The second day of E3 didn't start for me until 1 p.m., when we had our interview and play session with Nintendo of Canada's Matt Ryan. I was really looking forward to sitting down and asking some of our more pressing questions about what happened at the conference, and other questions that would hopefully pry some answers out of the impenetrable fortress that is Nintendo's "no comment" policy of years past.
We have that full transcript available for your perusal in our E3 2008 coverage. Besides the interview, our play session got to run a little long today (thanks again, Andrea) and I had a decent amount of time with some of Nintendo's offerings.
Wii Music is definitely going to be a love-it or hate-it type of game. When it was first introduced in 2006, I had high hopes for the ability to conduct orchestras (a feature which I have been assured is still in the game, albeit not present at E3), and found myself rather starry-eyed at what that game could evolve into. What I saw at the press conference didn't impress me, and what I played today slightly changed my opinion, but not enough for me to be able to champion it.
The draw to this "non-game" is that you don't need to do anything at all. There are no points, there's no score, and as proven by Miyamoto and company at tonight's "roundtable," you don't even need to look at the screen. Needless to say, I was intrigued at first, and after being told that "playing is believing" I still couldn't believe it. In the final game, there will be fifty songs, and sixty instruments, with no plans for downloadable content. Ranging from public domain to popular music and Nintendo themes, I have a feeling it's going to get old fast.
The most interesting aspect of Wii Music was the dedicated drum training program. It's an interesting concept, but when I asked a Nintendo spokesperson if you'd be able to play this dedicated drum set along with any music, I was taken aback to hear a very firm "no."
In short, Wii Music was a bit disappointing. I have a feeling it'll be a hit with the extremely young crowd, but that's about it.
When the Internet was speculating on what the next Wii Sports game would hold for us, I don't think anyone ever imagined it'd be a beach resort with a bunch of non-traditional sports as a focus. Getting my bearings with the MotionPlus-augmented Wii Remote was done courtesy of the Disc Dog game. (Interesting tidbit: when Wii Sports Resort asks you to point your Wii Remote to the screen and press A, it's actually calibrating your "center" for the MotionPlus attachment.)
The frisbee game is an interesting introduction to the peripheral, as you can see your minute changes in tilt and such, but the more I think about it, I'm not entirely sure that specific game really needs the new attachment. I've seen similar tracking type systems before, and those games didn't need this extra attachment... you're not fooling me, Nintendo!
From there we went to fencing and sword fighting, and this was quite fun. It starts you off with a slight tutorial by instructing you to slice wood logs and oversized pencils. After you've sliced through a few objects, you fight your opponent—either the computer or a person. And the goal is to knock them off the platform. There is a time limit, but no counter appears on screen until the last ten seconds. By my reckoning, it's a 60 or 90 second timer. Best of three rounds wins. The use of the MotionPlus attachment here is very apparent, and the bright colors of your fake swords draws some great comparisons to what could be done with a lightsaber.
Finally we got to try the "Wave Race" portion of the game, and immediately I could tell this was done by the team that did the original Wave Race 64, which was confirmed tonight at the roundtable. Fun fact: the lead programmer of Wave Race 64 was responsible for the sub-game in Wii Sports Resort, and was also a key programmer on the MotionPlus peripheral too!
Wii Sports Resort has a lot of promise. I'm hoping for some volley ball and other sand sports to show up in the final game. From what I've seen so far, it's looking promising.
What can I say about this game that's bad? Not all that much, I am happy to report!
The entirety of this game is animated, hand drawn, and beautiful. The style itself is amazing and I'm in love with the animated sprites. It reminds me a lot of the old adventure games of the early 1990s, and it plays a lot like some earlier Mario titles, like Super Mario Bros. 3.
The game is presented in map form. You buy new areas with levels to play with coins. The version I played had tons of coins to spend, so I got to play a brand new area that hadn't been unlocked by other press throughout the day.
The game is your traditional sidescrolling platformer, but set up with a number of connected areas that have a Metroid feel—you can go a certain distance, and it'll scroll, but once you get to an "exit" it loads the next section, and so forth. It seems kind of a nuisance to me... I wonder if it has something to do with all the animated and unique assets for each area.
Regardless of this little issue, this game is amazing and needs a lot more attention than it's getting at E3 this year. If Nintendo had spoken about this at their press conference, people might have been a little more receptive.
I didn't get much time to try Animal Crossing today. It's on the floor, so I'll try it out more tomorrow. I was treated to a nice little tidbit of information: This year, Charles Martinet is playing off-site and voicing Mario as people play the games on the show floor. While Nintendo does interesting little things like this every year, here's the amusing bit: Charles is doing this from a van outside the convention center.
I was told this story during my playtime and interview, and I ended up running into Charles later in the day. When I mentioned that I had heard he was in a van, he pulled me aside and said "that's supposed to be a secret, who told you?" After swearing that my source was to remain secret, he told me that since the Wi-Fi at their hotel wasn't constant enough, and they were getting a lot of connection drops, they decided to put him in a van outside the convention center so that they could run a cable to his Wii and not worry about losing the connection.
It's always a great time running into Charles, and what's better is that he remembers us year-to-year. (Editor's Note: Dean certainly is memorable, I'll give him that.)
That evening, we had the developer roundtable, where there was a great Q&A session during which I was able to ask about disconnects on Animal Crossing (yes, It will still disconnect everyone), and for sure if the Wave Race team did the water portions of Wii Sports Resort (as mentioned above). I'd like to thank Nintendo for hosting that event, and Andrea for allowing N-Sider to attend—it was very much a treat!
