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Reggie opened the show for Nintendo. Nintendo seems to be the only company with a consistent representative each year. After a three and a half year gap, a teaser trailer for the next Zelda game, Skyward Sword was finally shown. Short as the trailer was, Miyamoto was then shown in a video explaining the new capabilities of Zelda. What was first thought to be just a demonstration video, Miyamoto showed up in person to help give the audience a better picture. Essentially you’re to hold the nunchuck as if it’s a shield, and the wiimote can be swung at any angle using Wii Motion Plus. The art style for this new Zelda is very interesting. It’s realistically proportioned, but still has a mildly cartoony vibe to it. Using Wii Motion Plus, you’ll have to consider angles of attack as enemies will be blocking in different manners now. Unfortunately, everything that could go wrong during the demo did go wrong. The controls kept freaking out, attacks kept missing, hopefully the probably really was wireless interference like they said, otherwise they’ve got some pretty bad bugs to work out. Also, I hope they aren’t done with the environments. Maybe it’s just me, but I found the environments less impressive than Twilight Princess, so hopefully the end of development will fix that. Skyward Sword is set for release next year.
Reggie came back out to talk about a new Mario Sports title. They’ve done tennis, soccer, golf, and baseball countless times before. But this new game, Mario Sports Mix, will be covering a few new titles. Among the sports include volleyball, hockey, dodgeball, and basketball. This title is set to release in 2011. Next up was Wii Party, which looks to be very similar to Mario Party, only with Miis instead of Mario and his pals. Reggie continued moving through titles with Just Dance 2, coming Fall 2010. A trailer for Golden Sun: Dark Dawn was then shown. I’ve never played Golden Sun, and I don’t go out of my way to play DS titles, but for all the Golden Sun fans, they can expect a holiday release.
Next was something I didn’t expect, a new Goldeneye game for the Wii. As Goldeneye is one of highest rated shooters of all time, everyone was excited. I can’t tell if this is just a remake or a “new” Goldeneye. Parts of it looked remade, but others I didn’t recognize. I don’t see how you could make a Goldeneye sequel considering the story of Goldeneye definitely ended, but it should be interesting to play the world of Goldeneye again in higher quality and making use of the Wii’s motion controls. You can expect a holiday release for this title this year.
Epic Mickey was shown off next. Epic Mickey is set in a bleak world honoring 80 years of Disney. Rejected characters and forgotten ideas populate the world here. The gameplay here looks much improved over what they had previously. Mickey uses paint to improve the world around him, and paint thinner to erase objects and characters. I’m looking forward to seeing how many characters and worlds will be in this title. Steamboat Willy and Smee from Peter Pan have been shown in the demo, but I wonder if they’ll really be including everything from Snow White to Princess and the Frog. This exclusive Wii title is set for a holiday release this year.
Next up was a new Kirby game. Kirby’s Epic Yarn is going to be a 2D side scroller that involves Kirby himself stitching his world together and tearing it apart in order to progress through. Everything it’s made of outlines of yarn, and I gotta say I don’t care for it. The art style is distracting. Kirby’s Epic Yarn is set for release this fall. Dragon Quest IX brought up with a North American release date of July 11th to Nintendo DS. Focus then shifted to Metroid: Other M. A trailer played showing off all the classic elements of the Metroid franchise. It looks like there will be 2D side-scrolling events alongside 3D action sequence. Morph ball of course makes a return. A release date sooner than expected was announced, as Metroid: Other M will be in stores August 31st.
Now this was something I really hadn’t expected. The jungle beats started playing so I was getting really excited. Low and behold, finally a true Donkey Kong successor was announced. A trailer played, showing off Donkey and Diddy’s next adventure. Unfortunately, it is 2D instead of 3D. Even though I’ve been waiting for a proper sequel to Donkey Kong 64 for a good ten years now, this is a step. New Super Mario Bros was a pleasant surprise, so I’ll definitely be giving this a shot. Donkey Kong Country Returns is set for holiday release.
Reggie then began talking about Nintendo 3DS. Reggie started to say exactly how I feel about 3D. No one has 3D televisions, nobody wants to wear those glasses, etc. Nintendo may just know what they’re doing. A trailer proceeded to show off for their new 3D peripheral. More of a history of 3D than anything. Satoru Iwata came out with a 3DS in hand. The upper screen is widescreen, while the lower screen is full screen. There will be a 3D depth slider to adjust how your 3D looks. There will also be a slide pad, used for analog controls. There are two camera lenses as well, so that you can take pictures and view them in 3D. Nintendo also said that the 3DS is capable of playing Hollywood movies in 3D, though they’re not making any special announcements at this time. But since the capability exists, you can likely expect to see this available for mass market at some point.
But what about the games? The first game announced for Nintendo’s 3DS was a sequel to Kid Icarus. It’s funny that no one cared about Pit until Brawl, and since then people have been crying for a game made about him. Sakurai’s Project Sora has been revealed to be Pit’s newest adventure, Kid Icarus: Uprising, developed specifically for Nintendo’s 3D device. After the trailer, Iwata continued on the 3DS’s technology. Now, the 3DS will automatically search for access points, and download updates for your games without you having to search for them.
It was announced that Miyamoto is working on Nintendogs + Cats for the 3DS. DJ Hero, Saints Row, Madden, Kingdom Hearts, Resident Evil, Assassin’s Creed, and Metal Gear Solid are among the many third party partnerships that we’ll be seeing on the 3DS. To end the show, Iwata showed a video of developer reactions to the technology present in Nintendo’s 3DS. Summed up, they’re pretty pumped. And so am I. Although I’d rather have this new technology on the big screen, as I’ve said before, it has to start somewhere. A trailer was shown for the 3DS afterwards, but no actual game footage was displayed.
For the first time in the past few years, I was really impressed with Nintendo’s press conference. I had hoped for a longer Zelda trailer, and an actual 3DS demonstration. Everyone in the audience is getting a chance to play them on the show floor, but a trailer with proper game footage would have been nice. Not to mention that Kinect and Move both had release dates, yet none for the 3DS. And whatever happened to the Vitality Sensor?
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Most Impressive for Nintendo: Epic Mickey
Least Impressive for Nintendo: Kirby’s Epic Yarn
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