1.) Nintendo is going back to basics with more Mario
The overarching theme of this year’s E3 conference was striking a better balance between the new gamers Nintendo has been reaching out to for the past several years without alienating its long-standing audience.
For the latter category, then, they brought back Mario, with New Super Mario Bros. Wii, a single-to-four-player classic sidescroller due this holiday season that brings in the ‘co-opertition’ elements it brought to Zelda: Four Swords to its other hit franchise.
Nintendo also announced Super Mario Galaxy 2, an extension of its 3D Wii debut that will more prominently feature his Yoshi companionship, Mario vs. Donkey Kong: March of the Minis, a version of its Mario puzzler series coming next Monday as a DSiWare downloadable, and a fall 2009 localization of its DS Mario & Luigi RPG: Bowser’s Inside Story, a Fantastic Voyage-esque game that sees the characters moving through Bowser’s body on the lower screen, mixed with Bowser’s own exploits on the screen above.
2.) Nintendo is revitalizing other franchises with new partners
Nintendo ended the conference on its hardest-core note, by announcing that Ninja Gaiden developer Team Ninja would be partnering with the company to develop Metroid: Other M: a third-party action based Wii followup to Retro Studios’ first person games, due out in 2010.
3.) Nintendo is not finished with creating and exploiting new hardware interfaces
Namely, the newly unveiled Wii Vitality Sensor, a small WiiMote-connected device that clips onto your finger to measure your pulse. Nintendo head Satoru Iwata explained that the company wants to be able to “visualize something otherwise invisible” — nervousness, focus — and possibly create new games that focus on relaxing, rather than stimulating, the player.
Nintendo also re-revealed the new MotionPlus sensor which gives the WiiMote greater precision with the upcoming sports mini-game collection Wii Sports Resort, due July 26th, and third party sports games like EA’s Tiger Woods PGA Tour and Grand Slam Tennis, and Sega’s Virtua Tennis 2009.
That also goes for Wii Fit, which will be getting its own expansion, Wii Fit Plus this fall with new workout activities, new minigames, and, most importantly, the ability to string exercises together without any interruption (as does older PC, Xbox, PS2 fitness trainer Yourself Fitness).
4.) Nintendo also wants to more tightly integrate with social networks
Like Microsoft announced yesterday with its Xbox 360 Facebook application, Nintendo also announced that its DSi handheld — equipped as it is with two on-board cameras — will also be able to natively integrate with Facebook to upload user photos directly to the service.
5.) Nintendo want to continue to cater to everybody
This was made clear from the start with their underlying and repeated catchphrase “everyone’s game”, and their diverse first and third party lineup.
Games showcased for the DS: Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days, a localization of create-your-own-microgame studio WarioWare: DIY, new Zelda adventure Spirit Tracks, gritty new Ubisoft IP adventure game C.O.P.: the Recruit, and a return of underdog Game Boy Advance RPG series Golden Sun, all for the hardcore. For the wider audience, James Patterson’s Women’s Murder Club: Games of Passion visual novel series, and fashion-based game Style Savvy.
And for the Wii: Square Enix’s open world adventure Final Fantasy: The Crystal Bearers, Sega and High Voltage’s first person shooter The Conduit, Capcom’s Resident Evil: Darkside Chronicles, and EA’s rail shooter sequel Dead Space Extraction.
New images and movies will be added to this post as they are released!
Also revealed at Monday’s Ubisoft press conference, the company’s commitment to bring Desperate Struggle — the follow-up to Offworld favorite developer Grasshopper’s original ultraviolent slacker slasher No More Heroes — to North America in ‘early 2010’. The new trailer above more than speaks for itself by amping up the style and the inescapable innuendo by a factor of 50.
Ubisoft have always known they’ve had a hit character on their hands since the debut of their mini/party-game collection Rayman Raving Rabbids, but they’ve apparently hit an even more graceful stride with the first full trailer for the Wii’s Rabbids Go Home above.
I can’t say I even fully grasp what the final game will entail — Ubisoft says it will solely consist of two Rabbids “pushing a shopping cart and causing mayhem” — but, second only to Valve’s “Meet The…” series, it’s so confidently stylized and effortlessly funny that I’m almost instantly willing to follow wherever they lead.
Justonemoregame provides this constructed collage to cheer on King of Kong star Steve Wiebe as he attempts to reclaim the Donkey Kong crown live at E3.
As noted yesterday in kicking off E3 coverage, LucasArts and Telltalle Games have partnered to rejuvenate the classic Monkey Island adventure franchise with both a new Wii/PC episodic series and a remake of the original for PC and Xbox Live Arcade.
Above, the trailer for Telltale’s new take, and below, a longer look behind the scenes at LucasArts’s own special edition from its new original cast voiceovers, updated graphic style, and rerecorded music.
The collective friends of Offworld over at Rock, Paper, Shotgun have recently returned from an exclusive visit to Valve with an exclusive hands on preview of what, precisely, is going on down south in the studio’s just announced Left 4 Dead sequel.
My favorite new described addition? The Wandering Witch:
It seems in the daytime, the Witch has a bit more pep. Rather than sitting crouched, sobbing, singing, now this most terrifying of gaming enemies methodically paces around, wandering where she sees fit, although still apparently zoned out. She may be on foot, but she’s no more interested in being disturbed. This adds in a whole new aspect to Witch evasion. No longer can you simply take the long way around where she’s squatted. Instead, she may well be walking exactly where you’re headed. Or worse, walking up behind you, singing her haunting song, suddenly infuriated by you when you swing around in terror.
One last tidbit from Monday’s Ubisoft presser: though they offered no further details or any information altogether, the company announced it would be working with Rez and Space Channel 5 producer Tetsuya Mizuguchi on a new project, tentatively titled Eden, says various reports from the floor. As Brandon McCartin points out in the comments, Eden was one of the original codenames for Rez.
Meanwhile, the fate of his partnership with Atari originally announced in December for a Wii project codenamed QJ is as unclear as ever, though Siliconera recently dug up evidence that some music had been licensed for the project.
As I hinted at before, somehow the team at Harmonix, alongside Gorillaz animator Pete Candeland of Passion Pictures (I’m presuming, based on Candeland’s similarly jaw-dropping work on Guitar Hero II‘s TV ad and the full-3D Rock Band 2 intro), have managed to even out-Katamari Katamari Damacy for what I’m going to call as the finest surrealist game intro we’ve ever seen.
And it’s for the Beatles. At first, you’ll think, hey, what amazing likenesses! This is like when the Mamas and the Papas were on Scooby Doo, only even more completely brilliant! And then a minute and twenty later, the doors of perception are blown open and it changes, and then another 25 seconds later, it blossoms even further into a relentlessly glorious technicolor dreamscape to the very end.
Apart from the updated trailer for Sony’s The Last Guardian/Trico, this could easily be the best cinematic treat to come out of E3 2009.
UPDATE: Harmonix has posted a beautiful hi-def version of the intro to the official Beatles: Rock Band website, where you can pick out even more details and legacy references, like the tiny jar of Marmite Ringo packed for his British Invasion, sitting in his Strawberry Fields Farm box. If this animation doesn’t pick up some Major Awards in 2010, I’ll eat my bowler.
Long in development (and long one of my most anticipated online games) but just shored up again this week with a new EA publishing partnership and this new trailer above, All Points Bulletin — from original Crackdown developer Realtime Worlds — promises to take the core cops and robbers story and make it massive, with a persistent MMO open world, deep customization and gang identity, and (as promised a year ago), many smart touches, like streaming the same song (via last.fm) to all various online players that enter a car at the same time.