Tomorrow is a full day, with Konami and Ubisoft, Nyko and more, and we'll have a ton more impressions on the last day of E3.
We have that full transcript available for your perusal in our E3 2008 coverage. Besides the interview, our play session got to run a little long today (thanks again, Andrea) and I had a decent amount of time with some of Nintendo's offerings.
Wii Music
Wii Music is definitely going to be a love-it or hate-it type of game. When it was first introduced in 2006, I had high hopes for the ability to conduct orchestras (a feature which I have been assured is still in the game, albeit not present at E3), and found myself rather starry-eyed at what that game could evolve into. What I saw at the press conference didn't impress me, and what I played today slightly changed my opinion, but not enough for me to be able to champion it.
The draw to this "non-game" is that you don't need to do anything at all. There are no points, there's no score, and as proven by Miyamoto and company at tonight's "roundtable," you don't even need to look at the screen. Needless to say, I was intrigued at first, and after being told that "playing is believing" I still couldn't believe it. In the final game, there will be fifty songs, and sixty instruments, with no plans for downloadable content. Ranging from public domain to popular music and Nintendo themes, I have a feeling it's going to get old fast.
The most interesting aspect of Wii Music was the dedicated drum training program. It's an interesting concept, but when I asked a Nintendo spokesperson if you'd be able to play this dedicated drum set along with any music, I was taken aback to hear a very firm "no."
In short, Wii Music was a bit disappointing. I have a feeling it'll be a hit with the extremely young crowd, but that's about it.
Wii Sports Resort
When the Internet was speculating on what the next Wii Sports game would hold for us, I don't think anyone ever imagined it'd be a beach resort with a bunch of non-traditional sports as a focus. Getting my bearings with the MotionPlus-augmented Wii Remote was done courtesy of the Disc Dog game. (Interesting tidbit: when Wii Sports Resort asks you to point your Wii Remote to the screen and press A, it's actually calibrating your "center" for the MotionPlus attachment.)
The frisbee game is an interesting introduction to the peripheral, as you can see your minute changes in tilt and such, but the more I think about it, I'm not entirely sure that specific game really needs the new attachment. I've seen similar tracking type systems before, and those games didn't need this extra attachment... you're not fooling me, Nintendo!
From there we went to fencing and sword fighting, and this was quite fun. It starts you off with a slight tutorial by instructing you to slice wood logs and oversized pencils. After you've sliced through a few objects, you fight your opponent—either the computer or a person. And the goal is to knock them off the platform. There is a time limit, but no counter appears on screen until the last ten seconds. By my reckoning, it's a 60 or 90 second timer. Best of three rounds wins. The use of the MotionPlus attachment here is very apparent, and the bright colors of your fake swords draws some great comparisons to what could be done with a lightsaber.
Finally we got to try the "Wave Race" portion of the game, and immediately I could tell this was done by the team that did the original Wave Race 64, which was confirmed tonight at the roundtable. Fun fact: the lead programmer of Wave Race 64 was responsible for the sub-game in Wii Sports Resort, and was also a key programmer on the MotionPlus peripheral too!
Wii Sports Resort has a lot of promise. I'm hoping for some volley ball and other sand sports to show up in the final game. From what I've seen so far, it's looking promising.
Wario Land: Shake It!
What can I say about this game that's bad? Not all that much, I am happy to report!
The entirety of this game is animated, hand drawn, and beautiful. The style itself is amazing and I'm in love with the animated sprites. It reminds me a lot of the old adventure games of the early 1990s, and it plays a lot like some earlier Mario titles, like Super Mario Bros. 3.
The game is presented in map form. You buy new areas with levels to play with coins. The version I played had tons of coins to spend, so I got to play a brand new area that hadn't been unlocked by other press throughout the day.
The game is your traditional sidescrolling platformer, but set up with a number of connected areas that have a Metroid feel—you can go a certain distance, and it'll scroll, but once you get to an "exit" it loads the next section, and so forth. It seems kind of a nuisance to me... I wonder if it has something to do with all the animated and unique assets for each area.
Regardless of this little issue, this game is amazing and needs a lot more attention than it's getting at E3 this year. If Nintendo had spoken about this at their press conference, people might have been a little more receptive.
Odds & Ends
I didn't get much time to try Animal Crossing today. It's on the floor, so I'll try it out more tomorrow. I was treated to a nice little tidbit of information: This year, Charles Martinet is playing off-site and voicing Mario as people play the games on the show floor. While Nintendo does interesting little things like this every year, here's the amusing bit: Charles is doing this from a van outside the convention center.
I was told this story during my playtime and interview, and I ended up running into Charles later in the day. When I mentioned that I had heard he was in a van, he pulled me aside and said "that's supposed to be a secret, who told you?" After swearing that my source was to remain secret, he told me that since the Wi-Fi at their hotel wasn't constant enough, and they were getting a lot of connection drops, they decided to put him in a van outside the convention center so that they could run a cable to his Wii and not worry about losing the connection.
It's always a great time running into Charles, and what's better is that he remembers us year-to-year. (Editor's Note: Dean certainly is memorable, I'll give him that.)
Charles Martinet, the voice of Mario.
That evening, we had the developer roundtable, where there was a great Q&A session during which I was able to ask about disconnects on Animal Crossing (yes, It will still disconnect everyone), and for sure if the Wave Race team did the water portions of Wii Sports Resort (as mentioned above). I'd like to thank Nintendo for hosting that event, and Andrea for allowing N-Sider to attend—it was very much a treat!
Tomorrow is a full day, with Konami and Ubisoft, Nyko and more, and we'll have a ton more impressions on the last day of E3.