E3 2009: Preview: Medieval Games - News

by VGChartz Staff , posted on 20 June 2009 / 7,106 Views

Tucked away in the corner of Bethesda's private booth was a loney kiosk for the one Wii game on display. Though it's not being published under the Bethesda label (rather, related company Vir2l Studios is handling the publishing duties on this one), Medieval Games was at E3 in the Bethesda booth. It's probably no real surprise that in a crowd of media fighting over a half-dozen different HD games, a minigame-compilation for the Wii was getting all but ignored, but with only a few minutes before my next appointment and no time to wait in line anyway, I decided to check it out.

The easiest way to describe Medieval Games is Mario Party with a medieval flavor. There's a board game layout for players to move along and a bunch of minigames to play during and between turns - 30 in total. Rather than Mario's cast, of course, you have eight generic medieval characters, including a Knight, Princess, or Wizard. There's a very basic story about the kingdom of Valoria and King Falderol fighting a pig-napping Troll, the Dragon King, and the Black Knight. There's a neat-looking pop-up storybook art style for the story telling, but in-game the graphics are pretty simple cartoon-like 3D - clean and polished, but not very technically exciting.

I got to see four mini-games demonstrated by the PR rep. The sword-fighting duel pitted two players againsted each other, using basic Wii Remote motions to pull off a few moves and drive the opponent off the bridge, with some rapid shaking whenever the two swords got locked together. Another was a lengthy dragon fight, with the player reflecting different colored fireballs back at the dragon. Third was a jousting game, with two players aiming a cursor at the other as the riders approached each other in the middle. Last was horce racing, with jumps over and ducks under obstacles using the Wii Remote.

All of the minigames had pretty simple controls and mechanics (no Nunchuk required), and none seemed to include more than two players - an odd choice for what is supposed to be a 4-player party game (local multiplayer only; no online). With only 30 minigames (as opposed to the 60+ in Mario Party 8, for example) the variety might wear a bit thin in extended play, too. In addition to the board game mode, there's a free play mode to just play the minigames, and a tournament mode.

The PR rep explained that the idea behind Medieval Games was to create a quality minigame compilation (specifically, to try to be Mario Party rather than shovelware), and go after the entire Wii audience instead of just the kids. Based on what I saw, they're going to have a hard time matching Mario Party, though the medieval theme and universal art style should at least keep the game free of the kids-only label.

Medieval Games releases for Wii this October, and is being developed by N Fusion Interactive and published by Vir2l Studios.

10 Comments

mike_intellivision (on 21 June 2009)

I have been burnt in recent months by buying additional mini-game collections.

I don't think I will be picking this up unless I hear it is great.

(I did hear that the programmers are the same ones who did Carnival Games -- can anyone verify that?)

Mike from Morgantown

.jayderyu (on 21 June 2009)

I like minigames too, but this is not what I would be looking forward too. Once this bombs they can now say "3rd party games just don't sell on the Wii".

Making a good game on the Wii requires that you meet the fun values of traditional games, but focus on difference of the HD and proper implementation of the controls. You can't just support 1 of the three area and expect success.

SJGohan3972 (on 20 June 2009)

Hmmm.... will have to see more, I mean there is nothing wrong with Mini Games, and the jousting looks like it could be interesting, I also like the medieval setting, but I expected more from Bethesda - maybe it will be good but I'm worried.

siavm (on 20 June 2009)

This looks like what they say it is not. A crappy kids shovelware game for the wii. This is not big wii game they were talking about but if it was wow.

.jayderyu (on 20 June 2009)

I would have never imagined that Bethesda would put out a game like this. Clearly there statements on understanding the Wii market missed the mark.

I could understand a no Oblivion type RPG, but even there smaller type game would be more like Red Gaurd. Bethesda i'm disappointed in you. At least until next FO3 expansion.

megaman79 (on 20 June 2009)

shaketh this casual crapfest from wence the Wii's shoulders

bardicverse (on 20 June 2009)

Hey thats pretty awesome, Im big into medieval stuff, I'd def play that. Wonder if it uses WM+.. swordfights for the win

tolu619 (on 20 June 2009)

More shovelware?I don't care,somebody's gonna buy it.If it was better than Mario party,I would care.Cuz I'm not buying Mario party.The casual games I'm interested in are Wii fit plus & Wii sports resort.