories of why Sega is so ridiculously awesome at the moment, but I'll stick to the facts for now.

The first game I tried was The Conduit, although I didn't play it for too long. Contrary to what Zach Miller says, it looks damn good. Its controls took some getting used to, but I like what I've seen so far. I'll get more playtime with it as the Con goes on, and you'll be getting some impressions on it soon.

The best news I can say about The Conduit is that my hopes for local (split-screen) multiplayer are not dashed yet. I tried to weasel some info out of one of the Sega reps, but he hesitated, asked another Sega rep, and then told me that he couldn't give me an answer. Congrats Sega, you haven't made me a jaded fan of the game. People from High Voltage Software are around the Con and I'll be sure to be an even bigger pain in the ass, because local multiplayer means a lot to me. Honestly, I'll be pretty sour on the game if it only has online multiplayer.

Next up was MadWorld in its first-ever public playable appearance. I'm jotting down my impressions tonight, so I'll keep this short: it's gory, it's fun, and it's amazing.

I also tried some House of the Dead: Overkill. I didn't realize how over-the-top this game was going to be. There's an obscene amount of cursing, and everything looks like an awesome B-movie. Nick's on the review and I envy him right now. It looks really good.

I stopped by the Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars booth, but I didn't get a lot of hands-on time with the game because I wanted to make it to the panel with MTV's Stephen Totilo, Newsweek's N'Gai Croal, 2K Boston's Ken Levine, and Bethesda's Todd Howard. Both developers talked a good deal about their views on games and it was a very interesting panel. Sadly, not too much of it had much relevance to Nintendo outside of Todd Howard calling the Wii a toy in the same vein as Teddy Ruxpin. I haven't been around the internet all day, but I'm sure he is getting some crap for that. It is undeserved. I'm pretty sure he was just referring to the fact that the Wii is in a different league than the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3; it's like comparing Star Wars figures to Wiffleball bats (I'm not sure which side is which in this analogy; use your imagination).

Some other Nintendo-related news that came out of the panel was that Bethesda is working on a game for Wii that involves medieval games. Howard mentioned jousting as one of the parts of it.

The other big game I played today was Ghostbusters: The Video Game. My new favorite development company, Red Fly Studios, is behind the Wii version. While the build at the Con is two months old, it still looks really nice. I had an issue with understanding the controls, but the demo level is apparently the fourth level and once I figured everything out, it worked fine. Once again, I'm working on impressions of this game now, but I might hold up on posting them because I have some nice pictures of the game to go along with it and my camera cable is MIA.

I'll go into more depth tomorrow, but here's a quick list of some of the other games I played today:

  • RooGoo: Twisted Towers
  • RooGoo: Attack
  • Ready 2 Rumble Revolution

I've got much more to see and play, including Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars, Bit.Trip Beat, Overlord for Wii, and the comics games Activision is showing off. Apparently they're giving out foam claws for the Wolverine game. I plan on making them into a middle finger.

Talkback

RABicleFebruary 07, 2009

Make sure to start a fight tomorrow.

I'll just go up to the crowd that was at the panel from yesterday and yell "360/PS3 sucks!" or something wittier.
It was unfortunate how much hate Wii got in the audience...

MeteoFebruary 07, 2009

Thanks so much for checking on the local multiplayer situation. I want to love The Conduit, but local multiplayer is pretty much make or break for me as it's the only mode I play 90% of the time.

NovaQFebruary 07, 2009

Thanks for the impressions. Definitely keep on HV about local multiplayer.

Also, Wii is much, much less creepy than that possessed talking bear doll from the 80's, so it's at least got that going for it...

GoldenPhoenixFebruary 07, 2009

Did you happen to play the 360 or PS3 version of Ghostbusters? What made me most happy is that it appears Atari and Terminal are still polishing the game and not just sitting on the once "done" build of the game.

I got some more info on the Conduit today. Check the NWR Twitter feed or wait until I write up tonight's blog.

Quote from: GoldenPhoenix

Did you happen to play the 360 or PS3 version of Ghostbusters? What made me most happy is that it appears Atari and Terminal are still polishing the game and not just sitting on the once "done" build of the game.

Both Terminal Reality and Red Fly are polishing their respective Ghostbusters games. They both look fantastic, but I kind of prefer the Wii version.
I believe the 360/PS3 version of Ghostbusters was a very recent build, and the game looks fantastic and they're still working on it despite having the game more or less complete since last summer.

GoldenPhoenixFebruary 07, 2009

Quote from: nron10

I got some more info on the Conduit today. Check the NWR Twitter feed or wait until I write up tonight's blog.

Quote from: GoldenPhoenix

Did you happen to play the 360 or PS3 version of Ghostbusters? What made me most happy is that it appears Atari and Terminal are still polishing the game and not just sitting on the once "done" build of the game.

Both Terminal Reality and Red Fly are polishing their respective Ghostbusters games. They both look fantastic, but I kind of prefer the Wii version.
I believe the 360/PS3 version of Ghostbusters was a very recent build, and the game looks fantastic and they're still working on it despite having the game more or less complete since last summer.

Interesting, what makes you lean towards the Wii version? The visual style? The controls?

A mix of both. There's a certain charm in the Wii game that wasn't apparent in the 360/PS3 version. The latter version did look spectacular though.

The Wii is the wiffle ball bat because it (sometimes) requires physical activity to play.

I'm guessing The Conduit has improved significantly between PAX and now. Trust me, the game looked like an early PS2 game at PAX. They hadn't even put the "weak points" on the final boss yet (so there was lots of dying). I'm getting HotD on Wednesday--it's very exciting.

Zach, if you saw The Conduit at NYCC, you'd probably make a comment about how far its come. I looked at some older videos from PAX, and it doesn't look as good as it does now.

Hell yea to HotD! Playing it at NYCC just confirmed my purchase of it. It's a boatload of fun and it has a ridiculous over-the-top sense of humor.

mamacitalewLauren Ronaghan, Staff AlumnusFebruary 09, 2009

Quote from: nron10

I'm pretty sure he was just referring to the fact that the Wii is in a different league than the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3; it's like comparing Star Wars figures to Wiffleball bats (I'm not sure which side is which in this analogy; use your imagination).

The Wii is Star Wars.

Yeah--the new trilogy. HA!

Quote from: Halbred

Yeah--the new trilogy. HA!

Ouch.

The Wiffleball bat might work out better as the 360/PS3 because more needless violence comes out of it.

GoldenPhoenixFebruary 09, 2009

Quote from: Halbred

Yeah--the new trilogy. HA!

I'll take that as a good thing since I really enjoyed the new trilogy!

KDR_11kFebruary 10, 2009

Star Wars is like the PS3 and 360 because nerds endlessly argue about the differences between them but otherwise noone gives a fuck.

PeachylalaFebruary 10, 2009

Bah, the Wii isn't like Star Wars at all. It's more like the good Don Bluth films from the early to mid eighties, and the shovelware is the bad films.

I really need to get Secret of NIHM on DVD. =(

Secret of Nihm rocks my world.

Nick DiMolaNick DiMola, Staff AlumnusFebruary 10, 2009

Quote from: True

I really need to get Secret of NIHM on DVD. =(

Haha, just found this at Walmart right before Christmas for three bucks. Loved the movie as a kid, as did my wife, glad to have a copy to one day show my kids.

Did anyone see the crappy sequel? It's bad.

The first one is a classic, though.

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