Overlord: Dark Legend producer says game 'looks like the 360 version'

by Xav de Matos { Jan 29th 2009 at 3:08PM }

Overlord: Dark Legend Associate Producer Dean Scott admits it may be a "lame cliche," but he believes the dark master's Wii incarnation "looks like the 360 version." Speaking with Videogamer.com, Scott could hardly keep his composure as he detailed how confident he was in the visuals for the upcoming action-adventure game, exclaiming it "blows away just about everything else" on the Wii.

Scott may be biased, considering he is the producer of the game, but Wii owners may want to take notice if for no other reason than to help fill the dark Pikmin-sized void in their hearts. Overlord: Dark Legend lands on the Wii this summer; a companion DS version, Overlord: Minions, will release later this year.

Tags: climax-studios, codemasters, overlord-dark-legend

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Mr Khan @ Jan 29th 2009 3:14PM

Of course, it will have to compete with Pikmin itself to fill that Pikmin-sized hole

Also with Little King's Story, which is basically the same game as Overlord, but from a positive perspective and cuter look (and somewhat more focus on construction, as opposed to just destruction)

Xav de Matos @ Jan 29th 2009 3:21PM

Pikmin Wii is going to have to compete with my GCN copy of Pikmin. I think a lot of fans would prefer Pikmin 3.

Mr Khan @ Jan 29th 2009 6:19PM

true. But Nintendo fans are the ones particularly known for buying the same game many times in a row (i myself never tired Pikmin. Totally turned off by the fact that it was on a timer, now that they've sorta fixed it, i'll jump in to this one)

LOKIOLR @ Jan 29th 2009 4:26PM

Well no offense but that benchmark wasn't really that high in the first place. The game was fun but the visuals were not that great.

MRLN @ Jan 29th 2009 4:49PM

Isn't the Wii only 1/3 as powerful as the 360 or something? They must've had some incredible art direction (ala Super Mario Galaxy).

CJLopez @ Jan 29th 2009 5:28PM

XBOX 360 has a 3.2GHz PowerPC based procesor

http://hardware.teamxbox.com/articles/xbox/1144/The-Xbox-360-System-Specifications/p1

Wii has a IBM Broadway 729MHz

http://www.wiisworld.com/wii-specs.html

Now, 3.2 * 1024 = 3276.8
3276.8/729 = 4.5

360 has a CPU 4.5 time faster than Wii and the GPU is 500Mhz on the 360 while on the Wii is 250Mhz

Heyyou27 @ Jan 29th 2009 6:05PM

You cannot directly compare clockspeeds to get an accurate representation of performance. The 360s CPU has 3 processing cores and is based off a newer IBM design that actually performs worse per clock cycle compared to the Wii CPU, however the Wii CPU still cannot compare due to raw clock speed and it's lack of multiple cores. On the GPU side of things, the 360's GPU has 48 unified shaders, 16 TMUs, and 8 ROPs, where the Wii's GPU lacks programmable shaders altogether, and actually reuses the GPU that was in the Gamecube, with merely a higher clockspeed. Also the Wii only has 88MB of RAM compared to the PS3 and 360's 512MB, and the Wii's memory many times slower too.

CJLopez @ Jan 29th 2009 5:28PM

till i see gameplay videos i won't believe this statement

nintendo1889 @ Jan 29th 2009 6:54PM

Comparing the Wii's CPU to the 360's is like the whole "a single core CPU at 3.20GHz is better than a dual/quad core CPU at 2.4GHz" argument people make. Is the single core faster? Yes and no. If you're running a program that utilizes just one core (like an N64 emulator), then yes, it will outperform the dual/quad core somewhat. However, if you're running something that takes advantage of more than one core, like the PS2 emulator, PCSX2, that 2.4GHz Quad Core will perform infinitely better than if it were ran on a single core with 3.20GHz. If they (Microsoft) can't program the games to take advantage of all the cores, it's no different than a single core CPU. Clockspeed is an important factor, but it's not the most important one. The same principle applies to power PC CPUs, notably, the Gamecube's. Sure, it was only 485MHz and the Xbox's was about 733MHz, but due to its architecture and the way it handled the processes, it had the potential to perform and has performed just the same, if not, better in some cases than the Xbox's CPU. And another thing; graphics are not the most vital factor in what makes a game fun. If that were the case, then than many of the 360's games would've gotten better scores and/or would've had more replayability (see: Fable 2 and Halo 3 and the seven thousand WWII FPS variants out there). Raw power isn't everything. If a game is rushed and focuses all on graphics and not gameplay, who's gonna play it?

