While we’ve already done a massive piece on Nintendo’s earlier E3 Nintendo Direct video which you can see right here, it seems one wasn’t enough for house of Mario. Today they’ve gone all hardcore showcasing more of the hardware and the software for their upcoming system, as well as 3DS announcements and some big surprises. Shall we get started?
Firstly, let’s clue you up. Here’s the video Nintendo broadcasted on Sunday evening, detailing the updates to the Wii U they presented.
First glance of the stage then, and Wii U’s are dotted all over the place. Some are white, some are black. Gotta admit the black console looks stunning, I’ll definitely be picking that one up come release. It’ll look lovely next to my black 360, PS3, Wii and N64. Anyway, moving on. Nintendo hit the stage and we are about to begin.
Miyamoto and Pikmin kick off proceedings. Pikmin are being dotted around the stage in an awesome AR style, oh, we do love a Nintendo conference. Shigsy now talking about Wii U,
‘it could never take on a more important role than the television itself, you can’t see the game screen without waiting for the tv to power on. We decided our system was going to have its own dedicated screen. That was the start of Wii U’.
Pikmin 3 is here! Mr. Miyamoto is discussing how it’s a real time action management game, managing your swarm of 100 Pikmin. Looking gorgeous, you can see the natural movements of each Pikmin, everything looks very nice. Pikmin will find materials they can use to build bridges, looking like real ants. A new Pikmin type was also presented – these are the new rock Pikmin, used to break hard objects, naturally. Talking about the integration with the original Wii controller, with Motion Plus you can use it to aim for a far more specific strategy. You can target and throw Pikmin at enemy AI’s, control looks really nice and fluid. On the Wii U GamePad you will always see the overall map. Also, you can also control using only the GamePad, keeping status on four leaders. A must have feature for your leaders and co-ordinate strategies. You can also record your games for future reference. Pikmin is being made to reminds gamers of Nintendo’s dedicated to hardcore titles. Boom!!! With that, the Legend of Miyamoto was gone.
Reggie Fils-Aime, the Nintendo PR GURU is promising that they will showcase 23 Wii U titles on stage today, carrying on by announcing that Wii U will literally change your life. At it’s core, Wii U does 3 things. Changes your gaming, changes interaction, changes the way you enjoy your TV. The Wii U stands to revolutionise your living room and applications such as Netflix, Hulu, YouTube, Amazon Video will be available, throwing the system side by side with the big guns. Reggie went onto explain all the news won’t be announced in this whole hour as they have just too much to talk about. They’re spreading the news across E3, TV, Facebook and Twitter over the next few days. He finished up by throwing down the big bombshell of the presentation – after much speculation, the Wii U WILL support TWO separate GamePads. That’s big news. A video then played showcasing the Pad itself.
In no particular order: Headphone jacks, volume control, home button suspends a game to check for updates and connect with friends, infrared transceiver, accelerometer, gyroscope, rumble, camera, microphone, touch-screen, control pad, ABXY, analogue sticks with clicks, ZL and ZR triggers, L and R shoulder buttons. PHEW! Check it out for yourself here:
Reggie continues to discuss Wii U and now he’s talking Miiverse. Mii’s will be able to communicate, equipped with rich media engagement, social networking and other ‘important’ information. Speech bubbles will display what you send. Simple text messages, (option to use the included stylus to write your own words or illustrations) share a screen image from the game you’re playing with your Miiverse inhabititants. The speech bubbles will also display recent activity and scores and display facial expressions in the bubble. Interaction is browser based, while this won’t be available on launch day, you can join MiiVerse basically everywhere eventually. So you’ll be able to access Miiverse on your laptops or PC’s, smartphones or tablets. Nice. Check out the vid:
It’s time for Mario. Reggie officially announced New Super Mario Bros. U. Despite speculation coming up from Sunday’s Direct Video, the suit we see is not a it’s a SQUIRREL SUIT. It transferred from the big screen to the GamePad quite seamlessly, enabling you to carry on once the TV has been turned off. It all looks fantastic, (just look at those GOOMBAS!) best looking Mario game ever, for sure. One unique section was Boost Mode, with up to 4 people using their Wii remotes to play, the GamePad can set blocks along the way to help out. N’awww, how very Nintendo. You and a single friend can also work together for speed runs. VIDEO!
ARKHAM CITY. Reggie getting shouted at by Harley Quinn, brilliant. Martin Tremblay from Warner Bros. on the stage, announcing the game will be called. Batman: Arkham City Armoured Edition. ‘A must-have unique experience‘ . Rock the detective mode on the GamePad. BAT Mode, during combat, Batmans’ new suit will extract kinetic energy, filling up until it maxes out. players can use the GamePad to activate it and make Batman even more powerful. Players are faced a new challenge for Batarang, can use the GamePad to navigate it. Visually pretty much the same. Still, more Arkham City can only be a good thing, check out the video below with a more indepth look at the usage of the GamePad.
