Nintendo E3 Lowdown (2007?) by Kyledude92107

In their recent E3 conference, Nintendo announced a few titles, some that may help their respective systems out quite a bit. The Big N also announced a few new features for the Wii, named WiiSpeak and WiiMotionPlus respectively. These two new features are very interesting, and I will be examining them in further detail.

First, I'd like to reiterate that you probably shouldn't expect Nintendo to release the games I'll be writing about on their respective release dates. Unfortunately, Nintendo is infamous for pushing back release dates, therefore you SHOULD NOT hold your breath on these titles.

Starting off their conference, a new game was announced by Shaun White himself. It's to be called 'Shaun White Snowboarding', and it will make use of the Wii Balance Board, an accessory that quite a few people have by now. It is obviously a game built around the world of snowboarding, and the mountains were designed with a significant amount of input from Shaun White himself. It is currently not clear whether or not this title will be a Wii-exclusive, nor is it clear if you require a Wii Balance Board to play this game. The release date currently given for this title is Q4 of 2008.

Nintendo followed that announcement by providing more information on 'Animal Crossing Wii', giving it an official name, and providing it with a release date of '2008'. The name of the game is 'Animal Crossing: City Folk', and it will make use of the new WiiSpeak peripheral, as well as throw a few new features into the AC mix. Among these new features is the ability to take what appears to be a bus to a new 'city' section of the game, where you can find Harriet's barber shop, Gracie's fashion design shop and an auction house. The barber shop and fashion designer preform the same actions that they did in the previous games, or at least it appears that way as of now. The Auction House is a new location, where you can bid on various items in hopes of winning it and adding it to your inventory. You can also put up your own items for sale and have the same thing occur. It is unclear whether or not the town will be incorperated into the Online aspect of the game, which very little is known about at this time. You can also now have up to 4 people in a house a once, and have friends help you design your house, but it is not yet clear to what extent they can preform that action in another person's house. The game's social aspect will also make use of the new WiiSpeak accessory, which acts as both a Microphone and a Speaker, so you can socialize with your friend when you're all in the same town together. It appears that Fishing will make a comeback as well. Miis will also be incorperated into the game in some way.

Nintendo then moved on to show a new accessory called WiiMotionPlus, which is a little piece of software which plugs into the bottom port of the Wiimote, and makes the motion tracking more precise. They showcased this accessory with a newly announced Wii Sports game called 'Wii Sports: Resort', a title which does not currently have a release date. It will come packaged with the game, a WiiMotionPlus add-on and a controller sleeve. Among the sports showcased were Disc tossing, in which you toss a disc with a Frisbee-like motion to your dog, in hopes that he/she will catch it, Jet Skiing, in which you aim to drive through rings before a timer runs out (you turn your wrists like you would a throttle to speed up), and Fencing, in which your objective is to knock the other person off a a platform into the water below.

Next, Nintendo unveiled Star Wars: The Clone Wars, a cartoony-looking game in which you follow the storyline of the upcoming movie. It appears you can indeed use the Wiimote as a lightsaber-- an action Star Wars fans and Gamers alike have wanted to try their hand at since the launch of the Wii. It does not appear, however, that you can use your Mii in this game, nor is the game simply built around lightsaber fights. This game is slated for a September 16 release in the US, a Summer 2008 release in Europe, and a September 17th release for Australia.

Announced after that was yet another Call of Duty game, titled Call of Duty: World at War, which has what you would expect from a Wii shooter. It is unclear when this game is going to be released, and it does not currently have a concrete release date.

Nintendo then moved on to the DS, announcing a new series of Guitar Hero: On Tour games called 'Decades', in which you can trade songs with people who have other versions of the game. It is not yet determined if this will support Online play, and it is set to release in the US some time in 2008.

Next announced was a new Grand Theft Auto game for the DS, titled 'Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars', which has everything you would expect form a GTA game. There was not a video, nor a demo, and a release date was not given. It is also unclear who will be developing this game. At the time, very little is known about this game.

The show then continued, going back to the functionality of the DS, hinting at possible other uses for it, such as a device to order food at ballparks (which is already possible at the Nintendo-owned Safeco Field, home of the Seattle Mariners), a device that could act as an airport companion, giving you directions on where to pick up your luggage and the like, and using it as a cooking helper, storing recipes and other cooking info into a game. It appears at the moment that the cooking application is the furthest along, as the popular Cooking Navi from Japan is in the process of being imported to the US and Europe. None of these applications were given release dates.

Finally, Nintendo wrapped up their E3 conference by demoing 'Wii Music', a game in which you play over 50 instruments to no particular song. You can simply press buttons, or play the instrument as you would in real life, and music will then play. You don't need to have any prior knowledge of instruments to play this game. You can select a song however, and press random buttons to play it. All of the buttons will produce a different note, but no matter what pattern you choose to press them in, the song will play to those notes. You can also get friends to help play in a concert, which you can record and show to others later. Wii Music does not currently have a set release date.

All in all, it was a strong showing by Nintendo at E3. They didn't so much as mention Wiiware, though, an absence which I really couldn't understand. However, Nintendo did what they usually do, not focusing so much as on the Hardware itself, but it's games. And this year, those games looked pretty darn good.

Article by kyledude92107