gregoryscottsharp @ Jan 29th 2009 8:14PM

Resolution alone stops this argument. 480P is the Max, the Wii can do. Play the Wii for a while then go back to your Xbox 360 running 1080p and your like "Wow, I forgot how awesome modern games can look!"

What he could have said, "Overlord looks like the Xbox 360 version, if your looking at your 360 through a screendoor!" Bad joke... sorry...Screen, blocky... um...

I'm heading back to Joystiq Xbox 360.

PS. I do love the Wii too.

baby sea tuna @ Jan 30th 2009 9:30AM

Yeah, I've been playing the 360 version lately and while this doesn't look bad, it certainly doesn't look like the Xbox version.

nintendo1889 @ Jan 29th 2009 11:54PM

While the Wii can't do HD, it still does 480p, which isn't SD but ED (Enhanced Definition), and most, if not all, wii games look amazing on a 46" Sony Bravia LCD HDTV. No lag or ghosting whatsoever! As long as it ain't SD, I'm good!

adam @ Jan 30th 2009 12:06AM

bottom line: F-Zero GX has better graphics than any game on the Wii. Make this game have better graphics than F-Zero and you'll be doing better than any other developers.

Hardy @ Jan 30th 2009 10:52AM

Absolutely wrong.

There are a handful of games that look better then F-Zero GX. Mario Galaxy is one... There's more.

lol

I will admit however that many of the WII games do look crappier then GX, but there are better looking games... Just not many.

But graphics isn't everything.

World of Goo >>>>>>>>>> F-Zero GX. I own both.

dronesensor @ Jan 30th 2009 3:26AM

what? no. prime 3 and galaxy both have more things going on graphically than f-zero gx. speed + vibrant colors =/= great graphics.

Mr Khan @ Jan 30th 2009 8:46AM

GX is remembered from a technical standpoint for its ability to render 30 fully-detailed models simultaneously at high speeds with constant framerates. I believe that game held to 60 fps.

Adam @ Jan 30th 2009 1:04PM

Sure, Mario Galaxy, De Blob and Metroid Prime 3 look great. I'd say those are the tops for the system, currently. However, none of them make me feel like I'm almost playing an HD game the way F-Zero does. Fluid frame-rates and virtually no jaggies. It's amazing.

Kind of odd how a game from 2003 can even be stacked up against these more recent efforts.

Feba @ Jan 30th 2009 4:53PM

The real bottom line is that art direction beats technical merit every day of the week.

The Conduit being a good example. It's technically impressive; and it looks like it will have great gameplay. It could very well become one of the best games on the Wii. But what we've seen of it's current art direction makes it look less impactful than the original Halo. That could very well change, and I hope it does, but a bunch of hallways and rooms, and aliens without any force could make it easily forgettable.

Megaman 9 is literally decades outdated, and most of us thought it looked great. Likewise, Super Paper Mario could probably been done on the N64 without any major quality loss, but for the most part it still looked great. I've watched someone play Farcry 2 a bit lately, and while the gameplay looks ok, and the graphics are technically beautiful, the world seems incredibly bland. Watching a hillside burn when you throw something firey at it is neat; but it looked like it was pretty much the same hillside everywhere he went.

Shadow of the Colossus is another good example. It's abso-freaking-lutely and UNDENIABLY gorgeous. It's not a stretch at all to say that it is more beautiful than %99 of the games released this gen. And yet it runs on decade old technology.

I might be somewhat biased, as my HDTV will simply not accept HD inputs for some reason; and I never notice any aliasing (jaggies get real bad in screenshots, sure, but I never base a game on how it functions in scenarios that don't come up in the real world; like time stopping), even on games like NMH which are supposedly horrible about it.