So, the big three have all had their moment in the sun for 2010 and while who pulled off the best showing will be dictated by your fanboy interpretations lets take a moment to review each of the three keynotes and see who pulled off the best showing of E3 from as unbiased of an opinion as I can give you. I’ll be using a ‘+/-’ system to assign my pluses and minuses of each keynote.
Next up its…
+ Personal bias as it may be, Reggie is just the type of guy who should be handling these keynotes.
+ Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword: Its nice to see the Wii finally living up to those promises from E3 2005 with the sword and shield gameplay.
- Technical difficulties (at least I hope they were) during the Zelda presentation really screwed things up. Not a good time to have problems with your Wii-mote signal.
+/- Mario Sports Mix: The Mario sports games are usually good mindless fun but the fact that multiple sports are being crammed into one title has me concerened that we may be looking at another Minigame bundle rather then full fledged sports games.
+ Wii Party - Mario Party meets the Mii’s. Kinda odd to see Nintendo cannibalize the Golden Goose that is Mario Party but they have a pretty good track record for these types of games and I’ve heard good things about it.
- Just Dance 2 – For all I know this game could be the coolest thing at E3 but I’m not a “Just Dance” kind of guy so its gets a “-” by default. Strange to see Nintendo spend time on this during their keynote but it is a Wii exclusive and the first one sold a buttload of copies for a third party game so I can see where they are coming from.
+/- Golden Sun: Dark Dawn – The first Golden Sun (or was there two? I can’t remember) was a very fun “classic” Japanese style RPG and its big for a first party game. Hard to get excited about a DS game when we know the 3DS is coming though.
+++++ GoldenEye 007 – I heard rumblings of a remake of this game a while back and then over the weekend the trailer for it leaked out on the web. All I have to say is it looks great and sparks very fond memories of the original. I can’t wait!
+ Epic Mickey – This game looks really cool and hearkens back to some of the really fun Mickey Platformers from the 16 bit era. A big win for Nintendo here as its exclusive to Wii and will appear to casual Disney fans and more hardcore gamers, even if they won’t admit it.
+ Kirby’s Epic Yarn – Okay the premise for this game seems a little hokey, I will admit but the unique gameplay and art design reminds me of another strange Nintendo creation…Paper Mario! Never been a big fan of Kirby games personally but I won’t let that detract.
+ Dragon Quest IX – I’m a big time RPG nerd but I never got much into the Dragon Quest series. That said, it may be hard for some outside of Japan to realize what a huuuuuge deal it is for this game to be a DS exclusive. And its fun too! Not exactly earth shattering news since its coming out next month but still something to hang your hat on and once again, its only on Nintendo! Take the hint Microsoft and Sony.
+ Metroid: Other M – Coming out in August! Looks great from the gameplay I have seen. Another win in the Nintendo franchise although not exactly new info.
+Donkey Kong Country Returns – Looks to be more of Nintendo doing what Nintendo does best. Knock them if you want but what they deliver is great first party games that sell and this looks to continue the trend.
+++++ 3DS – Since this is major news lets give it its own breakdown section:
- Real 3D with no glasses. The major stumbling block preventing the 3D revolution everyone keeps talking about is eliminated. Now if games can utilize it in a meaningful way…
- Nothing shocking from the form factor here, its exactly what you would imagine if someone said “DS with a larger 3D screen at the top”. The only shocker is the Analog stick over on the right hand side, or Slider as Nintendo is calling it. Early hands on reviews say it feels great and is waaay better than PSP’s horrible analog nubs.
- Improved Graphics. I can’t stress this enough, even if you strip out the 3D part the games appear to deliver almost Wii quality graphics and performance. That alone will move systems.
- Motion and gyro sensors. These are pretty much a must have if Nintendo wants to compete in the Apple hand held gaming world (and they do or rather they want to crush it). Now all those iPhone games can be ported to the 3DS…if it has multi-touch.
- One Camera inside and TWO CAMERAS ON THE BACK! Holy Crap it takes 3D pictures! Didn’t see that coming. Not sure what you do with those, other then view them on your 3DS right now but its said the effect works really well.
- You’ll be able to play Hollywood 3D movies on your 3DS. Wow that’s pretty big right there. Guess you’ll be downloading the movies ala Netflix? Good thing it has an SD Card slot.
- Wow a new Kid Icarus game! At long last the beloved franchise from my youth returns. I’m hoping for a pass code system so I can enter “ICARUS FIGHTS MEDUSA ANGELS” again. It sadly looks a bit like an on rails shooter. Hopefully there is some platforming involved too. Oh and by the way, it looks like a Wii quality game on the 3DS.
- Something was mentioned about Wi-Fi functionality that would automatically search out other Wi Fi points or 3DS systems even when closed and download content. Oh and its free whatever it is.
- Nintendogs + Cats – Not personally excited about this but the original Nintendogs was a system selling piece of software for the DS early on. Now its back with better graphics, cats and 3D frisbees!
- The list of developers and titles in development for the 3DS reads like a who’s who of gaming. Capcom, Konami, EA, Activision, Square, Sega, THQ, Ubisoft, etc… with titles like Dead or Alive, Ninja Gaiden, Kingdom Hears, Final Fantasy, Saints Row, Madden, Street Fighter, Resident Evil, Assassin’s Creed, DJ Hero, oh and Metal Gear Solid on the way. Notice anything about that list? That looked a lot more like a list of titles for Xbox or PlayStation then it did for Nintendo. I’m thinking the third party developers are excited by this new hardware.
Overall, it was Nintendo doing what Nintendo does best and for the most part they hit it out of the park. Its a little hard to go back and remember anything before the 3DS since that was such a big piece of news and early on has my vote for announcement of the show. No major concerns other then it feels a bit like Nintendo is content to pump out titles of existing franchises rather then reach for anything new. Then again, a new Zelda game, new Metroid, Donkey Kong, Kid Icarus…this is what everyone asks for from Nintendo isn’t it?
The only real concerns for Nintendo were that we weren’t given the full spectrum of info on the 3DS and the devices that are available for hands on demos are development kits, not the finished products. So there is still time for Nintendo to pull out some suprises or disapointments with the final hardware and specs (Multi-Touch for the touch screen would be a nice way to compete with the iPhone). That and no price was given but if history has shown us anything its that Nintendo won’t sell a system at a $300+ pricepoint and for good reason. I’m guessing we see a price drop on DSi/DSi XL later this year and the 3DS comes in at around the $200 pricepoint. Then again, with all the tech that is being crammed into this little bugger that may end up being closer to $250.
Thumbs way up for Nintendo.
(on a side note its late here…I’ll try to post my thoughts on Sony’s keynote tomorrow…)
