Speaking about Online Gaming or Massive Multi-player Online, the first title which comes to my mind is not one of those 1000 FPS Unreal-like obstructing your lines, but a golf simulation called Shot-Online. When in the last days, discussing about problems in Online gaming, we were taught about the possibility for the programmers to 'cheat' the players, because of speed issues in handling a great amount of data coming from several platforms, I had no idea of what we were discussing. In SO you play following turns, wait for the other players to complete their next stroke, and then you have 30 to 60 seconds to hit the ball. Everything linear, like in real golf, everything under control, even if simulation (weather conditions, ball bounce, holes conformation) does mean a great part of SO success and aren't in any measure sacrificed.
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| Shot Online character creation screen |
But I have to admit that managing 8 or 16 playing characters all in one must be something very painful for any system. All running, all shooting, all possibly involved in the action. Yes, I can guess why AI has to intervene and put on the brakes of extreme simulation in those cases. Programmers limit you, that's all they can do to let the game run as fast as you are used to see in the single player mode. Considering that someone doesn't even play the single player mode after buying an FPS, they are more than justified.
So, my personal experience cannot help me out in finding how I got cheated in the past.
No, wait, not so fast.
I love football. I mean American football. It's a great sport, where tactics and technique reach their perfect balance, and spectacular plays are recurrent. I played many football games, like QB Club, Joe Montana Football, NFL 2Kx and others. Obviously, many Madden titles. The last I bought was Madden 09 All-Play for Nintendo WII. Even if the presentation was not the best and some odious WII features were there to annoy me, most of the appeal was also present. In single player mode I can say that I liked that game, without considering that, for the anger of Xbox and PS users, I was able to design the receivers routes free handed thanks to WiiMote pointer!
But let's go to the bad notes, precisely the Online experience.
In Madden 09 AP you could use two different types of QB passages: the bullet and the lob. The first was performed by leaning WiiMote forward all of a sudden, while the second leaning it very gently. When WiiMote is in the standing position, the value of its Pitch parameter (Y axis) is 1.57. WII decides what type of throw you are doing by just calculating the speed you apply to make the Pitch value go from 1.57 to 0 (flat position).
Playing one on one, player A controls the attack and, big surprise, B controls the defence. To try and reach the opposing QB (A), the defensive lineman can do a lot of possible moves to get rid of the offensive line and, whether he can't go beyond it, to swat or intercept the ball. All is done interpreting the movement of WiiMote, along the axis and using its accelerometer.
You already know how it ends...
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| Number 55 is trying to reach Brett Favre, shaking WiiMote in many different ways |
You cannot throw a bullet, you will always be obliged to execute a lob, no matter how fast you lean your controller. I'm not able to tell you right now how this happened, what kind of memory movements are involved and how the connection limitations interfere with this scheme, but I surely felt frustrated when this happened. Probably, the programmers couldn't tell with the same precision of the normal mode how fast you leaned the controller, so they decided to deny the bullet option from the Online features.
The Online experience dropped quickly, making me prefer the good single player Franchise mode.
I really hope, in a 3 or 4 months time, to come back here, open a post named 'Finding negativity in beautiful spaces - 2' and explain you accurately how technically this shame could happen.
In conclusion, guess what's the best Online WII game...
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