Monday, May 15, 2006
Highlights from E3
Well, now that the smoke has cleared and the mirrors are packed up, let's take a look back on this crazy thing we like to call E3. What were the highlights?
- Wii Sports wins my "game of the show". I love the idea of a supercondensed sports game compilation, and I hope it comes packed in with the system. I'm a bit wary of how the Golf will control -- will it line up the shots automatically and just ask you to give it a hit? -- but overall I'm pleased.
- Nintendo certainly took a classy route with The Legend of Zelda: The Twilight Princess. A lesser company might have cut off their aging console and pushed their biggest project off to the next generation (and forced fans to follow them), but Nintendo's keeping their word and releasing the game for both systems. Sure, you'll need a Wii if you want the luxury model, but at least they didn't pull a Shenmue II on us.
- Planet Gamecube's got some decidedly undelicious news about how well the Wii controller actually handles. Seems my fears are coming true -- the thing isn't perfectly, fluidly natural 100% of the time. I'm tempted to say that if it's not perfect, it's not worth doing. A perfect joystick is better than flaky motion controls. This is important to me, dammit.
- I'm not sure yet if I'm really into the whole Super Mario Galaxy thing yet. This troubles me, as, in the past, "a new Mario game" was the universal answer to "Why buy a new Nintendo console?" Ask me if I was pleased about Super Mario Sunshine while I was playing it, and I would have told you, "Yes, terribly pleased." This did not, however, translate into the undying awe I have for both Super Mario Brothers 3 and Super Mario 64. I bought SMB3 for 3 different systems and SM64 for 2, a practice that I doubt I'd repeat for Sunshine. I even go so far as to suspect that Mario's best days are behind him. But I guess we'll see.
- I'm reasonably happy about Yoshi's Island 2 for DS, but unfortunately, the precedent has already been set by Yoshi's Story -- there's no reason to believe that the franchise lives and dies on the quality of its platforming challenges. Mario vs. Donkey Kong 2 seems like a good time, even if it's more of a Lemmings style game than a platformer. Any game with custom levels and download features gets me excited.
- A couple notes out of left field: Deep Labrynth was a nice surprise, and I wonder if it just might satisfy my various dungeon-crawling itches. Intellivision Lives for the DS is a pretty sweet idea, and I really hope it gets a publisher.
- And, of course, RIIIIIDGE RACERRRR!
Labels: reactions
# posted by CPFace @ 1:29 PM 
