2001 Nintendo
Based on a variety of experimental 64DD titles that never saw the light of day, Shigeru Miyamoto brings us Pikmin.Pikmin is a real-time strategy title based on a small spaceman who's travels came up short when his spacecraft crashed in an exotic planet. The spaceman is equipped with some kind of neural devise that allows him to control a pack of lovable but dumb plant-life creatured called Pikmin. The spaceman uses the Pikmin to remove obstacles, defeat predators, and assist in finding and retrieving the missing parts of his ship.
Features
- Control over a hundred Pikmin at a single time
- Dolby Pro Logic Surround Sound
- Only for Nintendo GameCube
Tentatively titled Pikmin, Shigeru Miyamoto teams up with one of the EAD programmers of 1080 Snowboarding, Colin Reed, to create an intuitive and extremely fun real-time strategy title for the Nintendo GameCube. The game pits you controlling a space man from another planet, who's space ship crashed on a foreign planet inhabited by all types of weird creatures. Luckily, the space man is equipped with a communication device, capable of controlling a horde of small helper creatures called pikmin.
The space man can use the pikmin to eliminate barriers, defeat enemies, and carry missing parts of his space ship, back to his home base. Certain tasks require you to use the pikmin in a specific way, and also require a certain number of pikmin. Attacking some enemies, requires you to sneak behind their back, and launch all the pikmin who cling on the enemies back and attack. Approaching certain foes from the front, can be an easy way to get your pikmin a one way ticket to the enemy's belly. Each enemy has a certain plan of attack which you must follow in order to defeat them without losing too many of your pikmin. Carrying out tasks means you have to do a lot of resource management. Finding a piece of your ship, means you need a certain amount of pikmin to carry it back , while you continue to explore. The heavier the piece, the more pikmin required to move it. Also, the more pikmin you employ on that mission, the faster they move.
Pikmin is once again making use of the Nintendo GameCube's clock, and has a day and night time system.You will have to accomplish certain tasks, and return back to base with all your pikmin and tasks completed before night time. If the creatures don't kill you, the time will.
Pikmin has an extraordinarily easy control scheme that takes about ten seconds to learn. It is the first real-time strategy game on a console, that plays more like a standard adventure game, eliminating the need for an hour long tutorial or an encyclopedia like instruction manual. Using the standard analog you control the space man, the camera analog stick controls the pikmin's formation, the A button calls the pikmin, and the L and R triggers control camera zoom and camera rotation.
Graphically, the game is simple but at the same time gorgeous. A perfect 60 frames per second, detailed creatures, and gorgeous high resolution textures which Miyamoto admitted were captured from his backyard. The game also handles a lot of action on screen, it is possible to have over 100 individual pikmin traveling with you, venturing through complex scenery, avoiding enemies, and the frame rate never drops a single frame.
The music is absolutely wonderful. A mix of orchestral scores and synthesized tracks, an interesting mix, but both composed to utter perfection and are perfect for this kind of game. Definitely confirmation that this isn't anything like a Nintendo 64 games.
E3 Hands on
Pikmin, not only the surprise game of the show, but the game of the show in my opinion. With most of the games at the floor, spending most of the game developers R&D resources on graphics, it was refreshing to see a simple game catering to pure fun and great control. Not only that, but the game was absolutely addicting. There is something about the space man's character unique and lovable character design that demands as much respect as the design employed in Namco's Soul Calibur or Sonic Team's Phantasy Star. Unfortunately, the pikmin are also cute and adorable, and render you helpless against their charm. Though many may be skeptical because of Pikmin's eccentric look, playing the game instantly wipes out all doubts and misconceived notions about Shigeru Miyamoto's latest masterpiece.
Not only is it refreshing to see Nintendo come up with new ideas, it's great to see Nintendo releasing more small resource games that can be just as fun (if not more) than the big budget Super Mario, The Legend of Zelda, Pokemon, Perfect Dark, Donkey Kong titles Nintendo is used to spending most of it's money on. Miyamoto plans to release this title in Japan by September, and right around December in the states. Keep your eyes open for this gem.