Nintendo E3 Press Conference.

Nintendo kicked off their conference with a video of people smiling and playing the Wii followed by the slogan 'We promise to keep the world smiling'. Well, from the things they've unveiled today show that Nintendo are very serious about keeping that promise.

Here's a quick run-down of the games and new innovations that Nintendo showcased.

Shaun White Snowboarding



Shaun White himself appeared in all his ginger glory! The game is controlled through use of the Wii Balance Board so you have to lean left and right to take turns. Nintendo's Sammie Dunnaway also made a fool of herself by trying it out.

Animal Crossing: City Folk


We all knew it was coming but Nintendo officially unveiled it during their press conference. While the game itself looks like a better looking version of the DS Animal Crossing there's a number of new innovations that takes advantage of the Wii. Firstly, as well as your town, you can also travel to a city where you can take part in auctions, visit the Happy Room Academy (how dare they give my house low points!), get some new fashions at Gracie Grace or get a new hairstyle.

Communication is once again handed through letters. However, you can now attach photos and send them to your PC or post them on the Wii message board. The biggest aspect of the new communication tools, however, is the Wii Speak. This is a whole new piece of hardware that acts as a microphone but the whole room can speak into it and interact with another room of players anywhere in the world. So, basically, people visiting your town can now speak to you instead of using some cumbersome chat interface.

Wii Motion Plus.

Wii Motion Plus is another new piece of hardware that records your exact movements and renders them on the Wii. This means characters on the screen will now follow your exact slight movements instead of during some pre-canned movements based on what direction you moved the Wiimote in.



Taking advantage of this new piece of hardware is a new Wii Sports game known as Wii Sports: Resort. They played with it on stage showing off Frisbee throwing, jet-ski riding and sword fighting (which, because it now follows your exact movements, looks pretty damn awesome).

Also shown was Wii Music. Using the Wiimote and nunchuck you can play up to 50 different instruments such as drums, a saxophone, a piano etc. You can then combine these together and play as band with three other people (which is what they did - to the Mario theme tune!). Although, again, it's cringe worthy I have to admit that it looks damn fun to play around with. Hell, after these announcements I may well go and get myself a Wii!

Wii Music is out in spring 2009.

Other Stuff (Including DS Games)

A few other games unveiled include:

Spore Creatures (you can share your creations on the DS just like you can in the PC version. The stylus is used to create creatures.)
Guitar Hero: On Tour (song sharing between versions)
A new Pokemon game (great...)
Grand Theft Auto: China Town (this was pretty surprising considering the family friendly DS. It takes place in Liberty City with a whole new game engine.)
Star Wars: The Clone Wars.
Rayman Raving Rabbits: TV Party.
Call of Duty: World at War (Looks pretty good graphics for a Wii game. It uses the Wii Zapper and has a co-op mode)

Last but not least, Sony is next.

Run Athletics Legacy x Nintendo Sneakers.

My British upbringing is dying to call these things trainers but I'm just going to go with my wonderful cousins name for them. So, Run Athletics and Nintendo have teamed up to create these Mario Bros. inspired snazzy pair of sneakers (I should be shot for even using the word 'snazzy').

The sneakers feature a Mario Bros. 'M' emblazoned on the tongue and a Power Star motif on the side. There's no word on the price but an upcoming launch party at New York's Nintendo World store (September 25th) will most likely reveal the details.

I've never really been a fan of video game sneakers - possibly because we don't see them very often - but I have to admit these are pretty cool. Since the tongue will most likely be covered by whatever jeans/trousers you're wearing, however, I doubt many people would notice that they're Mario inspired. I guess I'll just stick to video game t-shirts - even though I don't currently own any because I suck.

UPDATE: I've just been notified that they'll be priced $120 and will be released on September 29th at www.denimandsole.com. Get em' if you have some spare cash saved up!

Run Athletics Legacy x Nintendo Launch Party - Freshness Mag (Via Boing Boing Gadgets)

Hyrule Isn't Getting a New Hero Anytime Soon.

Probably the most useless and uncool Wii attachment ever created. If you buy this (and you're over ten-years-old) then you probably need to re-think your entire approach to life.

E307: My Thoughts on the Three Press Conferences.

E3 may not be as big as it used to be - or as flashy - but it's still an important date in the game industries calendar. Although the extravagant booths and the scantly clad booth babes may not be a part of E3 anymore the press conferences held by Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft are still very much a highlight. After watching all three conferences I've come to the conclusion that each console has something unique and amazing to offer us all. At last I'm genuinely excited about this new generation of gaming.

