Wii and First-Person Control
If E3 2006 showed me anything, it's that
developers are still figuring out the best possible method to present control in Wii-based first-person titles. The big ones come to mind. Red Steel. And, of course, the highly ambitious and cool Metroid Prime 3: Corruption. I want to say that the control schemes in both games are perfect, but in my experience, they aren't. Good, sure, but not quite there. Let me explain a little further.
Let's start with an in-game screenshot of Metroid Prime 3.
Okay. Before we go any further, think first about the control setups in Metroid Prime and Echoes. You moved Samus about with the left analog stick on the GameCube's controller and you aimed by holding the R button and using the same stick to manually do so. A bit primitive -- people often whined that the game lacked a traditional free-look -- but it worked.
Thing is, with Prime 3, the new
Wii-mote begs to break the tradition, but Retro -- and, for that matter, Ubisoft -- are holding true to it. This is because Red Steel and Prime 3 utilize similar control schemes that enable gamers to manually aim within the confines of an invisible square box, but as soon as their reticule leaves said box the view begins to turn. Seems like this method could work just fine, but in practice it feels a bit clunky, which is why I'm not sure why both developers are using it.
Here are some more pics, this time with some modifications courtesy of yours truly. In the screen below, I've illustrated how this invisible square box works.
As long as you stay inside the box with your reticule, you can manually aim with pixel-perfect accuracy. But as soon as your recticule strays beyond the box into the right, left, top or bottom fields, you're in turn territory. In other words, the whole screen finally turns. This method functions, but it makes quick 180 turns impossible. You'll never be able to get over there quick enough for anything that resembles PC mouse-and-keyboard responsiveness. And furthermore, if, by chance, you could, you might find yourself stuck turning and unable to quickly or accurately get back into the center field. You dig? You should because these are some of the issues I ran into while playing Prime 3. And don't get me wrong, it's still awesome.
What I'm wondering is, why aren't Retro and Ubisoft going with a control scheme that directly rips off a mouse-and-keyboard setup? Observe in the pic below:
Look. You turn the Wii-mote and the entire screen moves with you. This feels like a mouse-and-keyboard setup, which is tried and true. Why not go this route? The only reason I can think of is because the Wii-mote is so accurate that if you do this, your screen will shake with every tiny gesture and every time you (accidentally) shake your hand or change positions. I could see how this could be problematic, but rather than throw out the scheme, I think developers would be better off to write some code that considers these accidental gestures and overcompensates for them. Tries to ignore them or balance them out, in other words. This way, you could have the best of both worlds.
I think it's only a matter of time before a developer hits upon this correctly and totally proves without a doubt that the Wii-mote is the best thing ever for first-person games. My fingers, though, are crossed that Retro and Ubisoft figure it out first. I have high hopes for Red Steel and I'm already convinced Prime 3 is going to be amazing. But with perfected control methods, each could be that much better.