Open letter from Infendo
November 27, 2007
Infendo writer Derek pleads his case for Ghostbusters.
I am here to assure you that Red Fly Studio is dedicated to the Nintendo Wii. Mushroom Men is exclusively designed for the Nintendo hardware, so our focus since the studio was born has been on making the best Wii experience possible. We’ve iterated on controls endlessly to find the best balance of traditional control while still taking full advantage of the possibilities offered by the Wii’s unique hardware. Our biggest concern is not how to force motion controls onto a PS2 version of a game but how to squeeze the full-sized Wii game down to fit on the PS2.
That’s not to say that the PS2 will be watered down. We’re using Terminal Reality’s Infernal Engine which has been extensively optimized over the past eight years. Portions of the engine are written directly to the PS2’s hardware, allowing us to push the PS2 in ways no other engine can. That goes a long way toward allowing the Wii version of the game fit on the PS2.
Our product is not a simple down-port of the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions of the game. It’s a unique experience built from the ground up to make full and extensive use of the Wii’s unique and powerful hardware as well as providing unique multiplayer experiences.
There is no doubt in anyone’s mind that holding the Wii remote should feel like you’re holding the proton gun. That is the first thing everyone says when we mention “Ghostbusters” and “Wii” in the same sentence. There are a few other special treats for players who pick up the Wii version that will further immerse them into the game experience due to the Wii’s controller. More will be revealed in the coming months.
Our primary objective as we develop this project is to make you feel like a Ghostbuster when you play our game. The Wii remote and nunchuck allow us to do that in so many ways. So Nintendo fans rejoice! Next year, you will bust some ghosts.
November 27, 2007 at 4:38 pm
w00tness
November 28, 2007 at 4:31 pm
Mr. Mills:
I am the Infendo writer who wrote the “open letter,” and I am happy to read your response. I am certainly anxious to hear more about your Ghostbusters game, and I have been anxiously awaiting more on Mushroom Men, as well.
I hope you didn’t take my “letter” negatively; it was written only in constructive hope. If I weren’t optimistically anticipating your project, I wouldn’t have written it. Though I was speaking for the many Wii owners who have grown tired of studios taking lazy approaches to Wii development, it is great to see that Red Fly is working toward something much more substantial.
Good luck on your 2008 releases; I know many Wii fans are looking forward to them!
November 29, 2007 at 11:31 am
Good to hear.
Always remember there are millions of gamers and GB fans counting on you to release an AAA title
You know, no pressure or anything.
December 2, 2007 at 7:02 am
I want to be very honest about my concerns with how this game, Ghostbusters, is going to turn out so please don’t be too offended if I sound a bit critical and harsh…You know what people can be like when they are passionate about something.
I just want to say that although Mushroom Men looks interesting there is something in the trailer that seems a little off to me. Can’t put my finger on it exactly but maybe it is the early stage of development. The environments look a bit empty and the movement and interaction with other characters looks a little simplistic at this stage.
I honsestly thought Muschroom Men was a homebrew game when I first saw it so I was completely suprised to hear that Red Fly Studio has is also working on the Wii version of Ghostbusters and I hope you can at least appreciate my concerns about the future of this game.
I would like to point you in the obvious direction of Luigi’s Mansion, which I assume you have probably looked at anyway, as this is a game that looks quite similar in rendering style to the Ghostbusters game on Wii developing based on the intial screens (this is a good thing imo), and it has the obvious Ghost theme also.
I especially love the stunning lighting in that game and would LOVE to see you guys acheive something as visually striking on the Wii, which is obviously capable of such effects. There is even some examples of decent bump-mapping in that game too. It would be really nice to see a game on Wii that at least has some of these kind of effects that were acheived on last-gen GC games and Luigi’s Mansion is like a Ghostbusters game in the Mario universe so I can see how it could be a good game to look at and reference, but that is just my opinion.
Regarding the Wii Ghosbusters game. From the couple of screens I have seen it looks over the shoulder 3rd person but with a mostly first person style of play, similar to something like Lost Planet, which I think is a very nice approach and if the controls are done right could be great.
I personally imagine a game that would move/turn or move/strafe (depending on preferance) with the analog stick on the Nunchuck and you would freely aim around the screen with the Wiimote’s pointer. You could set it so the aim doesn’t affect the turning at all like it works in RE4 on Wii (which would make shooting the proton beam feel VERY nice as it would be almost like an arcade gun game for the aiming/shooting) and you could also have the normal option of setting a bounding box to determine how much it turns based on the position of the cursor from centre of the screen like many FPS games on Wii.
I like the idea of offering the player both control options because some people don’t like turning and aiming on the same pointer control but some do.
Anyway. I am not going to sit here and try to design the whole game, although I would love to, but just to say that I hope you don’t throw in any gimicky waggle controls and that you really take the time to make each gesture based action, which I am sure you will have a few, makes sense in the game an really feels correct for the action you are performing.
Good luck with the game guys and I really really hope you can live up to my expectations. I would love to see a game that lives up to it’s huge potential and is as great as the Ghostbusters concept and movies.
Remember that we were all children at some point and if you can capture the magic and wonder of the movies then you will acheive and indeed deserve great success and fortune along with it.
I wait with excitement and anticipation, and hope, like a small innocent child at Christmas.
Please don’t crush my hopes and dreams and please, please, make this game as wonderous and magical as it deserves to be.
Kirk
December 3, 2007 at 4:40 am
I made this post elsewhere, but I’m going to add it here in regards to the Wii version:
If the graphics are cartoony like from what little I’ve seen, then I want to import my Mii into the game for create-a-character. Plop his head onto a Ghostbuster jumpsuit and let him join the team. Nintendo goes all batmess crazy about how Miis are such an “important” part of gameplay, but outside of Mario & Sonic, and a bobblehead in Metroid… where, recently? Developers need to jump on this feature a little more.
Obviously, the Wiimote is the proton pack. but I hope you can “throw” the traps and activate them via the nunchuk similar to the shield bash in Zelda: Twilight Princess. Seriously, is this not a given? Or if not, I want to use the Wii Zapper as one of my control set-ups.
I hope this is Wi-Fi co-op. I want to ‘bust with my friends. Multi-player team ghost hunts! I don’t want to see the Wii version be a bunch of mini-game crap, and I’ll call “foul” right now if that’s attempted. Oh yes. Voice chat. Must. Have. No Friend Codes, please.
LOTS of interviews. Cast/voice interviews, motion capture sessions, a BIG interview with Akroyd and Ramis (and Murray and Hudson) on how they got this project off the ground, and why it became a game. Concept art would be cool too. Even skins to give the look or jumpsuits of the Real Ghostbusters counterparts. This is essentially Ghostbusters 3. I want to know how this all came about.
December 5, 2007 at 8:08 am
According to IGN the Wii version of the Ghostbuster’s game is going to be horribly kiddie.
” …[Wii version] will deliver it in a “softer” way. In other words, there’ll be less story and less dialogue. Like it or not Wii owners - Ghostbusters on Wii is being designed to skew younger than its brethren, so don’t expect the adult themes from the films to make it through.”
Simply put, I am tired of this trend in spite of Wii’s successful mature games. If you want my money (on any version), give the Wii a real port of the game and not a mini-game kiddie fest. Thank you.
March 17, 2008 at 2:29 pm
[...] and Red Fly Studios, the developer handling Wii and, of course, PS2 Ghostbusters development, were quickly responded to with assurances that the Wii version is a priority, not an afterthought. But given the history of tandem Wii/PS2 [...]