If I had the money I'd own all three consoles but, for now, I think it'll have to be the 360 (mostly because I can hook it up to my monitor to get HD visuals without having to splash out on a new TV).

Microsoft.



Every year I'm baffled by Microsoft's press conference. Not by what's on offer but by their insistence to hire people who'll sit in the audience whooping and hollering after every soundbite, video and new piece of information. If a company is offering genuinely exciting products then the journalists and general public don't need a few over-the-top antics to become interested.

The press conference opened with a band playing the theme from Halo, because we all know that Microsoft can't do anything without mentioning Halo (to be fair though the press conferences are all about promoting the things that are making them money). As with every E3 press conference, however, there's always something that makes you cringe. This time it was Peter Moore playing Rock Band with Harmonix and trying to sing. Still, the game looks amazingly cool even if I ashamedly admit I've not played Guitar Hero yet.

I've been planning to get an Xbox 360 for a while now but lack of money has proved otherwise. One of the main reasons I want to get a 360 is because I'm deeply interested in Mass Effect. As expected it looks absolutely gorgeous. I like RPG's that don't follow the 'normal' RPG formula in that you can shoot someone in the face without all the bother of statistics. It's also coming out in November so I best get a 360 soon.

A tonne of trailers were also shown, some of which you may have already seen (such as GTA IV). Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare is looking nice, but I always have been a bit of a Call of Duty fan. It seems the popular Call of Duty formula has translated well into the modern era (see charlieoscardelta.com for more details). It was annoying that no new footage of GTA IV was shown (they just showed the previous two trailers) but I expect we'll see some new footage soon enough. Microsoft seem to fapping over the additional content Rockstar will exclusively provide to the 360.

Assassin's Creed is also a game I'm looking forward to and a new real-time demo was shown during the press conference. I'm really loving the interaction with pedestrians (if you can call them that) and the free running.

I think I'm missed something....oh yes, that mostly unknown game called Halo 3. It's not all that important because the game itself isn't very popular (wink wink) but a new trailer was shown. Curiously it was a live action trailer that left many disappointed (probably connected to the Halo movie) . A new Halo 3 360 was also confirmed and shown, which also includes a 20GB drive. Just to be annoying another Halo 3 trailer was shown before the conference ended.

Obviously you can tell I'm not a massive Halo fan, but I always did think it was a bit overrated. Anyway, overall the conference was nothing special. Plenty of gameplay but nothing we didn't already know or anticipate.

Nintendo.


Some have said that the Nintendo press conference was disappointing but I both enjoyed it and thought it showed a lot of new innovation off. Granted, some of it we've known about for a while but it never hurts to get new details - does it?

Nintendo showed small films throughout the press conference showing how their innovation had been received in the media, especially the Wii-mote. You can't blame Nintendo for emphasising how popular the Wii has become and, if it were any other company, I'd be saying it can get tiresome. However, Nintendo has always prized itself on originality and innovation and they hardly ever (Virtual Boy excepted) fail to deliver. So, in my eyes, they're allowed to bask in their glory.

I was surprised when Reggie revealed 69% of industry growth this year came from the sale of Nintendo products. I realise that the DS and Wii are selling by the bucket loads but 69% seems like a bit of an overblown statistic to me.

The new Wii Zapper design was shown next, looking a bit more futuristic than it's earlier prototype and also a bit like a sub-machine gun. To be fair it's nothing new and it's getting more and more like the Wii is something you'd play in an arcade. Ignoring it's b-movie style name the price point, at $19.99 for North America, is very pleasing.

More games were talked about and shown off (such as Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, Metroid Prime 3 and that Mario and Sonic Olympics game that millions of people are looking forward to...) but I'm not going to concentrate on those because the Wii Fit is really something worth talking about. A new 'controller' (like a square board) is placed on the ground and you stand on the board doing the various exercises while the 'controller' picks up your movements. Various moves include push-ups, step aerobics, one-legged stretches, sideways twists and even heading footballs. More than 40 different exercises will keep you from getting fat. There's been various 'gimmicks' in the past that say we can use video games to exercise but I really see people (including myself) using this to exercise, mostly those who don't go to the gym though.

Nintendo always aim to please and I don't think they've let us down this time. Some said that the appeal of the Wii would quickly wear off but Nintendo are making sure that new innovative and fun additions keep people interested.

