NYCC: Godzilla Wii eyes-on
by Andrew Yoon 
{ Feb 28th 2007 at 7:25PM }
Tucked away in a secret corner of New York Comic Con was Godzilla: Unleashed for Nintendo Wii. Considering its early pre-alpha form, Atari didn't want to show off too much of the game. Makes sense: the game really looks incomplete at this point, especially with its primitive, worse-than-Gamecube graphics. Of course, graphics are easily correctable during a product's development.
How were the controls? You can watch and judge for yourself. Do the motion controls really add much to this brawler? At this moment, it doesn't appear to. The game still has a long way to go: it won't be ready until the holiday season later this year. Hopefully, the Wii functionality of the game will feel a bit more significant, and less tacked on, the next time we see it.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
gdub @ Feb 28th 2007 8:24PM
OH NO! there goes Tokyo, GO GO GODZILLA!
Steve @ Feb 28th 2007 7:33PM
I am a Wii proponent, but I'm beginning to think that the Wii controller is a benefit to FPS and little else. And of the FPS games on the market none of them have been compelling games, the best of that group has been Elebits.
Mr Khan @ Feb 28th 2007 7:47PM
I'll grant that the environments looked bad, but those character models look pretty good
fable2323 @ Mar 1st 2007 12:39PM
It is too early to say the Wii controls do not offer anything new to gaming. It will take the creative minds of developers to usher in something new. The problem is most hardcore gamers are hung up on the current methods and are unwilling to try something new. That is the reason why most dev's are just playing it safe with the Wii right now. Expect most of the innovation to come from Nintendo with 3rd parties following close behind.
Rubang B @ Feb 28th 2007 8:07PM
I think the Wii conrols will help Mortal Kombat as I won't have to memorize crap ever again. And it made the slingshot/boomerang/bow and some other spoiler-items insanely easy to maneuver in Twilight Princess. And of course the remote isn't only a benefit to FPS games. Wii Sports outsells everything in Japan, and everybody loves it in the U.S. too. I never really enjoyed sports games before (except for NBA Jam: TE) and now I'm actually looking forward to new golf and tennis games for the Wii.
But haven't Godzilla games always sucked anyways? I'm not excited. I played one that was OK on GC once, for one 4-player party night, but we never touched it again after that night.
sully @ Feb 28th 2007 8:32PM
If I was Atari, I wouldn't want to show that off either.
Hunter @ Feb 28th 2007 8:34PM
Am I the only one who thought the breath attack control was kind of cool? Consider how it would allow you to spray across mutiple attackers in a four player game.
hvnlysoldr @ Feb 28th 2007 8:37PM
The ultimate unlockable monster has to be King Kong. If King Kong were in any Godzilla game, who could resist?
Aex @ Feb 28th 2007 8:43PM
So, after this video I guess it is pretty safe to scratch godzilla off the list of games wii owners are looking forward to?
Rob Accomando @ Feb 28th 2007 8:44PM
Yes! He calls it a "Wiimote" =D
mo @ Feb 28th 2007 9:09PM
@ 1
I COMPLETLY AGREE
the motion sensitive controls for other things are just annoying.
i say the only thing the motion controls should be used for are FPS, Mini games ( mario party and rayman) and racing games, unless you can come up with somthing cleaver its just a wrist-flick instead of a button
i dont want to flick the controler around when there are buttons un-used.
every game so far has been completly "tacked on" as the PS3 fanboys say, but the controls for mario galaxy look promising and metroid with pointing will be awsome
realstar @ Feb 28th 2007 9:16PM
I think this game could turn out well considering Dragonball Z has some of the best 3D fighting controls yet seen. (both published by Atari) It depends on the development studio handling this project of course. I did have some fun with the Godzilla game on GameCube so I think it's worth keeping an eye on.
Frankie @ Feb 28th 2007 9:55PM
That was pretty cool. The character models looked fluid and I LOVE how you control the beam attacks. Very, very cool.
steve17 @ Feb 28th 2007 10:19PM
the beam attack looked like shit though. half the time it was an anti-aircraft gun and the other half was at his own feet. looks like it would be hard to pitpoint it on an enemy.
shivr @ Feb 28th 2007 10:46PM
I dont really like the godzilla games but that looked pretty cool to me >_>
I liked the animation on mech godzillas tail :3
bouncicles @ Feb 28th 2007 11:23PM
@1 and @11
Well, not JUST FPS of course; I mean, think of Wii sports, which is probably the best use of the controller so far. I don't think it's an accident that the game that has best used the Wiimote was developed in-house by Nintendo. It's been said a million times, but it's going to take developers a while to even figure out about what kinds are possible with the Wiimote, just like with the DS. I mean, right now, the big developers are mostly just making the same games, just with motion controls taking the place of buttons, which is really somewhat pointless.
I think this is why it's important to get Wii development hardware into the hands of smaller, independent developers. They are the ones who can come up with novel uses for the Wiimote—not because they are any more creative than the big houses, but because they don't have to worry about cross-platform BS or the inertia that comes with a big development house investment. Again, the key to the Wii is to make the console space more like the handheld space, where the smaller devs have more of an equal footing.
in time, I'm betting we'll see some thing for the Wii that we aren't even thinking about right now. I think flight sims might be one good fit. I've seen the videos of Wing Island, but what about something more like Propeller Arena on the Wii? Might be a cool use of the controller...
mocax @ Feb 28th 2007 11:47PM
As the guy's talking and gesturing, Godzilla's picking up dirt :D
djmg82 @ Mar 1st 2007 2:22AM
This is a pre-alpha people. It's not finished. It's not BETA. It's not even ALPHA. It's PRE-alpha. Personally I thought the breath attack looked awesome. Yah, it was going all over the place, but the guy was AIMING all over the place... the idea was to show you how the breath attack followed the wiimote. Anyway, I've never been a fan of Godzilla games (have there been any good ones?)... that said, if they do a good job this could end up being a fun multiplayer game ala SSB. Not gonna get my hopes up though. And ya, the characters looked good.
steve17 @ Mar 1st 2007 3:38AM
yes i realize its PRE-alpha. but im saying i played the last game. when ur using the breathe attack u steer it with the little C knob on the GC controller. anyone who played it will tell u controlling the thing sucked ass. and using the POINTER technology of the wiimote while looking at a side angle of the character would be very difficult.
what im saying is that the controls and responses are on perpendicular angles. which is going to make it hard to pinpoint it on the target. it was hard enough with the thumbstick.
t_m @ Mar 1st 2007 8:53AM
Never played the orignals, but they got resonable reviews and were supposed to be especially fun in 4 player mode.
Having seen the screenshots, its blatantly untrue to say the graphics are worse than the gamecube.. they've majorly upped the poly counts and the shader effects of the characters, and the city is now fully destructable.. something it wasn't before.
I'd also say that FPS is one of the genres the Wii controls have failed to live up to.. sport (wii sports, golf, madden, snowboarding) have all benefitted from the wiimote, minigames have DEFINATELY benefitted (almost too much) and dragonball z in particular was made much more fun.
The controls aren't always "more accurate" or "better", but they are usualy a ot more involving and a lot more fun. (nd that goes double for non-gamers.
Flamebait story imho.