In an interview with High Voltage Software, Matt Casamassina of IGN discovered that the developers next shooter for the Wii, which was revealed around E3 time last year, ‘The Grinder’, has lost its exclusivity to the console and will now be appearing on PS3, Xbox 360 and PC too.
The developers claim that they want their talent to reach the widest audience as possible, which is fair enough, they produce quality games. However we are pretty sure that they were secretly crapping themselves with the thought that the game may sell as poorly as ‘The Conduit’ did.
On the latest 1Up podcast, SEGA studio director - Constantine Hantzopoulos, was very open about his companies stance on mature Wii titles.
With the dissappointment of low sales for ‘The House Of Dead: Overkill‘ and ‘Madworld‘ in 2009 followed up with underwhelming sales of EA’s ‘Dead Space: Extraction‘, it seems the end of support from SEGA for this type of content has been confirmed, even though in the past SEGA pledged they would continue support, it seems sales of EA’s shooter was the final nail in the coffin.
“I have to say that it was a space that was open and we took a gamble on it. It’s like, ‘Wow, there’s no mature games on the Wii. Is there an audience out there?’ We did some research, it said there was an audience out there. I won’t comment about Nintendo, they did champion The Conduit as a ‘this is a Nintendo game.’ And, you know, I think they did okay by us. At the end of the day, I just think that you’re seeing kids are skewing much younger towards next-gen. And that’s what I saw out of Conduit. Because not a bad game, visually it’s appealing, right? AI wasn’t that great. High Voltage’s first real effort as an indie developer, creating their own IP. And it was a good effort, right? And there’s always Conduit 2, right? …Anyone past 12 years old was playing 360 and PS3 shooters. And at that point, you can’t tell a 13 year-old, ‘But it’s on the Wii.’ Forget it, you know? That’s not what they see or hear. They’re not really interested in any techno-fetishist aspects of look how great it is on the Wii…And, you know, the effort that we put behind multiplayer on that game to basically get by friend codes and provide worldwide match-making and so on and so forth, I actually thought we dove too deep…”
As many of you know, High Voltage Software, the developers behind ‘The Conduit’, ‘Gladiator A.D’ and ‘The Grinder’ are supporting the Wii’s core base more so than your average developer. They are excited about the Wii MotionPlus peripheral saying that there is much more potential to come from the add-on, which is probably more than true considering there are only a handful of games that use it so far.
“I think it’s fantastic. We’re all about accessible gameplay and Wii MotionPlus is a further step in that direction.” said Cameron Rains, producer at HVS to Official Nintendo Magazine.
So should we expect to see support for Wii MotionPlus in their future games?
The last Astro Boy game we played on a Nintendo system here at nin-ten-do.com was on the GameBoy Advance and boy did it rock! Never finished it though as it was too damn hard. If this Wii version is anywhere near as good as the GBA game we’ll be very happy, so keep your fingers, arms and legs crossed and check the video in the mean time.
Astro Boy on Wii is expected at the back end of 2009.
Here’s some new stills of High Voltage’s fourth upcoming Wii game, ‘Gladiator A.D.‘
The developers have just finished work on ‘The Conduit’ which will be out out this month and are also hard at work with ‘The Grinder‘ and ‘Astro Boy‘ too. Keep ‘em coming boys!
Our friends over at n-europe.com have an exclusive Conduit Wallpaper from Sega to brighten up your monitor and help get even more excited about their upcoming shooter. If you like it head over there now as you won’t find it anywhere else (yet).
High Voltage, the creators of The Conduit have revealed their latest Wii project, titled ‘Gladiator A.D.’ to IGN.
Gladiator A.D. is a one-on-one fighter set in ancient Rome. The game sports detailed graphics, large character design and lots of gore! High Voltage are using their ‘Quantum3′ Wii engine to develop the game.
There also seems to be a slight twist to the standard fighter as developer Eric Nosfinger explains “Gladiator takes strategic combat mechanics and steps it up a notch with an RPG-light twist and more player options.” Good stuff.
Obviously there will be a number of different fighters to choose from to take into battle and when there, depending on the success of the fight, you can earn achievements, fame and wealth.
Wii MotionPlus is also being supported which will determine your exact striking angle and strength of the blow on left, right and overhead strikes.
We should have the first footage of the game in action at next weeks E3.
We already know that The Conduit developers, High Voltage, have some exciting new technology that they say push the Wii’s capabilities to the limit. The only problem is development of The Conduit was too far gone to include this tech in that game. All is not lost though as the developers will be unveiling their new IP at E3 in a few weeks and promise “that we are continuing to push our technology to the absolute limit in order to deliver experiences that are beyond jaw-dropping.”
If you’re as excited as me you may want to read the full press release after the link. Read more…
The videogame based on the new CG movie, Astro Boy, will be developed for PSP, PS2 and Wii. The developers behind The Conduit - High Voltage - will be in charge of those consoles while Art Co. is making the DS version. There are no Xbox 360 or PS3 versions planned. Read more…
For those of you in Europe that haven’t pre-ordered High Voltage’s FPS The Conduit, you may want to do so from play.com who are now offering this Special Edition version. It will set you back £29.99/EUR 38.99 and as well as the game itself includes embossed silver-effect slipcase packaging, hints and tips guide and three unlockable items: re-skinned all-seeing eye, agent skin for multiplayer and drone skin for single-player.
You can order your own copy over at their website. Happy days!
Up until now all the footage we have seen for The Conduit has involved big guns and explosions and it would be easy to forget that there is a point to the gameplay! This trailer helps fill in some details.
