The throwing method with the Wii Remote in PDC World Championship Darts 2009 is all new, having been re-designed and improved, from the 2008 version. The mechanism has been completely rewritten to give you the most realistic darts throwing experience yet – so you’ll have no excuse if you miss an easy shot!Oxygen and Rebellion studios have strived to give darts fans a throwing gesture as realistic as possible using the Wii Remote. PDC Darts 2009 will have 3 throwing assist levels; Max, Min and Off. Max will allow those not experienced at throwing real darts the ability to keep up with the games professional players, Min and Off modes will challenge players with greater experience taking power, dart weight and accuracy into account.
Phil The Power Taylor, who has been working with Rebellion and Oxygen to improve the throwing method said “The throwing method is smooth, fluid and simple. Oxygen have really improved upon last year’s version and it feels the same as throwing a real dart with the advantage being that I don’t have to walk to the dart board to take out the arrows!”Steve Hart, Producer at Rebellion commented “We wanted to offer people the ability to compete against the worlds top Darts players, those starring in the game compete at their real life dart averages. We knew we couldn’t expect everyone to keep up with such professional play. In order to achieve this we had to first, design and implement a throwing gesture that felt natural and as close to the real thing as possible. Once this was in place we went to work on offering different levels of “Assist Mode” as per last years game, where by assisting people with the throw accuracy, power etc. the game offered a more forgiving game mechanic, or with Assist Off, as close to the real thing as a computer game could ever provide. We’re very happy with the results.”
Jim Scott, CEO of Oxygen Games added “We got some criticism from a few passionate sports and darts fans last year who thought the throwing method could be improved. We took everything they said on board and have now created the purest and most realistic darts experience to date. We are sure anyone who tries this version will not be disappointed.”
Specific Improvements:
1. Assist modes cover more areas than previous version.
2. PDC2009 has a more intuitive system, whereby aim reticule can be re-locked into same position.
3. The gesture is more sensitive and accurate
4. On screen feedback is centred on the reticule, so all info is provided at the point of interest, instead of looking into a corner as in the previous version.
5. Dart weights are taken into account this year. So if you’re throwing high all the time, select a heavier dart rather than tweaking your gesture.
6. Relentless Focus Testing to ensure we knew where it was wrong, and where it was right. And the readjusted accordingly.