E3: Nintendo

As it was honestly and bluntly put by the G4 correspondents covering the Nintendo press conference, "last year's event sucked" and Nintendo really needed to step it up.

Through the first 10 - 15 minutes it looked like last year all over again. Their first "big title" was New Super Mario Bro. Wii, which looks like a 1.5 version port of the DS title. You know you're in trouble when you're porting games from the DS. Talking about the Wii Fit plus = borring. They did finally explain the Wii Motion Plus and showed Wii Fit Resort but now that we've all seen the Wii before the novelty didn't last long. What was funny though was Nintendo Golden Boy Reggie Fils-Amie winning a 3 point contest at the buzzer by sinking the moneyball.

Reggie then started talking RPGs and my ears perked up. A new Final Fantasy Wii game that looked pretty good. Not sure how the combat is going to work, but at least you know there'll be a pretty good story associated with it. Then a new Wii version of Kingdom Hearts. A fairly solid strategy there - go to Square Enix and beg them to help you out. Also there's a DS game called Golden Sun which is supposed to be a resurrection of a franchise but I've never heard/played it.

And then it got really boring. The non-gamer philosophy, Iwata talking about a Wii vitality sensor. It's a friggin pulse detector for your finger. Let me put it this way, I actually was considering giving up and watching something else. I had half written a blog in my head declaring the Nintendo I grew up with dead and gone.

The woman who's not Reggie gets on stage with one last attempt to save the day. There's more Mario news. Like Bart Simpson saving the Fox network, Mario's going to have to save Nintendo. Video showing off Super Mario Galaxy 2. Afterwards the audience actually applauded - something I had heard and seen at Microsoft, EA and Ubisoft's presentations but was absent throughout most of Nintendo's time.

Good, but not exactly show saving. Out comes Reggie for one last attempt. He says that he reads the blogs (code for, I understand you're tired of games focused on non-gamers and you need to show your core some love) and has some titles from third parties to show off. First, Conduit from Sega a third person shooter that looks pretty good and needless to say is highly anticipated. Then, he shows a teaser trailer for a Resident Evil game. This would have been impressive except it looks a lot like a shooter remake of Code: Veronica. Although it did feature/show Leon, so I'm not sure where the storyline goes. They showed Steve Burnisde as well, lending more to the Code: Veronica theory. Lastly, a prequel to EA's Dead Space. Not surprisingly, a shooter. So the response seems to be, hey we can make games for core gamers just as long as they like shooters. Maybe RPGs depending on how Kingdom Hearts works out.

Then Reggie asks rhetorically "can Nintendo make these kinds of games?". "Absolutely" he answers, and to do it right they partnered with someone who is experienced in more adult themed games. I think everyone was wondering as the video started up.

Flyover of water, I know I've seen this intro before, then rising up through the clouds into space. Okay maybe not. Then the logo appears - Team Ninja. I knew the water was familiar. Team Ninja and Nintendo team up to bring a new version of Metroid (Metroid Other M). The demo showed Samus jumping around and blasting away a la Ryu in Ninja Gaiden. The promise of exploring her back story is a real selling point as of course is working with Team Ninja - guys who make games where you slice people up and cut off their limbs. This is the game Nintendo needed to make.

Few high points early, definitely dragged in the middel but ended relatively strong. Not a bad job from Nintendo, but Microsoft still has the top show so far (not counting EA and Ubisoft because that'd be comparing apples to bananas).

Sony's on deck.