Mason's Blog

Eurogamer Expo Adventures Part Two: Nintendo

On day two of my adventures in the capital, I woke up with a sore throat. Superb. Undeterred, I sped over to the Odeon at Covent Garden join Nintendo for the final of their competition to find Britain's Best Nintendo Gamer. The tournament has been going on for a few months around the UK, with entrants challenged on the likes of Wii Fit, Mario Kart DS, Wii Sports Resort and New Super Mario Bros DS. After eight heats, 16 finalists were here to do battle for the ultimate prize of a trip to Kyoto, Japan for them and four others. Plus, a limited edition black Wii...

The queue to get into the event, for which Nintendo had taken over the Odeon for the day, stretched down the street and was filled with supporters for the finalists, costumed gamers and press. A truly bizarre sight for those walking past, I'm sure, to see teenagers dressed as Kameks (complete with robe, rod, hat and facepaint), Marios (cardboard mask, dungarees, hat, plush mushroom) and a lone Bullet Bill (black jumpsuit). Not helping were Nintendo's own people dressed as Luigi and Mario, the former wandering up and down the line, shaking hands, slapping high fives, dancing, hugging and casually harassing passers-by with his sheer enthusiasm.



Upon being allowed entry I met long lost C3er dojo, AKA Ben, working for Nintendo handing out Wii bags filled with plushes. Cheers Ben! Mario and Donkey Kong were the lucky fellows to come home with me. After a while of bobbing aimlessly about the cinema lobby, which acted as the central hub to the event and featured grabber machines set to free play mode and some locked up Wii demo pods, we were ushered into the cinema screen to witness some dreams come true. Into the press section I went to watch the show...

The event was hosted by comedian and Absolute Radio DJ Iain Lee, who seemed equally as bemused and amused as the rest of us to see the rows of costumed fans, including a man in a delightful Princess Peach outfit and two of the finalists, a Dr. Mario and a helicopter-helmet Mario. To kick things off, after goading the costumed ones for a bit, a 'Super Skills' video was shown off of New Super Mario Bros. Wii, the game that would be used to test out the finalists. In it players charged through levels at an alarming rate, likely putting to shame anybody's future efforts on the title before it's even released. It's interesting to note that players were punching each others' characters through the air, too, something we haven't seen in our playtests...



Iain went on to introduce "the most bonkers person I've ever met in my life"...the voice of Mario himself, Charles Martinet! And what better way for Charles to make his presence known than by going through an alarming vocal medley of all his characters' voices - that's Mario, Luigi, Wario, Baby Mario, Baby Luigi and Waluigi. The best way to describe this display would be 'hilariously terrifying'. Mr. Martinet shared that he never intended Mario to sound as he does when he went to the audition, but once he got there it just tipped out and became the voice we all know and love. Which is probably for the best, given that his other Italian impression was gruff, unfriendly and sampled with "hey, it's a-me, I'm a-under your sink, don't bother me". Bonkers, but absolutely lovely.

Our host and voice actor went head-to-head on New Super Mario Bros. Wii on the cinema screen to give us a taste of things to come, but not before we'd been 'treated' to some bizarre music that was almost like a happy hardcore version of the Mario theme with vocals yelling out "Super Mario Wooooorld!" repeatedly. Even that couldn't quite prepare us for the shambolic gaming about to unfold though - both Iain and Charles died miserably within the first 20 seconds, whereas poor Iain couldn't quite jump up pipes properly later on. Things went better when they restarted, with Martinet carrying out a hysterical running commentary in character throughout the entire run - confusing, but very, very entertaining.

The true event that we were all here to see began shortly afterwards; four semi-finals to be followed by the grand final, highest scoring in each set of four moved forward. Everybody was on an even playing field, seeing as New Super Mario Bros. Wii is not out yet, and so their true skills were put to the test. The level used was 1-3, and the rounds went by fast and furiously; some died within seconds, some were slightly cocky, most were humble. Players leapt on each others' bonces to reach the highest coins, left others to float around forever in bubbles after they had respawned from death and the contestants were cheered and applauded at every turn. It almost became like a sporting event, with the crowd roaring as the larger points were scored. Fun appeared to be had by all.