Sony.


I've always been a bit of a Sony guy (after my good old Sega consoles, of course) but the Playstation 3 didn't really interest me at first. These days, however, the PS3 has far more on offer than what was previously touted.

A big highlight for me is LittleBigPlanet. I prefer PC games usually because user generated content (such as mod's and new levels) plays a large part in a games community. User generated content for consoles has been a long time coming and now the three consoles of the infrastructure to support it then I think it's time it's rolled out in a number of games. LittleBigPlanet is exciting because it keeps us gamers hooked by allowing us to create our own content. A games lifespan can greatly increase if the power of creating new content is put in the players hands. I'm glad and excited that Sony has begun to recognise this.

Speaking of user generated content Playstation Home (Sony's 'social network/Second Life lookalike') was constantly emphasised, with Harrison and others speaking from it. You can always guarantee a bit of cheesiness at E3 press conferences and Sony didn't fail to deliver
(such as Chewbacca presenting the new white PSP design with Darth Vader's face on it) but Home is looking pretty nifty, even if I haven't really figured out it's purpose. I do like the ability to upload pictures taken on a mobile phone straight into Home, however.

The new PSP doesn't really look much different. Sure, it's lighter and a bit thinner but the re-design is nothing as drastic as the DS Lite was to the original DS. There's a new video output feature which allows you to watch videos and play PSP games on a TV screen. I don't think this is a good enough reason to buy the new PSP if you already have one though.

Some games that caught my eye include the incredibly tough looking puzzle-game Echo Chrome, Warhawk, a dark looking game called Infamous, and a new apparently real-time trailer of MGS4.

Killzone 2 was left to the end and, well, it was obvious why. Killzone 2 looks to be Sony's killer ap at the moment and, let's face it, it was going to be hard to regain people's confidence after the travesty that was the original trailer. I'm pleased to say that it's looking almost as good as the original trailer (see the two compared here). A Halo killer? It annoys me when people say that. The two games are vastly different so comparing the two is pretty pointless. Halo is a far more colourful game while Killzone 2 does look overly dark.

There's still a lot of things that Sony need to do in order to make me want to buy a PS3, and the PS3 also needs to get a lot more exclusive games. Still, my confidence in Sony has risen a bit, but I think I'll give it another year in order to make a good judgment.

All Hail Comrade Mario!

Mario? A Communist? What do you think he wore that red hat for? Plus, the mustache? A perfect replica of good old Stalins, obviously.

In true Soviet propaganda style here's Mario taking on those nasty Goombas. For the people, of course!

The People's Mario - 88by31.com

The Top Ten Nintendo 64 Games.

GameFAQs has a list of the top ten Nintendo 64 games if you click this shiny little link. Of course, it's just one persons opinion and you can go out and bludgeon them to death if you so wish (No Signal Input claims no responsibility for murder charges if you go and carry out that act). No Perfect Dark? Bleh!

Let's see what the N64 Kid has to say about this...

...no need to get so overexcited pal; it's only a generic top ten list!

Top 10 Lists : The Top 10 Nintendo 64 Games - GameFAQs.com

Game Boy Around The World.

This is just one of a series of images of this kid playing on his GBA at famous tourist attractions around the world. Locations include Stonehenge, the Cliffs of Dover and the Pool of Bethesda. Pity he's way too engrossed in whatever game he's playing to take in the full wonder of the sights. Someone should buy this kid a DS Lite!

Hit this link for the full Flickr set!

Game Boy around the world - Flickr.

GAME To Bundle The Wii.

British Gaming Blog has posted about how GAME are doing the 'bundle thing' with the Wii. Although it comes as no surprise after the 360 debacle it's pretty annoying that you can't buy the stand alone console and instead have to cough up for the cheapest bundle - which comes in at £219.99 with one game. You could say that you're saving money by buying the bundle but I'm really not sure you are. It's still an extra £40 on top of orignal price (£179.99) which some of the games will cost on their own anyway. At the most you could be saving £10 if the first party games come in at £50.

This is why I never buy new consoles. Stores just rush to rip the customer off by offering absurd bundles as to control their limited stock and make a tidy profit at the same time. Sure, it's expected, but I always thought the Wii would be different in this aspect. I guess Nintendo's ethic's don't translate to the stores huh?

I suppose you could always go for Amazon (who should really stop letting people review items before they are released) but I can see those going pretty fast.


GAME Wii page.

