I spent the majority of Wednesday at E3 checking out the Nintendo booth. They had all of their upcoming games and also plenty of third party games on display for both the Wii and the DS. There weren’t very many surprises as far as the games that were coming out, but there were a couple of games that were surprisingly fun to play.
I will start with all of the DS games that were featured. The Nintendo titles that were on display were Golden Sun: Dark Dawn, Professor Layton: Unwound Future, and Mario Vs. Donkey Kong: Mini Land Mayhem. I got a chance to play Golden Sun and Mario Vs. Donkey Kong but only caught the trailer for Professor Layton. The newest entry into the Professor Layton series starts off with the Professor receiving a letter from himself from ten years in the future, warning him of the trouble to come. This should be another solid entry into the puzzle solving series. Golden Sun was pretty limited for what you could do, but it takes full advantage of the touch controls to cast spells and attack enemies. Look for more on this title in the future.
My favorite of the Nintendo DS games was Mario Vs. Donkey Kong. This series of games doesn’t get enough credit, in my opinion. It is a puzzle-based game in which you must move mechanical Mario around the screen, gathering coins and other bonus items while avoiding spike pits and Donkey Kong’s barrels. It is very similar to Lemmings from back in the SNES days. Mecha Mario can only march in one direction until he hits a wall or gets to the edge of the map. This strategy comes into play when you only have so many items to use for new floors and walls. If you have missed the other games in the series, do yourself a favor and check this one out.
There were many third party DS games on display as well. Square Enix was showing off their latest entry in the Dragon Quest series, while Capcom had Okamiden and 5th Cell brought out Super Scribblenaughts. All three of these games are new entries for existing properites but all three of them looked to stay true to their series’ roots. Okamiden stood above the rest for me. No matter what your tastes are for handheld games, it was definitely a great thing to see such a good group of third party titles being supported inside this Nintendo event.
There was also no shortage of third party titles available for play on the Wii. I got a chance to play Sega’s Sonic Colors, EA Sports’ NBA Jam, and Activision’s GoldenEye 007. None of these titles were a disappointment in their demo form. Sonic Colors was a surprise for me, as it looks to be what a Sonic game should be: no story and plenty of speed. The camera switches back and forth from side scroller to third person follow behind, but in either mode it flows nicely and keeps you moving forward through the level. My concern here is will there be enough content to justify a $50 price tag? The NBA Jam demo was just fantastic as EA took the game back to basics. The Wii controls are very well done and feel very natural for this arcade-style basketball game. Another item worth noting about this title is that EA let the fans vote for their three favorite players from every team. Hopefully the upcoming NBA free agency period doesn’t mess up those rosters too much.
The good news with GoldenEye is that it will support multiple control options. It was playable on the floor, but only in multiplayer and only with the new Wii Classic Controller. I don’t want to read into this too much, but having it setup with only the Classic Controller is telling me that Activision isn’t putting their full weight behind the WiiMote controls. That being said, they are shipping the game with a Golden Gun attachment to aid with using the standard Nunchuck/WiiMote combo. The game played just like a typical Call of Duty title, however, and it worked very well. The two systems setup at the booth were ready for two- and four-player split-screen, but hopefully the shipped game will support online multiplayer. Yes Oddjob is in the game and yes, he can throw his hat.
There were plenty of first party Wii games also available. There was a new Pokémon game, a new Kirby title, another Mario-playing-random-sport game, Wii Party, and then a brand-spanking new Donkey Kong Country game. I skipped playing the first four and went right for Donkey Kong Country. This game looks like it will be no slouch, as it is in the same vein as all of the SNES Donkey Kong Country games. You can play this game in single-player or two-player mode with one player controlling Donkey Kong and the other Diddy Kong. The two-player game is a co-op game, requiring both players to work together to complete the levels and collect all the items. For example, Diddy can jump on DK’s back to complete a hover move to jump over larger gaps to reach secret puzzle pieces and all of the letters to spell KONG.
The highlight for Nintendo’s first party software and the winners of longest lines were for The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword and Metroid: Other M. I didn’t wait in the line for Other M, as there were only four stations setup for this game and it releases at the end of next month. I did, however, spend an hour of my life waiting in line to get ten minutes in with the first Zelda game built specifically for the Wii. I wish I could say that it was worth the wait, but it is not the game I was looking for. I was really hoping that Nintendo would keep moving in the direction of Twilight Princess and continue with a darker theme. Instead, they have moved in the opposite direction with a much brighter and more colorful color pallet, at least for the demo. There isn’t a whole lot that you can discover about the story from the game from the demo. The only new things that you can see from the demo are the new tools that have been added to Link’s arsenal. You still have your sword, shield, bow and arrows, bombs, and slingshot. The new additions are a whip, flying beetle, and the ability to roll your bombs like a bowling ball. I didn’t get much of a chance to mess around with the new items as the demo was limited to 10 minutes. Instead, I spent more of my time working with the new Wii Motion Plus controls for the sword. The sword follows your movements almost exactly. However, how you are holding the WiiMote in your hand is how the sword is represented in the game. This seems like it would be a great idea, but it didn’t translate that well when fighting enemies. Even with the Motion Plus attachment, it still felt like waving your arms around until you got an attack to land. Keep in mind that this is just a demo and that the final game will not be released until the end of this year, which leaves plenty of time for these types of issues to get ironed out. I would not be upset or surprised if this game does not get pushed back from holiday 2010 to a spring 2011 release date. I still have pretty high expectations for this game, but so far they have not been met.
That about wraps it up for the software that Nintendo featured at E3. Overall, I was pretty happy with the games that I played, and the future looks bright for both the Wii and the DS. The main thing that impressed me was Nintendo’s support for the third party developers. Often frowned on for their system’s lack of third party games, Nintendo not only has good third party games to look for in the next couple of months, but they are using the largest stage possible to help bring more attention to them. The first party games that they have in the pipe are also something to be excited for. All of this new software is coming out and I didn’t even get a chance to mention the biggest announcement of them all, the new Nintendo 3DS.