E3 2010: Nintendo Conference Thoughts
A poor Microsoft conference? A pretty good Nintendo conference?! The end of days is drawing near obviously. Either way, Nintendo presented a far better conference this year than they have done ever. No plastic toys, no Cammie patronising us. Even the graphs were toned down enough to not make them overly noticable. Reggie started off proceedings by throwing out the best of the best for Nintendo immediately in the form of Zelda, with a live demo on stage, which is pretty bold. Zelda looked pretty impressive and colourful and the choice of actions you can perform with him were surprisingly varied, if somewhat broken due to wireless problems with the machine. Nonetheless Nintendo did well enough to still show us what the next Zelda game will be all about, and has no doubt left plenty of people salivating for it.
Reggie pops back on scene to waffle on about sports, and there’s a pang of worry that the extra long Zelda gameplay may in fact be the only good thing Nintendo has to show as they move on to Mario Sports Mix, a game that’s instantly forgetable and once again relies heavily on the mini-game shovelware context the Wii is known and hated for. Why Reggie didn’t show NBA Jam on screen, another Wii exclusive, is anyones guess. This video was then followed by Wii Party and Just Dance, or rather Just-Put-Your-Hands-On-Your-Ears, the music was so terrible.
So a couple of poor games out the way and Nintendo throws another piece of excitement for us; Golden Sun and Goldeneye. Golden Sun looked happily classical and will no doubt please alot of fans. Goldeneye meanwhile looked very impressive. The video features Daniel Craig, but also features all the scenes and maps we know and love from this N64 classic title. Revamped and remodelled it looks pretty impressive and it’ll be interesting to see how well it does when it finally comes out. The big news perhaps is that they’re claiming both these games will be out this holiday season, yay!
If you weren’t excited by now at even the thought of this Nintendo conference actually being good, Reggie then throws out Epic Mickey at us, with Warren Spector arriving on scene. I definitely liked the artwork and thought behind Epic Mickey, and i’m glad to see that in gameplay EM has retained most of the darkness that the artwork incorporated. The gameplay feature of painting in features into the game looked very interesting, as well as the Steamboat Mickey platformer scenario that they played out. Overall the game looks like definitely one to get when it comes out, returning perhaps to the classical days of gaming.
Kirby up next and Nintendo starts to trail off in interest again. They do so well then they throw out another game that could be so much better. Your little sister will love Kirby Yarn; it has a cute bright cartoony nature that is definitely for the kids. Then they move on again to three top games; Dragon Quest, Metroid and Donkey Kong. Our favourite Kong returns in a new game that looks good, while Metroid also looked very impressive. The impatience though was growing. Where was the 3DS?
Sure enough it appeared, Nintendo’s newest toy, and in an instant they effectively blew away any hope of Sony ever again making a dent in the handheld market with the PSP. Claiming to be 3D without the huge fashion statement specs, the 3DS looked chunky but slim, stylish and smooth. The only complaint that could be taken from the outing of the 3DS is that us folks at home can’t actually see what it’s like to experience because there’s no way of showing it on TV. We’ll have to wait. The conference continued with explanations into the technology behind 3DS and top games coming out for it, including the return of Kid Icarus it seems. A video popped up with critique members explaining their thoughts on the 3DS, before it ended with a camp but nice enough video of the 3DS swallowing the japanese execs and setting Reggie on fire! All fun and games on the Nintendo floor.
As if to add salt to the wound, Nintendo then does a one upper. No, not free 3DS’s to everyone in the show floor, but rather a chance for everyone to try out the 3DS along with a hot woman holding it. Women+3DS = Nintendo wins? Apparently so it seems!
The conference started well, went well and ended well. The worlds gone mad. Nintendo actually doing well at E3? Good news indeed! All that was left was to see how Sony would fair against a strong Nintendo conference and a somewhat weak Microsoft one.
Categories: Gaming
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