Scribblenauts Unlimited. Bringing the definitive experience to the Wii U, unlimited possibilities for players to explore create and share. Share your creations with friends. Auto Mutt. AUTO MUTT wins E3. Multiplayer mode, notebook backstory. Looks like great fun. Also coming to 3DS.
What followed was a montage featuring footage of third party titles including Darksiders II, Mass Effect 3, Tank! Tank! Tank! from Namco, Tekken Tag Tournament 2, Trine 2: Directors Cut, Ninja Gaiden 3 and Aliens: Colonial Marines.
MY BODY IS READY. Let’s talk fitness. Wii Fit, Wii Fit Plus led millions of people into videogames for the first time with a quite frankly flabbergasting 43 million copies sold around the world Therefore, here we are again with Wii Fit U. A typical ‘people in a living room’ video plays and includes bad acting, among other things. In terms of the game, we see a trampoline game, a water cannon game where you move around to shoot and a luge game. You can also upload results from Fit Meter, ANOTHER Nintendo accesory. This can all be accessed with off TV play.
Freestyle Games, DJ Hero folks, present Sing (working title). Wii U GamePad displays lyrics, that seems to its USP. Grand, superb. Karaoke games are always fun.
3DS news, well, sort of. Scott Moffit turns up on stage to tell everyone that there is a 3DS specific event Wednesday night (2am). However, he did have time to briefly show us some footage of a few new titles. New Super Mario Bros. 2. Mario can turn everything into coins, EVERYTHING. Coming in the US August 19th.
Paper Mario Sticker Star. Nice, LOVE the Paper Mario series. This is a very welcome title. How does it relate to the title though? Ah, let me tell you. As a two-dimensional paper cut out Mario, you collect stickers by pulling them off scenery which you can then implement into the game depending on what you’ve peeled. For exmpale, choose a hammer sticker to whack, shoe sticker to stamp on enemies. Sweet! I’m on that shit. Available physically and digitally this season.
ah, Luigi! Not an awful lot has yet been shown about Luigi’s Mansion 2, but what we do know is that each mansion has mission-based challenges, new types of ghosts with different capture strategies, it looks lovely and will available in the holidays. So, November onwards in the UK.
Also shown was a preview of what to expect in Wednesday nights 3DS conference. Included were Castlevania Lords of Shadow – Mirror of Fate, Disney Epic Mickey Power of Illusion and Kingdom Hearts 3D Dream Drop Distance.
Back to Wii U, Reggie was back on stage to showcase LEGO City Undercover. Your GamePad works as a key to exploration and completing missions within a fully realised Lego world as you play as a Lego cop taking down the bad guys. Your GamePad can also scan for hidden criminals and allows you to choose a Lego disguise and go undercover. There will also be a 3DS version, however Reggie is quick to point out that while they are from the same franchise, they are quite different. But, lest we forget, the 3DS is the only place we can see the game in glasses free 3D. Naturally.
Ubisoft pop out to round up the 23 games. ‘From the hardest of the core to the newest of the newbies’. Yves Guillemot bigging up the Wii U looking sexy. The console, not Yves… ‘the console is a revolution’ he says. Xavier Poix, Managing Director Ubisoft France pops out to demonstrate Just Dance 4. Dancers appear and are quite poorly rocking the stage. They will dance with the Wii Remotes and with the GamePad, Reggie is using the GamePad to choose which modes and dances appear. Pretty cool.
The biggest draw though for the ‘hardcore’ Wii U owner was undoubtedly Zombi U, and it looks superb. With a chance to finally see some gameplay, we were treated to a video where we saw the GamePad being used as a Sonar, inventory, scanner, sniper, door hacker and shaking the Pad to break free from a Zombie atack. All in all, it looks terrific. And right at the end there was a funky little minigame where Reggie was zombified by looking into the GamePad camera. Nice.
Ubisoft finished off their section with a look at Assassin’s Creed III, along with Rabbids Laand, Rayman Legends, Your Shape, Avengers: Battle for Earth and Sports Connection.
