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Born for Wii: Rogue Squadron
Lock S-Foils in Attack Position. Not only is it a line any self-respecting nerd will recognize instantly, it's also the basis for many a successful video game from days gone by. It all started in 1993 with Lucasarts' X-Wing, which brought Star Wars to PC gamers in a big way. For the first time, they were really in the cockpit, fighting the Empire in glorious (by 1993 standards) 3D. However, it was the 1994 follow-up, TIE Fighter, that refined the flight-sim, Rebel-hunting gameplay to a buttery smooth degree of excellence. Well over a decade later, TIE Fighter still finds itself on many "Best of" lists. On the console side of things, however, it's an entirely different series that drew inspiration from the mighty X-Wing.Star Wars: Rogue Squadron on the Nintendo 64 took players outside the cockpit (at least, by default) of the beloved X-Wing, but still placed them in control of the craft, offering an experience that was more shooter and less sim than the successful PC games. However, it was the superior Rogue Leader: Rogue Squadron II, released in 2001 with the launch of the GameCube, that brought the spirit of the X-Wing to consoles. Developer Factor 5 and Lucasarts also collaborated on a third entry in the series, Rebel Strike, which lacked the "wow" factor Rogue Leader had in 2001, but did little to harm the good name of the trilogy. Now, nearly five years later, Factor 5 has been off doing other things, when they really should've been working on a new entry in a series that may just have been Born for Wii. #ninbutton { border-style: solid; border-color: #000; border-width: 2px; background-color: #BBB; color: #000; text-decoration: none; width: 100px; text-align: center; padding: 2px 2px 2px 2px; margin: 2px 2px 2px 2px; } .buttontext { color: #000; text-decoration: none; font: bold 14pt Helvetica; } #ninbutton:hover { text-decoration: none; color: #BBB; background-color: #000; } NEXT >> %Gallery-29879% Every week, Born for Wii digs into gaming's sordid past to unearth a new treasure fit for revival on the Nintendo Wii. Be sure to check out last week's entry in the series, Dark Sector, and for more great titles that deserve your attention, take a look at Virtually Overlooked.
Lair dev laments hideous Wii games, blames budget issues
Factor 5 president Julian Eggebrecht sees potential in the Wii's graphical hardware, despite its technical inferiority to its competitor's consoles. Speaking to RevoGamers, Eggebrecht laments how Wii titles whose aesthetic is more geared toward "traditional, more photorealistic" visuals do not push the hardware. "There you really have to push it," he said, "and they're really not pushing it. Why not? Hmmm. I don't know, the hardware is very, very easy to understand."As for the reasons, Eggebrecht speculates it's a mixture of developer's laziness and a publisher's unwillingness to provide a large enough budget, both related to the Wii's image. Factor 5 has previously shown the GameCube hardware more than capable of gorgeous visuals with the Rogue Squadron series, and Capcom has also shown off technical prowess with Resident Evil 4.If more games show off the Wii's graphical capabilities and consumer expectations increase, perhaps developers and publishers might be more eager to step up their own visuals / budgets. Imagine the possibilities now that there's more memory (and duct tape!).As for returning to work with Nintendo, Eggebrecht showed willingness but revealed no plans. "We're honestly at this point thinking about several titles in development and we haven't settled quite yet on which platform or which platforms if one of them is," he said. "So might be PS3, might be Wii... we're totally open to that."[Via CVG]
Factor 5 fidgets with two PS3 e-distribution titles
Factor 5 is working on two games to be released via PlayStation 3's e-distribution network. According to a Gamasutra interview with company president Julian Eggebrecht, Factor 5 is excited to return to tacking on smaller projects, noting that "people who work on these two and a half year, three year projects have a chance ... to work on something small again."The developer is currently working on the gorgeous PS3 title Lair, pictured, and has a long history of making technically gorgeous games, making the Rogue Squadron series for both Nintendo 64 and GameCube. Given Factor 5's expertise and beauty and Sony's 500MB cap on downloads, we're excited to see what they can conjure.See Also: Joystiq impressions -- Lair (PS3)
