Wow, was Nintendo's conference a bore-fest! More so in light of the amazing showing from Sony. The conference was underlined by a bizzare motto of 'smiles for everyone' -- lots of talk of audience expansion and paradigm shifts. Well, one paradigm-shifted seemed to be missing games, you know, those things we play on that Wii console thing? Nintendo did showcase four titles during its E3 2008 conference. These were:
Animal Crossing: City Folk for the Wii. Animal Crossing is an old Nintendo staple. The game involves mundane activities such as collecting butterflies, fishing, digging for seeds, doing tasks for other town folks and so on. These activities are centered around your 'town'. This iteration adds some online networking features in that you can visit your friend's towns to partake in community activities with them, such as fishing. You can also leave your town and visit a city wherein you can purchase clothes, change hairstyles, take part in auctions, and so on. You can also write letters and attach pictures to send to your friends via several routes: the Wii Message Board, mobile phones, PCs and other towns. This iteration of Animal Crossing also saw the release of yet another peripheral for the Wii -- called the Wii Speak. This is a speaker which sits on top of the television much like Wii's sensor bar and picks up your voice, allowing you to take part in team-speak with your online buddies.
Wii Music A music game for the
faint-of-heart. What was shown seemed to be a title that you could do
no wrong with -- unlike games such as Guitar Hero and Rock Band, there
isn't a key combination to successfully execute to churn out tunes in
Wii Music. Instead, the game allows for random action and key presses
-- as long as they are in some form of tune -- and automatically
adjusts the music to fall in track with your performance. As such, some
of the frustration (and also most of the excitement, we imagine) is
removed from the game. It seems like a game aimed squarely for the
entire family to enjoy, i.e. the casuals. From what was shown of this
title, little seemed impressive or exciting.
Wii Sports Resort A successor to Wii Sports, this title will make use of the Wii MotionPlus accessory that was revealed yesterday.
As we mentioned earlier, the MotionPlus hardware adds greater precision
to the motion tracking features of the Wii Remote. For example: it was
demonstrated how even the slightest movements of one's wrists would
translate accurately on-screen. One of the most exciting aspects of
this game was a sword-fighting mini-game which made great use of the
MotionPlus accessory: accurately translating every movement made
weilding the Wii Remote to the screen. The demonstration made us
hopeful of seeing a realistic light-saber combat game sometime soon.
This game is expected sometime in 2009.
Grand Theft Auto: China Town for the DS. This was a surprise
announcement. Not much was revealed about the title, except that it is
based in Liberty City and features all new characters and a brand-new
story.
And that was pretty much that. Huh. No smiles here Nintendo...
