Nintendo E3 Press Conference

I just finished watching the Nintendo Press Conference from E3 ‘09, the link to the video can be found here.

I got to say that over all I was impressed by their showing, but it still isn’t as exciting as the conferences where you know some kind of hardware is going to be revealed. Everyone watches when they think that a new console will be announced, that applies to all companies. I’m not here to talk about past conferences, so on with the post.

There was a surprisingly large amount of well-known franchises being announced for the Wii and DS, but I have to say that overall I was most excited about the announcement of Super Mario Galaxy 2 and Red Steel 2. That’s not to say that Metroid: Other M and others didn’t get me excited, I just never started playing the Metroid series until Corruption.

For those of you who haven’t watched it, or don’t feel like wading through around seventy minutes of video to see it, the new Metroid game was announced and the company co-developing it beside Nintendo is going to be Team Ninja of the Dead or Alive and Ninja Gaiden fame. I was actually very interested in this instalment because of the fact that a lot of the game is going to be played in the third-person perspective. Just from seeing the trailer, you can tell that it was Team Ninja, it screams Ninja Gaiden in terms of special moves, you know, like when Samus jumped on top of the purple alien and shot it in the face? Yeah, pretty rad.

There was practically nothing new on the Red Steel 2 front besides the fact that they said that it’s unplayable without the Wii Motion Plus Add-on. That’s great! I really enjoyed the first one, I know that a lot people didn’t like the first one at all and if I ever get anyone reading this they might call me out on that, I still found it enjoyable to have that feeling of control when I shot someone mercilessly in the face. I admit, the sword-fighting sequences felt way too constricting and unrealistic, I still enjoyed the game overall, and the inclusion of Wii Motion Plus will only add to the gameplay. Here’s the trailer for Red Steel 2:

A lot of people in the comment section of that video seem to think that those aren't pre-rendered cutscenes, but then again I imagine many of them believe that Nintendo cares about them and not their money as well.

The second game I was excited about as mentioned above is Super Mario Galaxy 2. I was mostly excited about this because of the scene depicting the snowy level! I love the snow levels in Mario games, they're my favorites. Here's a clip from the Presser announcing the game:

That looks very promising. I really enjoyed Super Mario Galaxy, but there were a few parts of the game I felt were lacking.

For one, in Super Mario 64 and Super Mario Sunshine, I always enjoyed playing around in the overworld, just exploring. In Galaxy, I felt that the overworld was much smaller than both Sunshine and 64 with much less to do. I also enjoy having giant levels in three dimensional Mario games. In Galaxy, there were a bunch of smaller planets, I always enjoyed having a vast landscape to explore in 64 and Sunshine, not that Galaxy didn't deliver those landscapes in some instances.

Another thing I found... interesting to say the least was the Wii Vitality Sensor...

This thing.

I can imagine a few ways that it could be interesting, but overall it would be rather clunky. An interesting way that it could be applied would be in a Horror game, where the vitality sensor would measure your heart rate, and would cause the in-game character to pant, thus giving away his position to the monsters and then be torn to shreds, but I still can't see that happening without it getting in the way.

So overall, I have to say I was impressed by the showing this year, but there were a few things that left me with a quizzical look on my face, I mean, why would they show a game that looks like a soon-to-be bargain-bin game?