One of the highlights of NintendoGal’s trip to E3 was a meeting with Nintendo to get a better look at some of the games. While this year’s Nintendo offerings may not draw in the hardcore crowd to a massive degree, they’re definitely worth taking a look at for the most part.

One game I was quite eager to see was Wii Sports Resort, due to Nintendo’s promotion of the MotionPlus accessory to bring about true 1:1 motion detection; after getting hands-on time with the device, I can confidently say that the device works. I didn’t get a chance to jetski, but Disc Dog works about as well as one could expect. As you twist your wrist, the frisbee twists on screen, and the fling of the frisbee is represented realistically as well; I suck at frisbee exactly as much in Resort as I do in real life. It really does feel like your every movement is translated into the game, and this is made more clear during the sword duels. You hold the Wii Remote exactly as you would a sword, and your sword onscreen does everything that you do. You can strategize and use tactics on the fly, as fast as you can do them in reality, and it makes for a very intuitive and engaging experience. We need more games utilizing this device; it does its job excellently.

Wii Music was the other game I got to play during my meeting with Nintendo, and what it does, it does well. There are two modes that I got to see; one would be a sort of "play-along" mode for a list of included songs, and that was the most well-touted mode at E3. As you’ve probably heard, there’s no way to fail, no notes you have to hit; you just press certain buttons in time to the music to improvise along how you want. The other mode we saw was a full drum kit, with which the Wii Balance Board was compatible; you’d step on the Balance Board to imitate a kick pedal or the hi hat pedal, and pressing certain buttons as you hit with the remote will make you hit different drums. This drum kit is slightly unintuitive, however; I was hoping that something other than buttons, something motion-related, could help you choose what drums you hit. The experience overall, though, is rather lacking, I believe; there’s just not much else to do besides make some noise in a group setting. I’m not sure what Nintendo has planned to keep people coming back to Wii Music, but at this stage it feels like a tech demo of what the Wii can do, and needs to be beefed up.

While I never got my hands on Animal Crossing: City Folk per se, we did get to check out WiiSpeak in the waiting room, having a conversation with Charles Martinet, who was on the other end controlling a character with Mario’s face (a Mii that was placed onto the character’s face). Having tried to communicate with others in Wild World with an annoying DS keyboard, I can say that WiiSpeak is a more fun way of interacting, and will hopefully encourage people to go online more with friends as they play, which is one of the better parts of playing Animal Crossing.

On the show floor I got my hands on the DS title Mystery Case Files: MillionHeir, which unfortunately suffers from the same problem as Wii Music: there’s just not very much to it. You’ll look around a screen for numerous objects hidden in the picture, and... that’s pretty much it. The experience gets old quickly, and from the information I gathered it’s pretty much that the entire game. Not something I’m going to keep an eye on this year.

Lastly, I got a chance to try out Pokémon Ranger: Shadows of Almia, a Pokémon title that ditches the turn-based battles of the original series in favor of something more fast-paced. As you come across Pokémon in your travels, you’ll move to a sort of catching mini-game, in which you must use your stylus to continually circle the Pokémon, trying to lower its HP and capture it; the Pokémon, however, can fight back and damage your stylus trail to hurt your HP. I never played the original Ranger, but the simple formula is engaging enough to keep me playing for a little while, and I get the sense that other elements of the game will be more robust, to give the game more strategy and depth. Pokémon fans will want to keep their eyes on that title for when it comes out.

That does it for the Nintendo offerings I was able to play; other titles, like Wario Land: Shake It! were unfortunately unavailable on the show floor, but hopefully we’ll get more details on what they’re doing as the fall progresses. Stay tuned to NintendoGal for more E3 details, including an interview with Denise Kaigler.