Nintendo’s Conference

Welp, another press conference and you know what that means: everyone start predicting what Nintendo will be showing next E3!

Okay, not really. But yeah, the conference was pretty boring. No Pikmin (yet?), no Zelda (except for Spirit Tracks, which does look hella fun), Wii Fit 2, Nintendo Heart Rate Monitor or something like that, and yay expanded audiences.

Here’s the thing, though, as my cousin pointed out, Nintendo doesn’t really show much in the way of 3rd party software at E3, so a ton of 3rd party stuff was announced, bragged about, and otherwise showed off yesterday or pretty recently. I was feeling pretty bummed after the conference, until I looked at the Wii videos section on IGN. WOW.

I’m going to have to break this post up cause this might get long…

Now, if Nintendo were anyone besides themselves, here’s what they would have shown off:

The Grinder

Looks gorgeous, and I’m a huge fan of straightforward first person shooting (TimeSplitters was one of my favorite series last gen), add 4 player online and offline co-op, and pixel perfect Wiimote aiming, and I’m sold.

Silent Hill: Shattered Memories

I’ve only seen enough of the first one to know that it’s nothing like this game. Be sure to watch all 3 parts, the last is absolutely stunning. The lighting in that game is phenomenal, and standing outside in heavy snow with your flashlight beam shining on and casting shadows from every object and every snowflake looks incredible. Alan Wake started looking just a tad less awesome…

Red Steel 2

I honestly really enjoyed the first Red Steel, despite the glitchy, unresponsive, downright broken controls. But this game looks to solve every single problem with the first one and marry great pointer gunplay and Wii Motion Plus swordplay. Oh yes. Also, it’s locked to 60 frames a second, which is great for pointer responsiveness.

Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings

Um, co-op Indiana Jones with Indy and his dad. Do I really need to say any more than that?

Monado: Beginning of the World

I honestly know nothing more about this game than the fact that it looks great. Nintendo should have totally been showing off those graphics.

Tiger Woods 10

Nintendo SERIOUSLY needs to be bragging about that accuracy. Natal can’t do that. Sony’s thing might, though, once in comes out, heh.

Wii Motion Plus LiveMove2 tech demo

Nintendo would never show unfinished tech demos (Wii Sports is the closest thing, heh) to show off their technology, so Microsoft and Sony can get away with pretending that what they’re doing is new or novel in the least. Good going guys…

So there you go, Nintendo’s conference was absolute fail because of what they didn’t show, not because the material isn’t out there (like last year).

And here’s my problem with that Natal thing (pronounced Nay-tall? That’s not going to stop my neonatal or prenatal jokes, sorry). I play video games to control something, like the on screen character, a flashlight, yes, a tennis racket, golf club, frisbee, etc. Not to flail around at nothingness. There’s a difference between playing / controlling, and just raw interacting. I guess I’ll have to see if anyone ever makes a good control scheme or something, besides playing a racing game by pantomiming a steering wheel (HMM wonder where they got that one from?). Milo is creepy, btw.

And the biggest problem with Sony’s deal? There’s no pointer type functionality. The thing figures out where you’re pointing based on the gyroscopes, so it knows where you’re moving it up, down, left and right because of the camera, but there’s no pointing to a menu item, or cursor control in a 1st or 3rd person game. So it’s great for digitally writing on something, but not for, say, quickly whipping a pointer around a screen for great headshot justice.

So is that ironic that I’m bashing two new control schemes based on their lack of ‘backwards compatibility’ to existing game paradigms, while still being a huge believer in Wii Motion Plus and the Wiimote pointer? Meh.

And for the record, yes, you’re allowed to be the biggest fanboy of any sorts and still think that The Last Guardian has the most amazing trailer ever.