Nintendo's unveiling of just one aspect of its Wii U console slated for release next year was more than enough to get people talking. The system's tablet-like controller, which combines traditional analog sticks and buttons, a 6" touchscreen interface and motion controls, instantly sparked the imaginations of gamers. Now, several developers have opened up to news outlets during this week's E3 event to discuss what they might have planned for the console come launch time.
Andrew Wilson, the Senior Vice President of Worldwide Development at publishing giant EA Sports, told Eurogamer that the company could possibly bring the popular "FIFA" soccer franchise to the Wii U at launch and discussed some interesting ideas for implementing the device's features into gameplay.
"The radar can go there. You could trigger wing play. You could play an offside trap here," Wilson mused about the tablet controller. "There are a whole bunch of things you could do here that before you had to remember a two-button combination, or a d-pad combination, or you had to see it represented up on a screen, which meant if anyone else was watching they saw it."
Ubisoft, who supported the Wii out of the gate with the ill-received though commercially successful first-person shooter "Red Steel," announced yesterday at a joint roundtable with Nintendo its next attempt within the hot genre: "Killer Freaks from Outer Space" - a Wii U exclusive.
The off-the-wall shooter whose sole-revealed enemy resembles Ubisoft's own "Raving Rabbids" crossed with Stephen King's time-eating Langoliers, "Killer Freaks" showed off a unique competitive mode wherein one player uses the Wii U controller's screen to unleash aliens, while the other then battles them in standard first-person shooter style.
The company's other demonstrated Wii U title, "Ghost Recon Online," which will also hit the PC, was noted as the stand-out by N-Sider, who wrote that the controller was used as/for "a persistent in-game map that shows intelligence data such as enemy positions you and your friends have gathered, a gyro-controlled drone missile strike, painting map points with beacons that then also highlight squad destinations on the TV screen, and piloting your own personal drone to collect intelligence that feeds right back into the first bit."
Randy Pitchford, head of Gearbox Software, explained to Kotaku how he imagined the Wii U controller would work in the company's upcoming multi-platform title, "Aliens: Colonial Marines." The developer discussed how the device's touchscreen could turn into the franchise's recognizable motion tracker during tense exploration segments and be used for instant mini-games that wouldn't necessarily take you out of the action.
The title, which has been in development for several years, is slated to release in 2012 according to its publisher Sega.
Come up with any of your own ideas for what you'd like to see Wii U controller used for? Share them in the comment section.
