Today, after a meeting with Konami, I had some free time to check out Nintendo’s offerings on the show floor. They have an enormous booth this year, with several games playing on many more televisions around their part of the West Hall. Read on to see what I thought.
I only managed to get my hands on one of the DS titles, since the line for The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks was rather ridiculous; I spent about 15 minutes instead playing through the two available modes for Mario & Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story. Playing as Bowser is quite a bit like playing one of the two previous games, as far as the overworld goes; you’ll punch and burn your way through obstacles, solving somewhat simple puzzles in your quest. Playing as the Mario Bros. is a bit different; the overworld of Bowser’s body (innerworld?) controls like a 2D platformer, as you travel simple courses to a specific part of Bowser’s body, so that you can play a short minigame that will boost Bowser’s strength or something to that effect. Combat in this game is very similar to before, though playing as Bowser is new and interesting given how much of a powerhouse he is, and the fact that he has minions at his disposal. Fans of the other two games will probably like this one just as much.
Following that, I headed over to a wall of third-party games that Nintendo had set up so I could try out one of my most anticipated titles, The Conduit. Gameplay-wise, it’s pretty much what I had hoped for; the controls are customizable to your hearts content, including things like the specific size of the Wii Remote’s bounding box. After getting things set up to my personal preference, it was a breeze locking onto enemies and blasting them with a shotgun, lobbing grenades at them, or just decking them right in the face, which is an immensely satisfying action. The game’s atmosphere is also highly satisfying, set in a war-torn Washington, D.C.; the game looks fantastic, and runs at 30 fps solidly. This is one game I hope to get a bit more hands-on time with, as the show floor had to close down as I was playing.
Another title I worked my way over to was Wii Sports Resort, which has had a large number of sports added to it, making it quite the expansive title. The game du jour was ping pong, which I played against an Electronic Arts employee (I won hands down). MotionPlus works exactly as it’s intended to. Any hit that I could have made was translated perfectly, even when I was trying to be fancy and add spin to the ball with a trickier strike; the controller barrier almost disappears, since it’s easy to forget you’re not just holding a ping pong paddle. I’ll be checking out the other games over the next couple of days.
The last game I played, as well as one of my favorites, was the highly-touted New Super Mario Bros. Wii; getting hands-on time was not difficult, as they had about a dozen sets dedicated to this game alone. Vis a vis controls, it’s almost identical to the original New Super Mario Bros.; you end up holding your Wii Remote sideways like a NES controller. What really makes this game special is, in fact, the multiplayer aspect. Playing through this game alone seems like it’ll be fairly enjoyable, though the levels might be a bit spacious. If you get four people to play together, though, and everyone’s only looking out for their best interests (which is clearly the case here), you end up with a hilarious, competitive multiplayer romp filled with cursing and stepping on each other’s heads. Playing through three of the game’s levels, you can tell the game is designed to take advantage of the multiple players first and foremost, and here at E3 it seems to be paying off. I may go back and try this game again; I’ll let you know if I have any more comments.
Nintendo had several other games on display that I didn’t have a chance to try out, including Cursed Mountain, Dead Space: Extraction and other mini-games from Wii Sports Resort. Keep on the lookout for more impressions from me as the week goes on.
