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Above: Don’t worry, we don’t mean the entire system
1:1 movement - the complete matching of the Wii remote with the action onscreen. For example, say your character in a given game is holding a sword and you move your hand from left to right. You’d reasonably expect the character to move the sword in tandem with your arm movement.
But none of that really happens. The inclusion of Wii on this list isn’t to bait trolls, but rather express our disappointment that more Wii games don’t fully support this feature. And in actuality, we understand why: 1:1 doesn’t work too well and it’s a pain to program for.
Above: No 1:1 movement, but that makes sense
Take Zelda: Twilight Princess for example. If you recall, you only needed to lightly waggle the controller to score a hit with your sword because the game couldn’t recognize true 1:1 sword slashing movements. In order to do that, devs would need to program entire animation cycles for Link to perform, rather than the select few whenever you swung the remote. Other games like Red Steel or Metroid Prime for example are closer to 1:1 movement, but aren’t exact because of the parameters imposed by the FPS genre.
Above: No More Heroes just made you spam the A button for attacking
So we’re a little bummed, especially considering the announcement of Wii Motion Plus at E3 2008, enabling true 1:1 control. Wait…wasn’t this supposed to be Wii’s selling point the first time around? Anyway, this new-fangled device comes packaged with Wii Sports Resort, giving you newer tech demos like baton fighting, jet ski and Frisbee throwing. Yikes. Maybe you can have 1:1 movement, Nintendo. We may not be “ready” for it yet.
Fable
Above: Be wary of crushing those plants. You’ll change everything
Your actions would have a profound impact upon your character and the environment as you aged and progressed through the game.
Failure may be too strong a word in this case. In fact, the original Fable sold really well and was pretty damn cool to boot. What we’re indicating is the relentless hype machine creator Peter Molyneux built around the original title. Hey, if we set out to make the most ambitious RPG ever, we’d want to tout how awesome it would be. In this case, Molyneux might’ve wanted to play some things closer to his chest.
Above: EPIC
Let’s gloss over the fact that he once stated, “It’s gonna be the best game ever.” Maybe he was drunk. On power. Other claims that went unfulfilled: a feature intending you to have good/evil children depending on your own path never came to fruition, player interaction with NPCs never felt as emergent as the devs claimed, oh, and every flower you crushed did NOT really affect the world.
So while the game was fun and entertaining - and admittedly short - everything felt a tad underwhelming, due in part to Molyneux’s claims. Perhaps that’s why he was a slightly more reserved for Part 2’s PR campaign.
