Hey friends, seeing as these things cost money and all, I wasn’t exactly able to attend E3 this year, which I thought would have been cool. However, through the magic of the internet, I’m able to watch the press conferences from the safety and comfort of my own bed. Ooh, and my bed’s so comfortable, too. This was a good idea!
Anyway, I promise to look at this press conference through a non-biased eye, and to not demand EarthBound with every alternate sentence, since everyone will get mad at me if I do. Now, on with the show!
-Nintendo’s press conference started with Cammie Somethingorother (Dunaway?) talking about her family. That’s nice.
-She introduces Shaun White Snowboarding, complete with Shaun White trying it out on the Wii Balance Board.
-The game looks like fun. Shaun White looks like a douchebag though. Get a haircut!
-Cammie Whatsherface introduces Satoru Iwata (“Please welcome me in joining Satoru Iwata to the stage…” Whoops!)
-Iwata is talking about breaking barriers, being pioneers, etc., etc.
-He introduces Animal Crossing City Folk, coming to the Wii this year.
-The game will use “Wii Speak”Â, a new peripheral that sits by the Wiimote bar and allows everyone in the room to talk to people around the world, speakerphone style. That’s pretty cool.
-Nothing is required in the game, you basically just do whatever you want in real time.
-I found it pretty boring, but if Animal Crossing is your thing, go for it!
-Next up is Reggie Fils-Aimé, COO of NOA.
-Blah blah blah, Wii sales, DS sales, we’re selling more than them, nothing exciting here. It’s like one big flamebait.
-After much yapping, we get to some games. We have Star Wars: The Clone Wars (lots of lightsaber fighting, due out during the holidays), Rayman Raving Rabbids: TV Party (lots of crazy mini-games, due out Fall ’09) and Call of Duty: World at War (lots of explosions and using the Wii Zapper, “coming soon”Â).
-Cammie is back out, with more sales figures and demographics and bar graphs.
-She introduces a new Guitar Hero game for the DS, Spore Creatures for the DS and Pokemon Rangers: Shadows of Almia for the DS. Then, the first announcement that made me go “wow, that’s awesome!”Â, Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars on the DS, with a new engine, set in Liberty City. That could be great if done right.
-Next, she talks about the things you can do with a DS in Safeco Field, and how cool it would be to be able to look up stuff in much the same way at the airport. I guess that would be nice, but that’s what we have Blackberry’s and iPhones for…how about they stick to, you know…games?
-Reggie is back out to talk about the new Wiimote add-on, and says it will give you more realistic movement.
-They demo the new add-on with Wii Sports Resort, showing throwing a Frisbee to a dog, jet skiing (it’s like Wave Race, it was awesome!) and fencing. Never done that on the beach, but whatever. The movement with the Wiimote looked good.
-Next, they have one more game to show us…the lights go down, strobe lights go off…what’s it gonna be…what’s it gonna be…
-It’s Some Guy! Playing the drums! Oh, it’s Wii Music.
-Miyamoto comes out playing a Wiimote saxophone to complement the guy’s drumming. That looks pretty fun.
-Lots of talking about it now. You don’t have to match up notes, just act like you’re playing the instrument and the Wii does the rest. That really doesn’t look like fun. What’s the point, then?
-They bring out a bunch of Nintendo execs and they “play” the Mario theme. That kinda did look like fun, actually.
-They wrap up the day’s announcements and end by looking towards the future to reinvent themselves again. I was hoping for some kind of announcement here, but I guess not.
So that’s it then. People are no doubt going to be upset over the lack of big, huge, showstopping announcements (Mario, Zelda, Star Fox, F-Zero, Punch Out, EarthBound (that was a close one)) but what we got looks interesting enough. Just because they’re “TEH N00B CASUAL, NOT ENOUGH SHOOTING, EXPLOSIONS AND BROWN IN THE COLOR SCHEME GAHHHHH!!!1!!!1″Â doesn’t make it not fun.
And speaking of fun, it’ll be fun to see what Sony has in store to bring their fans back in from the ledge after yesterday’s Final Fantasy XIII announcement. Check back in later for our recap!
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