Some readers may well know that I’m no stranger to Nintendo’s various publicity events. However, in the past two years I’ve either strayed away from attending due to general life commitments or the usual drinking and socialising occasions have been put on hold in favour of country-wide Wii and DS tours. On 15th and 16th June this year, though, Nintendo UK decided to roll out the red carpet, and free bar, once more in order to show off its big guns from this year’s E3 show in the US and I decided this time I was definitely going to make the effort. But did it prove to be time well spent, or money and energy poured down the drain?
A few of my esteemed colleagues here at Cubed3, Mike Mason, James Temperton and Karn Bianco, opted to go for the Monday showing of games such as Wii Sports Resort, New Super Mario Bros. Wii and Wii Fit Plus, choosing to have a team get-together. I, on the other hand, thought perhaps the Tuesday would be a wiser choice as it may well be quieter. Clearly I was not alone in such thinking as even when I arrived just as the clock struck 11:00 in the morning, the downstairs area of the distinguished Haymarket Hotel that was dedicated to Nintendo’s set-up was already bustling with members of the retail sector and mainstream media channels, all eager to get their mitts on ‘The Big Three’. Multiplayer Mario Bros. proved to be a huge crowd pleaser, whilst even getting close to the sports and fitness corner, without being almost knocked into the large swimming pool located in the centre of the room, was almost a complete impossibility.
So instead I turned my attention to the slew of DS games on show, starting with The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks. There were three different modes available to play through and I chose one where players are in control of Link via use of the stylus, just as in Phantom Hourglass. This time he had a statuesque companion that could be guided around the dungeon using the touch-pen to draw its route, with play switching between the two at will in order to solve puzzles and make progress (I will leave the finer details to the full hands-on preview that will be forthcoming in the next few days). Suffice to say, the stylus-only controls worked as smoothly as in Link’s previous portable outing and the link-up option was impressive in its execution. Unfortunately since it was a timed-demo play came to a close not long after receiving a wind-based item that was used by blowing into the microphone. It may sound casual, but from my short time with it I reckon Nintendo may well have struck the perfect balance between reaching out to the wider audience it so desires and the hardcore faithful that lap up any Zelda adventure released.
After working up such a thirst, all of fifteen minutes into the event, it was a case of ‘So, this bar is free isn’t it?’, to which the response was, ‘Yes, of course’. My eyes lit up. Bring on the wine…except after attempting to find a corkscrew, the waiter was informed that wine was not permitted on the bar tab. So, beer it was, the first starting to lubricate my oesophagus at around 11:20am – not bad going, if I do say so myself. Yet being the ever-so professional ‘journalist’ (read: gaming enthusiast) that I am I thought it best to restrain myself from getting overly tipsy, especially considering everyone else around me seemed to be on juice only. A quick session of New Super Mario Bros. followed and in all honesty, unless you are playing with three friends as equally adept at gaming as yourself, plus are extremely competitive, the multiplayer aspect is likely to be as lost on you as it was on me. Instead no matter how many times I went back to it through the day, the result was either watching as others killed themselves so often that they had no lives left, leaving me alone to complete a stage under the watchful eyes of people sat there bored, or we all played it really safe and caused no havoc for each other, quietly reaching the final flag pole and all going ‘Hmm, so what now?’ Personally I’m more looking forward to seeing what is on offer for the solo gamer…
I was growing weary already – where were Line Attack Heroes, Span Smasher, Monado for Wii, or Glory of Heracles, Starfy and Fossil Fighters for DS? Thankfully, though, a princess rescued me, and she was indeed a real peach! Sarah, one of the new starters that handles Nintendo’s European events, was sat having a go at Spirit Tracks as I was ordering my second Peroni of the morning. At the time I had no idea who she was or what company she worked for. I merely saw out of the corner of my eye a damsel in distress, sat looking glum, randomly tapping on the DS screen in a mixture of frustration and increasing boredom. The obvious starter line was ‘So, have you played many Zelda games before?’ Clearly the answer was ‘No’, but it turned out that she had no real experience with any of the current crop of titles in general and was actually on a mission to learn about a key batch of games before heading to other countries to promote them. Suddenly my motivation to play through as much as possible went sky-high and we proceeded to head over to Wii Fit Plus. After being sceptical about the original Wii Fit, but being totally converted when reviewing it, I was intrigued to see what Nintendo could bring to the table this time. All I can say is ‘Wow’ – this is going to blow the competition away; it really is that much fun.
It was also fun watching people make embarrassing gestures on a regular basis, be it flapping their arms around like crazy to make a bird fly onto various targets, shaking their bum from side-to-side and back-and-forth to do simple maths sums, or mimicking kung-fu moves to become a true Master. The Balance Board is truly a fantastic piece of kit and picks up even the slightest movements, as demonstrated on one particular game where coloured balls fall from above and the player must tilt the Wii Remote (on its side) left and right to guide them down in the correct direction, before having to lean slightly left or right to finally drop the appropriate colour into the corresponding pipe at the bottom of the stage. As with all the other games on show at the event, more detail can be found in the specific hands-on reports that are being typed up at this very moment.
