Spyborgs Preview

VideoGamer.com: One of the things that most impresses me about the game is the graphics. Is it pushing the Wii?

DA: Very much so. That boss battle has been the most challenging level because we are maximising RAM. There's not only the effects, the textures, the models, everything in there, every time we weak and add one more thing, we have to go back and find something to optimise or find something to tear out. Anyone can throw a bunch of stuff at the Wii and slow it down. It's how intelligent, how smart you're using that time, that performance. Anyone can optimise something to be fast. What this team has done, and all the credit goes to them, is they have engineers that are so passionate about making this game look great that they spent a lot of time figuring out techniques to bring those high end graphics engine features to the Wii. If it's not the actual technique then... I'm just going to throw out, let's just say dynamic lighting. If there were a particular way that you would do it on 360 and PS3 and for whatever reason the Wii doesn't do it, you don't care about how the hardware is doing it, you care about the on screen effect looking a certain way. So what these guys have done is, I wouldn't say reinvent the wheel with every special effect, but they've spent time finding techniques the artist can use to give you the impression that that effect is happening. So when it comes to pushing the Wii there's a lot of that going on, that the engineering team has provided the art team a tool set that most Wii engines don't have in them. Fortunately the art team is extremely good at what they're doing in terms of defining a style. We were talking about the resolution still holding up on a HD screen - defining a style that takes advantage of those features and just looks good and is appealing and is sophisticated enough to hold up under those conditions.

VideoGamer.com: The easy option would be, and it seems a lot of developers take this option when making games on the Wii, is that graphics don't really matter because the kind of person who has a Wii doesn't care about that kind of thing.

DA: Bullshit. Yeah, maybe that stereotypical Wii gamer who just wants to play Wii Sports, sorry I shouldn't say gamer, typical Wii user just wants to play those mini-games, but the gamers that are out there, that care about games just like anyone else, they care about a great experience.

VideoGamer.com: So there are a significant portion of Wii owners who are gamers then? It's not just this machine that's owned by everyone but gamers?

DA: Very much so. All of us who grew up on Nintendo platforms, those were gamers. Many of us bought the Nintendo Wii still as gamers, to play the next Marios, to play the next Zeldas, and those games are huge successes. Mario Kart came out on the previous Nintendo systems, we're buying that on the Wii because it's a great game, and it just happens that Nintendo's damn good at doing that. Those people are out there. You don't see them all that often because their expectations are higher and the crap that keeps getting shovelled at them, they're not going to buy it. So self-fulfilling prophecy that third-party games aren't going to work because they're saying we're not going to buy that crap you're throwing our way. The Capcom fans are saying, Capcom, we know you provide quality, give us a game on the Wii. That's where Capcom began this pursuit of finding a developer that could do this, build a great game, an appealing game and actually push the system. If you're going to do a true action game and not a mini-game compilation, that's going to hold up in the market against the God of Wars, or alongside the Devil May Crys and Lost Planets, it's got to look good. That's why we set that goal, and fortunately the team was able to come together and pull it off.

Spyborgs is due out exclusively for the Wii this year.