E3 2012: Nintendo

The long trudge of E3 conferences ends with Nintendo, who has a lot of splainin' to do about their soon to be released new console, the WiiU.

First up, however, the always super-endearing Miyamoto comes out and announces the highly anticipated Pikmin 3.  Explaining that the greatest challenge for Pikmin was always how to show the detail of individual Pikmin versus how much of the map to show, the WiiU solves that problem by letting you use the controller as a map.  Thus they can zoom in a bit more to show the intricate details while also having a map you can quickly scroll around to control your now 4 leaders.  Thus, it sounds like the opportunity for more intricate strategy has been increased.

Then good ol' Reggie, the President of Nintendo, comes out and delivers the awkward line of "I feel just like a purple Pikmin."  One nervous laugh later aaaaand moving on.

Reggie then strangely spends about 5 minutes talking about there's not a lot of time to talk about all aspects of the WiiU, so for E3 they just want to spend time talking about games and if you want to know more you can go to e3.nintendo.com.  And of course, they then don't talk about games (*sigh*) and instead talk about the controller itself and the Miiverse, which shows Miis congregating around games they're playing and talking to each other.

Apparently though the Miiverse does actually lend itself to games, in that you can interact with others directly in game.  For example they showed off New Super Mario Bros. U, where others can leave comments about certain levels or secret areas, or just brag about their score.  As for how the controller is integrated, whoever is playing on it can help out other players by placing blocks or somesuch.  They didn't much mention it.

But here they get to the meat, and what gamers have been clamoring for from Nintendo: 3rd party titles.  First up, Batman Arkham City: Armored Edition, which will have special armored versions of both Batman and Catwoman.  These armored versions will have a special meter that fills up as you fight, and once full can be activated so you do greater damage for a time.  The controller will be used essentially as inventory, though can also be used to select individual explosive gels to explode, or in directing the remote batarang where to go.  Honestly...I saw nothing that was innovative or even helpful about any of it.  Big disappoint.

But then they roll out a franchise that seems made for Nintendo with Scribblenauts : Unlimited, which will provide much larger areas to explore with seemingly integrated multiplayer, as well as the ability to create, name and share anything you want using the controller as a drawing/assembly pad.  Essentially this means Scribblenauts will finally live up to its claim, thanks to constant innovation, that you can write anything into the game world.  Cool cool.

Then a trailer of titles coming to the WiiU (though no details on how they'll use the tech): Darksiders 2, Mass Effect 3 (giant surprise there!), Tank! Tank! Tank! from Namco Bandai, Tekken Tag Tournament 2 (with the brief use of a Mario mushroom power-up), Trine 2 Director's Cut, Ninja Gaiden 3 Razor's Edge, and Aliens: Colonial Marines.

"Music and fitness genres have come into their own.  WiiU will make both of these even better." *snoooore*  If you care they talked about WiiFitU and Sing, a blatant karaoke game where the controller displays the lyrics while the main screen shows dance moves for other party-goers.

Oh how sad they also have no time to talk about the 3DS, but you can tune in for an hour long talk on the Nintendo E3 page.  With that...let's talk about the 3DS.  Brief gameplay is shown for New Super Mario Bros. 2, as well as Paper Mario Sticker Star and Luigi's Mansion 2.  Then oh no they don't have any more time to talk about all the awesome 3rd party titles coming to the 3DS.  So let's look at a trailer for all the 3rd party titles coming to 3DS: Catlevania: Lords of Shadow - Mirror of Fate (yes that's all the same game), Disney Epic Mickey: Power of Illusion, Scribblenauts Unlimited, and of course Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance.

And I swear to God if they say one more time they don't have time to talk about something and then proceed to talk about that thing I am going to kill someone.

Thankfully my murderous tendencies are somewhat calmed by Lego City Undercover, which I had heard was cancelled (or was that another Lego game?), but is apparently up and running as an open world Lego game where you play a detective.  And it actually looked pretty darn awesome, with some almost Prince of Persia-like platforming and typical Lego tongue-in-cheek humor.  3DS version also in the works.

Just Dance 4 turns whoever controls the WiiU controller into a monster, by giving them control over what moves pop onto the screen for the other people holding Wiimotes to perform.  You can also freeze on a move and make them hold it for as long as you like.  I suppose they've only been showing off the helpful side of the asynchronous gameplay afforded by the controller, might as well show the competitive/spiteful side of it too.

ZombiU finally gets some gameplay, with finally some inventive use of the controller as inventory, radar, scanner, door hacking utility, sniper scope, and more.  Leave it to Ubisoft to figure out what to do with this tech.  They also revealed the nifty detail that with one bite, you're dead, AS IT SHOULD BE.  So good on them.  There's also a silly thing that will use the front camera to zombify your face.

They end their Ubisoft run with a small rehash of the rest of their games coming to WiiU: Assassin's Creed 3, Rabbids Land, Rayman Legends, Your Shape Fitness Evolved 2013, Rayman Legends, Sports Connection, and Avengers: Battle for Earth.

What little goodwill I had left is gone when in order to set up the stage they once again reminds us to check out their site for all the content they don't have time to show here, then reveal these goofy looking gates and the Nintendoland game.  They then spend the last 15 of their oh so precious minutes talking about this Disneyland Kinect Adventures ripoff that will feature various minigames based on their franchises like Zelda and Donkey Kong and will be included at launch.  A good 7 of those minutes are spent demoing Luigi's Ghost Mansion, where they pause it...repeatedly...whenever something happens so they can fully explain what's going on.  Really guys?  REALLY?  Between that, talking about how they didn't have any time, and the way too prolonged intros for developers coupled with the awkward and also prolonged talks between them and Reggie, I'm guessing they could've shaved a good 20-30 minutes off their time or allocated it towards what they said they were going to talk about: the GAMES.  At the beginning Reggie said we would see "in one form or another" 23 WiiU games.  Technically true.  How many of those got more than, say, 2 minutes of time?  About 8.  And those just barely pass, besides Nintendoland.

In other words, to me Nintendo was a big disappointment.  While they finally showed off some inventive uses of the controller, nothing they showed off was a big hit.  For first party we get more Mario because for some reason people keep buying the same constantly rehashed game, Pikmin 3 (likely to be the best of the bunch), and a Nintendo-themed carnival game.  Of course the third party titles are where Nintendo is likeliest to shine, but their overview of Arkham City showed little to no innovation or features that would make it a must-buy for anyone but those who only own a WiiU.  And besides Arkham, the only title they really showed off was ZombiU, which could be a diamond in the rough (though it all looked suspiciously pre-rendered).  On top of this, with Microsoft's announcement of Smartglass and Sony's continued investment in merging Vita and PS3, Nintendo's crazy innovation isn't looking all that innovative.  I suppose I could just go to Nintendo's E3 website to read up more on it and get the giant amounts of information that they just couldn't squeeze in, but frankly, from what they showed me, I couldn't care less.

So with a last pitiful breath, the E3 conferences are at an end.  Microsoft locked themselves in as a giant media hub, Sony paid tribute to its fans with some exclusive titles, and Nintendo underwhelmed with its awkward presentation and lack of details on both its console and the games they said they were going to spend all their time on.  With that, we'll see you next year E3.