Nintendo then wrapped things up with Nintendoland, an interesting looking minigame compilation featuring a section for a variety of Nintendo characters, similar to Wii Play. Reggie claims ‘Nintendoland’ does for Wii U what Wii Sports did for Wii, a big statement and on evidence it’s hard to really agree with him. Katsuya Eguchi (Animal Crossing, Wii Sports) appears on the stage. He announces there will be a different theme park ride for certain characters. Your Mii visits the theme park, and will change into a different character costume for 12 different attractions. These attractions include The Legend of Zelda Battle Quest, Animal Crossing Sweet Day, Donkey Kongs Crash Course, Luigi’s Mansion minigames. There is also Takamuru’s Castle, where you’re using ninja stars to hit targets. Miiverse will apparently play a big role in it, but he’ll explain more later in the developers conference. One example of an attraction began with the player with the Pad taking on a special role, same game world with a different perspective. ‘Asymmetric Gameplay’ – a phrase we heard an awful lot of in this conference and never want to hear again -. Showing off the Luigi’s Mansion minigame, GamePad user controls a ghost. Wii Remote rumble when a ghost is near and teammates need to co-operate to track the ghost down. Their objective is to flash their flashlights on the ghost to find him. and the battery on your torch is limited so you can’t just keep it on. Once they find the ghost the game is over, or something. I have no idea, it was at this point I got completely lost, it seemed like a reverse Pac-Man to me. Released on launch day. Here’s the video:
From there, a weird kinda firework display from Nintendoland closed it all. Underwhelming then or were you happy? We were certainly satisfied with the variety on display, we’re just concerned Nintendo are once again leaving hardcore gamers behind with their own software, despite Pikmin and Mario getting a strong showcase.
Let us know what you think in the comments.
UPDATE
IWATA goes into more depth after the show.
Brief look at the Wii U GamePad panorama is pretty impressive. You’re flying through the sky and you can look around in full 360 degrees with the pad.
Such a lovely family. awww………………
Nintendoland! Donkey Kong looks pretty fun and old school. Very Nintendo, you have to wonder if they really want to innovate at all. Does it help us understand Nintendoland a bit more? Yes it does, does it make a look any better? A little. I remember saying the same thing about Wii Party, then had a blast on that and had a great time so I’m optimistic. Should be good fun. SHOULD BE, dammit. ‘Nintendoland will bring people together in a deeper way’, says Iwata. Awkward, but then, he opened this section looking at a bunch of bananas, so I forgive him for anything.
Wii Fit U. Here we go! Same fucking family again, I want to kill them all. Anyway, Dad is swinging his arms back and forth to get the speed going on a slad, tilting his body left and right to navigate around the board. This has nothing to do with the GamePad, only the balance board. ‘’MY AB MUSCLES ARE PULSATING’’…he just said that. Seriously. Wow, he’s getting very excited. Trampoline target, Mum is pretty fit actually. You have extend your legs to get a higher jump, leaning while airbourne to get higher or some shit. She then fell of the trampoline, she isn’t very good. Extend your legs at the lowest point to get higher. Good show for Mum.
Dessert course. Grandma is up, she has an English accent, nobody else has. She’s holding gamepad like a tray and balancing what’s on it. ‘I DIDN’T KNOW SHE COULD MOVE THAT FAST!’ she sucks at this. Hey she did it! Lovely. Is this scripted? Really? Well, that looked no fun at all.
Body test is a management fitness tool for the family. Changes to your body type can be recorded by taking pictures of your fat ass body. Wii U Gamepad displays this all you do not need to display this on your TV screen. Balance Board is the best selling bathroom scale in world, apparently. Amazing. Wii U Fit Meter, use a clip(!) to attach it to your body and can balance changes in altitude. The Fit Meter connects directly to the Wii U GamePad, designed to track your health management.
Zombi U! The following images are not suitable for young children. Lovely.
Nice CG trailer of Zombi U playing now, the footage we saw in the conference is playing again displaying the different uses of the GamePad including Sonar, Scanner, Sniper Rifle and more. All looking pretty impressive, as long as they work as well as they do in this video. You can also hack doors with the GamePad and get finishing moves with it. It does look pretty damn hardcore, intense. Super fun. IWATA is a Zombie! Funky little addition to the game.
Batman Arkham City is now up. ‘Most of us already know this game, it was big init’. Why are showing it? WBIE love the Wii U GamePad so much they want to expand the gameplay, Batman wears a computer on his arm called the BAT computer which is the GamePad. Makes you feel like Batman more than ever before, apparently. Nice, I love feeling like Batman. Funky trailer playing now, visually looks the same as every other version. GamePad can give you access to the Bat computer throughout the game. Upgrading, get waypoints, personalize gadget loadouts and more. Use Sonar to detect their position, drop into place and kill them all init. BAT mode. A players BAT mode will make Bats more powerful when it maxes out. Video of Batman using Detective mode on the GamePad, nice. Select the gadgets on the GamePad to open the door and hack the lock, avoid the scan mines and unlock the door. Opening the door reveals a new challenge, get out the Batarang! You can guide the Batarang with the GamePad. Set explosive gel around and blow shit up one at a time! Excellent. Pretty much the entire game is on the GamePad, you just get get to watch it play out on your television.
Being more like Batman is a lot of fun, Iwata says. Hell yeah it is. He’s a genius.
That’s Nintendo’s lot for today. What did you think?
