So after the Apple surge with the iPhone 4 and my living in three places in the past week I’m ready to get back to my E3 coverage, albeit a few weeks after the event.
Nintendo appear to have won the show with their revelation of the Nintendo 3DS. 3D without glasses sounds like a brilliant concept, but at the same time is not going to be as good as 3D with glasses. People have complained that it screws with your eyes, and this is to be expected with raw technology. I haven’t seen it myself to judge so I can’t say much, but it seems to be a love it or hate it console. That said, of those that did get a hands on, more people seemed to love it than hate it.
In terms of games, Nintendo were poised to steal the show because both Sony and Microsoft are currently obsessed with competing over who can be most like a Wii.
And Nintendo came out in full force. ‘Epic’ force. If describing everything in the conference as epic didn’t convince you that Ninty are epic, they also have two games lined up to spread the message. Disney Epic Mickey looks like it could finally be a respectable game for Mickey Mouse. The gameplay looks very similar to Kingdom Hearts, which is very promising. And Kirby’s Epic Yarn looks to be another solid platformer from Nintendo. I’m reminded of LittleBigPlanet, with the fabric world and emphasis on interacting and manipulating the environment to proceed. Neither of those are bad comparisons.
Another revival is Goldeneye. People are no doubt going to be excited about one of the classic games making a return, but I’m not convinced. We haven’t seen much yet, and what we have seen looks very graphically similar to the N64 version. This game will be best if it’s brand new, based on the original. But I’m suspicious that we are just getting a port of the original, or something very similar. And that’s not huge news.
Then there’s Golden Sun: Dark Dawn. This game was announced last year, and we finally got to see a full on trailer this year. Another Golden Sun game is huge news as the first two games were big hits. If this game sticks to the same formula Dark Dawn will be a success. Nintendo will obviously try to implement the stylus somehow, and I’m intrigued how they do that. There’s a high chance it will feel off to many gamers like me who loved the GBA versions but never made the jump to the DS. I’m also not a fan of the graphics, which look like fuzzy N64 graphics instead of the sharp graphics of the original games. This new game is clearly going to be aimed at DS fans and new gamers rather than fans of the originals.
And this seems to be the running theme for Nintendo. They are gearing themselves at a new fanbase, and taking their franchises along with them. Whether this is seen as progression, expansion or betrayal is a matter of perspective. But I do feel this approach demands new IP’s, and Nintendo presented a noticeable lack of these at E3. There is nothing stopping Nintendo staying faithful to the old franchises and creating new ones for the new audience. Instead they are dragging old franchises through with them, and only old franchises, and that’s no doubt going to piss off the Ninty faithful.