Taking a short break in competition, a winner for best costume was announced. It was the Mario with the cardboard eye mask mentioned earlier, and it turned out he also had stuffing for a stomach - nice touch. He scuttled off back to his seat with the promise of being given a black Wii. To build the fever up for the final, Iain Lee asked the finalists - who all also received a black Wii - to give him a rousing "yeah!". Only one quiet voice came back, the nerves clearly showing by this point. They all took their places for the final showdown on level 1-6...

After a round that received even huger audience reaction before, Berkshire's Josh Stevens emerged the victor and recipient of the trip to Japan. Congratulations, Josh! He was taken on stage and literally crowned and robed before being given a giant ticket and a Peach crown trophy. Unsurprisingly, his sole comment at that point was "I can't quite believe it".

Everybody filed back out to the lobby to get their hands on New Super Mario Bros. Wii for the first time. It appeared to be the same build as the one at the post-E3 show a few months back, but that didn't stop me playing it all over again, so look out for some new impressions soon. Also, guess what I got for being a person of the media...



What's it like, you ask? Well, it's pretty much the same as a white Wii, but black and very shiny, the difference between the shiny bits and the matte bits on the nunchuk being far more obvious on this model. Inside the box are copies of Wii Sports and Wii Sports Resort (both in cardboard sleeves), a black nunchuk, the usual cables, stand and sensor bar, a black Wii remote with black Motion Plus (attached together and slotted into a rubber protector as standard, but separable; there's a smaller, remote-only rubber protector also packed in) and, of course, the sparkly system itself. Get 'em fast when they release on Friday 6th November, folks, they're limited edition...

I finished up the day by meeting up with a couple of the guys from Nintendo Life at a surprisingly cheap pub, and got some shut-eye in preparation for the Eurogamer Expo, where I would be joined by Karn and Adam. Stay tuned...

- Part One: EA

Eurogamer Expo Adventures Part One: EA

Late last week I hopped on a train and buzzed off to London to attend the Eurogamer Expo with a couple of C3 staff. Before that, though, I had some other business to attend to. The first thing: EA's Play 4 Xmas event.



I rolled into LDN at around 3.30pm on Thursday 30th October and immediately made my way to see EA while heaving and sweating under a pile of luggage, because that's how dedicated I am. To prove further that I'm an absolute idiot, what was the first thing I did after entering the wonderfully set up halls where EA were showing off their family-friendly Christmas line-up? I went on EA Sports Active: More Workouts (Wii).

That's not to say that's it's bad - quite the opposite - but if you've played the first Sports Active you'll know how tiring it can get; not the best idea after an afternoon of travel, hustle and bustle. More Workouts is exactly what is says, more of the same, so if you enjoyed the first one it's going to appeal to you; if you didn't, you'd be better off skipping it. The first activity I played was a jet ski one where you had to squat and turn the Wii remote to guide yourself under flags and then stretch to standing to rise up and hit the flags with the top of your head. Along the same lines were ramps that were mounted by squatting, launched off to collect objects in the air by standing. Essentially, it's in-line skating from the first one with an added dose of H2O. I also ran on the spot for a bit, alternating between light jogs and sprints while an unknown person with a video camera filmed for their website/TV show/personal use/whatever. Disturbing. I watched a version of the boxing game from the first title played too, but didn't test it. A person in a giant MySims outfit did quite enjoy imitating the people playing it later, though.



Starving by this point, I raided the bar and was delighted to discover cartons of sausage and mash. I wolfed down my prize and found myself under more relaxed conditions playing Trivial Pursuit on Wii. I tested a mode where the aim was to clear all the blocks off the board as fast as possible by - how else? - answering questions on the games' six subjects. There were some dodgy examples of questions about film animals creeping into the science and nature category, but it seems like a nice package if you'd like to shake a remote to roll dice and watch pieces of pie flutter about the screen rather than dragging out the board. I beat the high score, but considering the other contestants that day were probably approximately seven years old - visitors were encouraged to bring their children - I won't exactly be braying it from the rooftops.

