Another title that Krome has had under development for a good while is the eagerly anticipated wii-fied version of Star Wars: The Clone Wars. IGN had a chat with Krome Studios producer, Ken Fox, with the interviewer diving straight into many questions about the wii-mote lightsaber controls...
IGN: A lot of games have tried for one-to-one swordplay, but none have nailed it. Are you going for it?Ken Fox: I wouldn't describe what we're doing as one-to-one in the way that you might picture, but we really tried to make it feel like you get to swing your Lightsaber 'manually'. In short, it feels like the most natural and convincing sword type experience I've had on the Wii. And on top of that, it not just a sword, it's a lightsaber.
Ken goes through some of the various aspects of the Wii version, from the gameplay, the visual style, the characters and notable battles you'll experience, and a pretty exciting multiplayer option as well. The full interview can be read at IGN!
One to one mapping
Seems pretty common question, but my understanding of the whole one to one mapping of a light sabre is the Wii isn't up to the job. There is no way of tracking the XYZ coordinates of the controller in real time along with orientation.
I'm not too sure beyond novelty factor if it'd add anything to the gameplay either, becuase it'd be hard to translate into the game.
Agreed
I agree totally with your two points. It sounds like Krome are providing a set of preset moves and combinations which you do with the flick of your wrist like many other wii-mote sword games, as like you said, one to one mapping isn't possible.
It looks like many gamers are expecting a true lightsaber experience though, heck, even Slashdot picked up the news on the game because of that idea (http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/09/19/1520211).
And as for it adding anything to gameplay, I would say it's be a really challenging game design problem. I'd imagine a real swordfight / lightsaber battle would be pretty quick (nothing like the movies where you have big swings and archs) and tedious to do all the time. You ever watch the professional fencers in the Olympics? Kinda like that. Plus there'd be no stopping feedback when your lightsabers collide other than a rumble or noise.
Anyway, I'm sure the game will turn out great, regardless. :)