|
I don’t know…Nintendo really impressed me. It’s quite a surprise, actually. Nintendo hasn’t done that in a long, long time. They didn’t impress me with their preshow, but the games they showed were worthy of praise. And that DS thing.
The show itself consisted of several suits trying to convince us that Nintendo wasn’t losing money. I felt like I was in an investment meeting, with all of the pie charts and distorted graphs (LOOK how much higher 21 million is when compared to 20.5 million! *cue disproportionate graphics*). There was a lot of spin. One graph showed how PS2 only sold 6 million units last year, a small percentage of market growth. But Nintendo had HUGE market growth with the 3.2 million units they sold, clearly making them the winner. It was hard for my brain to get around how being outsold by almost two times is a win. At least Microsoft admitted that they weren’t the top dog.
It was an odd presentation actually. Their tactic seemed to be – talk about lame numbers to convince us of…something, then show some really cool game footage…then talk more about no really, we’re still in the market. I think they could’ve done away a with quite a bit of that. The games, shockingly to me, really stood up on their own.
That Metroid Prime 2, sure…it’s hard to say how that’s going to go. Deathmatch business isn’t really that exciting to anybody anymore, Nintendo’s just finally getting around to it.
But by and large, the other titles shown (at least those that we’ve not seen hours of footage from) were pretty damn nice looking. Resident Evil 4 was just a kick in the pants. Visually it’s fantastic…that’s been established. But the movement of the enemies is something to see. They *do* move like humans. Demonic ones with chainsaws that can open doors you just shut behind you.
And there are QTEs in this game. As sort-of-introduced by Shenmue, there are quicktime button-pressing reflex testers related to horrific/surprising events, which is such a good idea for survival horror that I’m really shocked it never came up before.
There was platform jumping! There was…some sort of rocket launcher! But it was classy, even with all of that. It’s being done tastefully. It’s not Resident Evil the action game, even though there does appear to be a whole lot more doing going on. It’s the next logical step. The only way to react to its fiercely fierce competitors.
Mario Pinball looked nice. Mario Paper 2 looked nice as well. Starfox looked alright, but it reminded me of something. Nintendo is not really doing too much to shed that ‘kid’ image of theirs. They’ve got Resident Evil, but that’s not a Nintendo game. Nintendo’s games, no matter how many more missiles they put in it, no matter how many tanks there are, will always ultimately be about lovable creatures being cute. Even if they’re destroying buildings. He’s still just a cute lil fox, it’s hard to avoid.
Then they busted out that DS, and the whole row of insert credit folks gawked our gawkers off. It’s sleek and slim in the vertical and horizontal, but thick in the waistband. It looks solid. The buttons are raised and hard. The screens aren’t restricted to the particular device it’s supposed to play on (ie GBA for GBA, polygon engine for poly screen). And the 3D looks good. The boosted the bejesus out of those initial specs while I wasn’t watching, apparently.
16 players simultaneous wireless, wifi compatible, built in mic for voice command…interesting stuff. And the touch-screen won’t be a total waste either. I was still skeptical of the integration into gameplay…their idea is to make a metroid game where you hit the screen in the direction that you want to shoot. That didn’t sell me. But then they said that you can draw on the thing, and write words down. That’s pretty boss.
So it looks nice. Iwata made up some mighty fine words while he was describing it, holding up the Raider Black and Silver DS to the world (though it’ll have a new name when it hits shelves later this year). You might find yourself wanting to buy one of these. It sure showed off a lot more than the PSP did, with its massive display just to show a trailer on the LCD.
A really nice thing they said at the conference was that the industry is past the point where horsepower is what makes a system. The differences are slight enough now that you can really spend a lot more time focusing on the gameplay. I would love for that way of thinking to catch on. I think every true player would.
Then to hammer home that point, they busted out a tech-demo-esque shiny Zelda. Eight million-zillion polygons of glistening green, it was. I can’t deny being impressed, it really looked pretty. But it wasn’t as pretty as Miyamoto coming out afterwards with a Zelda sword and shield, grinning like a madman and swiping the air.
He’s a cosplay niichan for the ages, that Miyamoto.
brandon sheffield will be in silverash cosplay later in the week. maybe.
| 