What next? A brief go on Spore Hero (Wii), which involved putting horns on creatures to make them more fearsome, a bit of air drumming to dance monsters about and some mindless kicking of other beasts. All good fun. The lure of the ice cream factory drew me away, however, and I gorged on some mint choc chip before drifting towards Hasbro Family Game Night 2. It includes some big games missed from the first, such as Operation, and it seems like a cleaner, more straightforward package than the last. Remote usage is a little more expanded; Operation asks you to point at the piece to remove, then goes to a view of your patient's innards. Pick up the piece with the popular A + B pincer control and then guide it out by rotating it with remote tilts to fit it through shapes. Other games include Connect 4, Bop It, Jenga and Pictureka.



Finishing the day on a calm note, I had a sneaky peek into EA's new electronic book range on DS, FLIPS. Each edition features a collection of stories, and so far the line includes Enid Blyton, Cathy Cassidy, Eoin Colfer and the Too Ghoul For School series. It's displayed across both screens of the DS held sideways, as in Nintendo's 100 Classic Book Collection. You flip through the easy-to-read pages with a satisfying flick of the stylus, and some elements are clickable to produce sound effects and images - or you can pick up collectable mushrooms, though I've no idea what they do at this point. They should begin to arrive on December 4th, and look to be a friendly introduction to books that may seem daunting to a child at first. For me personally, you can't beat a proper papery wad of words, though anything that actively aims to improve literacy in youngsters can be nothing but good.



After meeting a few of EA's lovely PR staff I tumbled off into the night, crammed my face into doors on the packed rush hour Tube, got lost and eventually found my hotel for a well-earned night's sleep. The next day would bring another tiring event: the final of Britain's Best Nintendo Gamer, with voice of Mario Charles Martinet live in the house...

Thanks to EA for the invite and their excellent hospitality despite my only being able to get to the event in the dying hours - sorry!

- Part two now online: Nintendo.

PowerUp Forever

I've recently been playing an XBLA game called PowerUp Forever, which was developed by Blitz Arcade and released last year. Sadly, it's been pretty much abandoned and ignored, so I felt compelled to write a little piece on it. Here's a cheeky link...

http://blogcritics.org/gaming/article/a-love-letter-to-powerup-forever/

Don't forget to read the Oliver Twins interview that's lurking over there to the left! Oh go on, have a link to that too...

http://www.cubed3.com/news/12810

Staff Blog | E3 Predictions Ahoy/Microsoft Thoughts

It's time a lickle staff blog about E3 I suppose. Let's get some brief predictions on...

Nintendo seem to have taken on board the relative lack of appeal of an unexpanded Animal Crossing and Wii Music, which were their focuses last year, and so this year I'm predicting that we'll see more of a slant towards 'proper' games. Motion Plus is the big thing this time. They've now had well over a year to develop for Motion Plus, and so I can definitely see a big blow out of titles coming for it. If they don't have at least five it'll be disappointing; and that's not including Wii Sports Resort.

With Microsoft's Natal announced, this could be the first E3 that Nintendo has to show their hand since the Wii was first revealed. If they don't, they have no chance of stealing 'news of the show'; and even then, they'll have a tough time competing with Natal on that front.

DSi also hasn't had much in the way of exclusive content announced yet. I can see some camera stuff being shown for that, Western confirmation for the new Wario Ware and perhaps DSi Virtual Console for Game Boy, Game Gear, etc..

I'm expecting another franchise revival, possibly Pilotwings, and a teaser - not full reveal - for the next Zelda. Wii Fit Plus seems to be a given to be there, and I really hope that covers the 'Wii ___' range for this one unless they've got something really interesting. There are rumours of a new Mario, but I'm not sure I see it being a Galaxy sequel just yet. Retro's next project is almost certain to be there; it's been too long.

Some quick Microsoft thoughts to finish off:

- The new dashboard integration - Facebook, Twitter, last.fm, Sky - is great, though I can't see myself using the first two at all.

- Some of their games look incredible: Splinter Cell: Conviction, Shadow Complex and Left 4 Dead 2 spring to mind.

- And, because it deserves its own bulletpoint: Crackdown 2!

- Modern Warfare 2 looks alright. I need to see more, but it looked really scripted. However, it does look like a nice change of direction for Infinity Ward.