SimCity Coming To DS In Japan.

A DS version of SimCity 3000 is set for release through Electronic Arts, according to Japanese gaming magazine Famitsu. SimCity DS will feature "full stylus-based controls, mini games and a new adviser character who helps you out when designing your city."

Three modes will be included in this magnificent package: Build a New City, Save the City and Sister City. Sister City is said to make use of Nintendo's Wi-Fi Network in that you'll be able to chat to other players and share landmarks.

As of yet no official US annoucement has been made but, to be honest, I find it strange that this game would be announced in Japan first. Since it's an EA product it'll almost certainly hit our shores in the future. Until then this is just another gem to add to the DS' growing library.

Sim City Set for DS - IGN

(Via Joystiq)

What I'm Playing: July 17th - 24th.

I've had my DS Lite for a week now and already I've put in far more play time than I ever did with my neglected PSP (I haven't given up on it entirely - I just prefer my DS Lite at the moment). I only own two games as of now, Animal Crossing: Wild World and Mario Kart DS, but I just can't stop playing. The thing about the DS is that it's actually fun to use (unlike the PSP which can be extremely frustrating at times) - especially the touch screen aspect. Strangely I've been largely neglecting Mario Kart DS in favour of AC:Wild World, which I'm finding extremely addictive.

AC:WW perfects a formula whereby it encourages the gamer to play the game in short bursts of time, as to avoid the gamer seeing too much in a short amount of time and, thus, becoming bored with the game rather quickly. Since the game is played in real time certain events occur on different days (having some real life events) and certain items/people appear on different days (Tom Nook's shop stocks different items every single day). As such what you see in a day is only a tiny percentage of what the whole game has to offer. I find myself jumping on for around 10-20 minutes at a time to collect the shells and other crap that constantly wash up on the beach, or just simply making good friends with the animals in the village while trying to stock my house with the best furniture money (or, in this case, bells) can buy. As such the game keeps me interested enough to suddenly realise that;

'Oh fuck! The shop closes in five minutes'

...and off I am to grab my DS Lite.



Also on the playlist this week is The Lord Of The Rings: The Battle For Middle Earth II (PC). I owned the first game but never really got into it due to the strict limitations the game was under since EA only had the rights to the films. Now EA have got the rights to the books as well it's meant they can be far more creative with the magnificent world of Tolkien and branch out to create their own stories in Middle Earth. As such you now have a greater variety of races to control and a slew of new units (such as ships).

Other overhauls include actually being able to build your own base as you see fit (in the first game you had to build on pre-designated spots, something I felt was a limitation in an RTS), touched up graphics and more concentration on the multiplayer aspect - although I'm yet to try this. They leave the RPG style leveling and hero aspect in though, which I actually enjoyed anyway.



Last, but by no means least, is Second Life (the screenshot above is of, to my utter amazement, well known SL resident Torrid Midnight, who you can catch on regular SL podcast, Secondcast and her very own podcast - The Goods.). I don't like to call this a game so I hesitate to say playing. It's more 'living' in a virtual world. I recently got back into this to continue my roleplay as a woman but I'm feeling like I'm missing out on a lot. I want to get more involved in SL, I want to have something to say about the world, I want to get into building, scripting, and fashion designing. If only I had the time and patience...

Games that seem to have taken a backseat are World of Warcraft (I haven't bothered renewing my subscription to this because I was bored of doing the same tedious thing over and over again) and Eve Online (which, unfortunately, I don't have enough time to dedicate to at the moment).

So, that's my gaming life at the moment. I'm currently wishing it was about 8 months ahead so I can throw all this out of the window and dedicate my life to Spore.

Handheld Heaven.

Amazon emailed me earlier to tell me that my order for a DS Lite, Animal Crossing: Wild World and, the creme de la creme, Mario Kart DS. (It's currently in transit).

I've wanted a DS for ages but stupidly pumped for a PSP first. Thankfully I have enough of a decent wage recently to buy a DS Lite as well (and a snazzy 30GB black iPod with video playback, I might add). The PSP may have the graphics but graphics are nothing if you aren't having much fun playing the game. Games for the DS are both unique and insanely fun at the same time - a decent (and cheap!) package in my opinion!

Also, my brother just got one off his girlfriend as part of his 18th birthday money and presents overload (been there, done that), which means I can use the wireless LAN connection to play with him and also use our wireless connection at home to play over the internet.

That's £137.76 well invested me thinks!