Revolution Demos Play-tested – Full Report

so basically, all the stuff that we knew since TGS: Metroid was there, the plane was there, the fishing was there... hardly news. But maybe there are people that have been living on a deserted island the last couple of months, could be new to them!

:)

You monkey. This is the first time anyone anywhere has seen Revolution software actually running. No actual game/demo footage was shown - the movie Nintendo showed was from the screen's perspective, looking at the players.

Demo #1: Point and Shoot
Like a laser pointer, the main controller was used to move a simple cursor on the TV screen and shoot square blocks for points. It was simple, merely colored lines in 2D, but effective. It was easy to get a feel for just how sensitive the device is -- it responded to all the movements quickly and smoothly. We did feel the need to use two hands, however, to steady it and improve accuracy, but that only lends to the idea of just how sensitive it is.

Demo #2: Fishing
Much more advanced than just a simple cursor, this revealed how the controller can navigate a 3D space, moving an object on the TV screen not only left, right, up, and down, but also forward and backwards with depth. Players simply use the hand cursor on the screen to pick up a fishing pole and dip its line into a pond full of fish. Like nearly all of the demos, this was very crude, so don't go imagining fishing on the Ocarina of Time level just yet -- this was like a coloring book with flat fish in the water. The visual medium wasn't the point, though. It was pretty intuitive to just reach forward with our virtual hand, pick up the rod, and then dip the hook into the pond and dangle it there. When a fish finally bit, the remote rumbled, which was the cue to tug back on the controller to catch it. As it was only a prototype controller, it was wired because rumble was not in the wireless versions yet.

Demo #3: Shock Stick
Like the first, this was to show how you can point and move something. It was a bit like the board game Operation, only instead of navigating tweezers you navigated a rotating stick through a two-dimensional cave. The skill was to keep a steady hand, collect coins, and avoid hitting the walls. Small springboards on the side would change the direction of the spin of the stick, which aided in creating a strategy for navigating around things.

Demo #6: Toy Plane
Set in the watery hub of Mario Sunshine, this demonstrated that not all controls are created equal. The remote could be held like a toy airplane, fingertips support its base, which allowed the player to tilt it forwards to dip down, back to gain elevation, and twist it left or right to turn turn. The objective was just to steer the plane through rings in the sky. Of course the first thing that came to mind was Pilotwings, so it's easy to see how these simple applications of the controller could be grown into something more complex. It was pretty intuitive to pull off dips and quick turns. Miyamoto joked that you could have a controller peripheral shaped like a toy plane to really make it interesting.

Demo 8: First Person Shooting
So, we lied -- not all of the demonstrations were completely crude graphics. For the final demo, the one that most represented how a game might feel with the Revolution controller, Nintendo displayed what was apparently a test by the team at Retro Studios for what they could do with Metroid Prime 3. They stressed it was just a test, quickly thrown together in just a few weeks. For this, the analog control stick peripheral was used. We held it in our left hand to control the forwards, backwards, and side-strafing motions, as well as having access to triggers in back for scanning; meanwhile, the right hand used the main Revolution remote control to behave just like a mouse on a personal computer. It was a very natural application and felt pretty smooth, but since it wasn't a polished game it did feel a bit awkward at times, making us wonder what kind of things a developer could do to calibrate these kinds of controls for users. Nonetheless, the potential is absolutely huge for the FPS genre. If Nintendo can execute on that potential, Revolution could easily become the ultimate platform for shooters.

cool.now just another year to wait till i get to play it.

on a random note,if nintendo decided to go the way of Sony and MS i.e. pure powerful graphics, they would probaly have the weakest machine and due to brand loyality they would loose the console wars.

note to anyone who cares,i check up on spong a lot, to see for any new news, if i want to give my opinion or i need help.and soon i will get a pic of my gf up,for a laugh.it's a great site, only one thing pisses me off.the fact that nearly everytime i come to this site i have been logged off and have to type in my username and p.word.
can anyone change this?

Config is your man.
He configures things.

You monkey. This is the first time anyone anywhere has seen Revolution software actually running. No actual game/demo footage was shown - the movie Nintendo showed was from the screen's perspective, looking at the players.

can you see these demos any where on th net?

no, it was done behind closed doors, but reported on numerous sites, a lot more in-depth than the article here on spong.