While Microsoft and Sony argue over who has the best new motion controls,Nintendo today revealedit’s already moved on to something new. We were in the Nokia theater and got to witness first-hand Nintendo’s best E3 press conference in years, and here we’ve collected the thoughts of two editors who saw it all live.
Brett Elston, GamesRadar
Without a doubt the best Nintendo conference I’ve seen while working at GamesRadar. Things kicked off right away with the now-named Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, a MotionPlus-powered adventure that takes its visual cues from both Twilight Princess (adult link) and Wind Waker (slightly cartoon-ified filters over everything). Miyamoto’s demo ran into some tech issues, so we didn’t get to see the alleged one-to-one sword control and two-handed approach to bow and arrow firing, but we have to assume Nintendo didn’t suddenly botch its prized franchise. I’ll have to get a hands-on to confirm all that waggling doesn’t become as tiring as it did in Twilight Princess, though we can all assume it’ll probably wear on your arm after a while.
Above: Kirby’s Epic Yarn kicked off a barrage of re-imagined sequels
Moving on from Zelda, which again was a slightly less than amazing demo, we saw Wii Party and Mario Sports Mix, two games that definitely can’t excite the “core” crowd (as in, you). After that Nintendo just went all out and hit us back to back to back with solid re-inventions of classic series, each of which downplayed the typical motion control gimmick and focused on, strangely, old-school 2D gameplay. Donkey Kong, GoldenEye and Kirby all launch this holiday season, the same time all the other guys' motion control efforts land. A great bait and switch for Microsoft and Sony, who now get to play catch-up to Nintendo all over again thanks to the 3DS.
I had a brief demo of the 3DS, and it totally works. Didn’t get to play (the GOD DAMN AMAZING) Kid Icarus Uprising yet, but I was able to move the in-game camera around and see the true splendor of the 3D images. They pop out, they shift with immense fluidity, they simply looked phenomenal. Oh and the graphics? Looked nearly Wii quality. Destined to bury the PSP for good.
Fantastic show, a perfect mix of old and new, and there was nary a Vitality Sensor in sight. Ladies and gentlemen, we may be back on track.
Neil Long, Official Nintendo Magazine UK
What's mental about this year's E3 presentation is that so much was held back from the people actually here at the show. In the presentation we saw Kid Icarus for 3DS and a lengthy demo of Zelda: Skyward Sword, but it was only when I got hold of a decent internet connection that I saw Starfox, Mario Kart, Animal Crossing and the 70-strong list of other forthcoming 3DS games on our site. People were just blown away just coming out of the conference - i'm sure the web is very close to meltdown with the news that followed.
What's interesting is how far they played everything down - I dare say that the ability to watch 3D movies without glasses, for example, would have taken up about half an hour of hype in a Sony or Microsoft conference, but Reggie mentioned it with minimal fanfare. I'm pleased that Reggie addressed alot of the misconceptions around Wii gaming with some hard facts, too.
Today we've had a ton of new games to please core and casual gamers, and seen some amazing new hardware. Unless they gave out 3DSes to everyone in the crowd, I don't think the crowd could have left any happier.
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