Following this, after watching Sarah create a tragic fashion disaster on Style Savvy, pretty much chucking $2,000 down the drain, yet still getting praised by the in-game character for having a superb eye for design, then walking her step-by-step through the simple Mario & Luigi demo, explaining about how the plumber duo are trapped inside Bowser and can affect what his does on the top screen, or even help out with battles (more details on that game can be seen here in the early hands-on with the Japanese version from earlier this year), we finally managed to barge through the crowds to play Wii Sports Resort. After watching her go through the start-up sky diving sequence, haphazardly getting her Mii character to fall head-first to the ground at a devastating speed, then quickly flipping it onto its back at the last moment for the in-game photo opportunity, we had a quick a go at the Archery mode.
Lewis Digby, the PR Manager at Nintendo UK, then showed me the sword fighting, basketball and table tennis modes. The delicate motions of the MotionPlus attachment seemed rather wasted in the sword fighting since after a moderately friendly first round, both of us dropped the formality and went hell-for-leather with slashing to knock the other Mii of the platform, rather like when people go crazy at Wii Sports Boxing. The basketball shooting was fun (despite the fact I got beaten), and the Table Tennis looks to be what will definitely be keeping me occupied for months to come. The subtleties of movement mean you can try the most elaborate shots you want and get devastating curl and spin that will leave your opponent on the verge of tears (Lewis took his defeat wellthe second one anyway, after asking for a re-match due to ‘being distracted’).
Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box, which is set for a September release and will be preceded by a special Professor Layton and the Curious Village DS Lite bundle for Father’s Day on 19th June in the UK, was the next port of call, and the last game on Sarah’s list before she dashed off early. Since it was another timed demo, we both grabbed a DSi and tried to see who was the quickest at skipping through the gorgeous animated video sequences and impressively voiced cut-scenes in order to delve into the first couple of puzzles. Basically, if you have played Curious Village then you know what to expect – stunning video clips, wonderfully hand-drawn visuals, great voice work, an intriguing tale of mystery and a whole heap of brain-teasing conundrums. Diabolical Box will please old fans and new, integrating the storyline into the actual puzzles far better than the first game.
Upon finishing with that demo and bidding Sarah goodbye, I decided it would be a good opportunity to go around and take some photographs of the various people having lots of fun playing all the games on offer. It also gave me the chance to finish off my current glass of beer and squeeze another one in just for good measure. I also decided to have a look at Picross 3D to see exactly what was being shown. Unfortunately, Nintendo was only showing the two very basic tutorials stages off and they do not really give a very good feel for just how engaging the game really is. Fans of the previous Picross may find that this 3D version is a little bit difficult to navigate to first, however you will quickly find that the developer has crafted a superb puzzle game that is not only extremely creative will test the skill of even the most prolific gamer.
Other than that, there was the new Mario vs Donkey Kong for the DSiWare service. This appears to be almost exactly the same as March of the Minis but will cost a fraction of the price and comes with 40 brand new levels as well as the ability to share your levels with other players via the wireless network. Elsewhere, the third iteration of Pokemon Mystery Dungeon plays almost exactly the same as previous entries into the series, and Flipnote Studio, another game for the DSiWare download service. It was this particular game that caught my attention and kept me busy for the final two hours of the day mainly thanks to the extremely charming Karolina, a professional artist whose drawings put any other efforts to shame. She had been specifically hired for two days to show exactly what can be done with Flipnote Studio. This small game is basically Pictochat but with several frames. This means that you can draw anything from your imagination in one particular frame and then amend the drawing ever so slightly following the same process over and over again until you are satisfied that you have enough slides to create a fun animation. As expected my creation, a small man who was meant to be running down the road, ended up looking like a stick figure dancing around crazily in a nightclub – it was pretty abysmal.
Karolina’s drawing appeared to be a Manga character that was somewhat reminiscent of Link from the Zelda series holding a large gun and blasting out lots of bullets. Talking to her she told me that she has absolutely no interest in computer games and yet she was really enjoying using Flipnote Studio because it meant she could express her ideas and use her talent rather than simply getting confused by “playing some confusing football game”. I did manage to pry her away from her post for a short time in order to try out New Super Mario Bros. and Wii Sports Resort. We both agreed that the Mario game would definitely be fun with some mates and drinks, plus the sword fighting on Wii Sports Resort was a great way to relieve stress, whilst also bringing out the violent side in people.
Overall it was a very entertaining day and it was very nice to finally meet Lewis and a few of the very helpful ladies from Red Consultancy such as Diana and Stacey. Stay tuned for all of the hands-on articles that will give you much more insight into what games you should be looking forward to throughout 2009.
