Why Wasn't The Grinder Wii at E3 2010?
By:
Micah Seff
|
June 17, 2010, 5:21 am

During my appointment to see The Grinder at E3 2010, I was surprised to see that the Wii version wasn't playable at the show. This was pretty shocking to me, and I was actually more than a little disappointed not to be able to play what the developers repeatedly called "Left 4 Dead" on the Wii.

My first inclination at this point was to assume that the Wii version had been quietly canned, and High Voltage Software was just trying to sweep the project under the rug. When I asked the rep on hand whether this was the case, he just started laughing. Apparently this couldn't have been further from the truth.
 
Through a strange series of events, the Wii debug unit that had the code for both The Grinder Wii and Animales de Muerte was no longer in High Voltage's meeting room, and  had instead migrated over to SEGA's booth. Apparently, the debug unit that SEGA was using to show off The Conduit 2 and Tournament of Legends at its private meeting room had randomly fried itself completely and started smoking right there in the room.
 
Now, this wasn't exactly a problem in and of itself since High Voltage had its own debug unit there to show off The Grinder Wii. However, once that console reached the inside of SEGA's meeting room, that was the end of anyone's hopes of playing the game at E3. Because SEGA isn't publishing The Grinder, High Voltage couldn't demo the game for anyone inside SEGA's booth. SEGA, on the other hand, needed the unit for all of its behind-closed-doors demos of The Conduit 2, so it wasn't leaving there.

This was somewhat upsetting as I really wanted to see what High Voltage could pull off with The Grinder after a year of work, and even more so after playing the Xbox 360 version of the game. Both versions of the game offer some exciting 4-player co-op (with the potential for many more players, according to the HVS reps), but the difference between a top-down shooter, and an FPS has to be night and day. Still, it was great to hear that the Wii game is coming along nicely and that High Voltage is close to choosing a publisher. I just hope I get to play the game sooner rather than later.

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