- Project Natal is extremely impressive technology, but I just can't see it working seamlessly. It seemed to work perfectly under Microsoft's conditions, but they're going to have tailored those - Milo is only behind closed doors, and that's likely because of some strict conditioning necessary. Can it work in every living room? Doubtful, and that's why I can't see it taking off. Even if you get over the issue of caliberation (Wii's sensor bar fails if sun hits it; something more complex than that is bound to have even more issues) then you have the problem of space. Not many people have a big enough living room to play something like that. Voice recognition is never going to be as perfect as that without a lot of training the system to 'understand' your voice as you would with a computer. The dashboard integration with it is utterly fantastic, but in its other applications I think it's a bit of a mess. Is anybody really going to use that paint program more than once? I'm not a fan of camera technology, so I'm disappointed they didn't just go with a simple motion controller.

Doubts expressed, I still want to give it a shot. If it works it's incredible, but I just can't see it happening. If the price is right, it's mine.

A Visit To SEGA - Redux (Featuring Virtua Tennis and Let’s Tap)

Not content to go and see SEGA once in the month of May, I went again last week. Thankfully, this time there was no messing around with transport or getting lost in the vast kingdom of Brentford as I knew where I was going, though I did have to contend with some nasty wind that left my hair looking even more like a tumbleweed than normal. The point of this visit was to get a decent amount of hands-on time with Virtua Tennis 2009 at their Masters Monday event.

I overdid the idea of being prompt and ended up getting there forty minutes earlier than the projected start time, but luckily the extra time was used productively talking to our delightful SEGA PR men and meeting/re-meeting writers from WiiDS, GamerGirls, GAME, NintendoLife, N-Europe and Blue Hero Gaming. I also had the pleasure of meeting Sleeping Beauty, an active member of the Madworld PR campaign. You'll know the meaning behind that name if you've watched The Inbetweeners. If you've not seen it, get to it.


Not quite what Disney had in mind for a remake of Sleeping Beauty.

After a short delay, on to the courts we went. Well, a demo room. Here, we were greeted by representatives of Sumo Digital and a lunch spread including - what else at a tennis event - strawberries and cream. The Wii version of the game was demonstrated to us and we were then allowed to roam the room playing that and the PS3/360 versions of the game, too. I'm not going to go into my impressions of the Wii version here aside from saying that I enjoyed it; you can read my hands-on for that. I'm afraid you're going to have to make do with a still picture of me playing it, too, as unfortunately, for now, there are 'issues' with the video. Just imagine me swinging my arm manically in a similar fashion to the still and winning the point while making a stupid face and that's what happens in the video. Maybe it will appear soon...


Also featured: Tom of N-Europe. Thanks to James of Nintendo Life for the picture.

While this was going on, a tournament was being held on the Playstation 3 version to win a tiny tennis ball trophy. The draw was random and I was pit against Tom from N-Europe in the first round, the very person I had just been playing against on the Wii edition. This had given us a chance to sound each other out, it seems, as we played a close game right to the end. Sorry guys, but ultimately it concluded with Tom taking the edge over me, so I've no trophy to show this time. If you want to know who won in the end, it was Mark of GAME; not so surprising when you realise he was once close to the top 100 players worldwide at Virtua Tennis 3! After my first round but-still-noble knockout I interviewed Toby and Kenton from Sumo, producer and designer on Virtua Tennis 2009 respectively, and you should be hearing that on a podcast at some point in the near future I hope. We still have an interview waiting to be emailed back to us from when we asked you all for your questions a few weeks ago, so consider this one a ten minute bonus interview with some extra queries mainly relating to Motion Plus.

Finally, at the end of the event Let's Tap was brought out. I've already written about that, so go and read the preview for full impressions, but it's great fun and everybody seemed to have a good time with it. There's still no firm release date for it; 'summer' is the word, though Forbidden Planet Manchester seems to be of the belief that it arrives on June 19th or thereabouts, so let's cross our fingers. With time depleted, we were ushered out - not connected to my hammering of the tap boxes, I assure you - and I ended up traveling back through the murky mists of the London underground with some of my fellow writers and the Sheffield-bound Sumo men. Before we left, though, there was, of course, time for a little dressing up...


Toby from Sumo Digital, modeling this year's collection, consisting of a Virtua Tennis fleece, wig and bag. Despite efforts, none of them fitted Sonic.


- Virtua Tennis 2009 (Wii) Hands-On
- Let's Tap (Wii) Hands-On 1 2 3 Next