Strange Cookie

Well, I've had a few hours of play, and the controls are pretty much dead-on. I've costumized them bit. The deadzone was too big to my liking, and the turning speed is upped a notch, just like the vertical angle, but it's really great. The graphics are standard fare, truth be told. Haven't seen anything yet that impressed me. Some Wii games have blown me away, but if this has to prove the Wii's true graphical abilities... Super Mario Galaxy is the way to go! It's funny High Voltage called The Conduit the game they always wanted to make, because to my knowledge, there are plenty of games outthere with the same generic designs and stories. Yes, gray corridors are in, as is the 13-in-a-dozen roughly-voiced special agent who is the only one left who knows the truth. And how many conveniently placed explodable cannisters do we still need in 2009? Last but not least: I'm really concerned about the length of the singe player. My first playtest lasted about an hour, and when I picked it up again, I saw a 22% completion-rate. That doesn't bode very well at all. Online does what it says on the box. Nothing special, just the same ol' modes over again. Controls make it more special, though. Impressions so far: not a bad game, but very, very middle of the road. The controls set a new standard, but the same can't be said about the design, story and, yes, graphics. A 70%-er is ever I saw one. Can't really say it's a bad game, but can't really reccommend it either. It's not the summer blockbuster we were led to believe, but more of a straight-to-DVD action flick.

At first the controls were a bit off. My on-screen avatar was holding it's racket in a backhand position, even though I was clearly in a forehand position. I figured out what it was. I was standing 'on my side' (my left side was facing the TV, and I turned my head towards it). Ofcourse, you have to face the TV straight-on. Works like a charm now! Great control! Made them eat my shiny yellow tennis balls! Don't ask me why I turned to the side. It seemed natural somehow.

It's my first Tiger Woods, and I'm loving it! Definitely have to play this with MotionPlus, though. Only play WiiGolf and Pangya before, but this blows them both out of the water controlwise. Disc mode is a gift from heaven! The difference between MotionPlus and MotionMinus is incredible. And lot and lots of modes! Who'd have though that. An EA Sports game worth getting for something else than an official license?

It's simple, really. It's because of the colours: Mario is red, Luigi green, and the two toads blue and yellow. In the game, some actions are character-related. The colors help differentiate which character can do what, eg. the Mario-'spotlight' somewhere on the screenshots. So in short, it's because each player would have a specific colour. And what better colours than the good o'l SNES ones (bar the NSTC-version, ofcourse.That would make two interesting shades of purple)

I suppose you already know, but Star Fox: Assault was developed by Namco? True, it's not the highlight of the series. Anyway, I can understand that Retro was a bit fed up with Metroid. After all, how long have they been working with the franchise? Pretty long. After a while you crave something new. And the Prime-concept was running out of juice anyway. Don't want to end up like Kojima who can't work on anything without the criticism that it isn't a Metal Gear. Well, Castlevania pretty much changed that, but you catch my drift. Guess we'll have to wait and see for this one. Can't say I'm already sold. Want to see more gameplay and less flashy cutscenes.

2010, probably somewhere around spring.

Yes, that presentation was full of puns... appropriate/intended or not. And the conference was indeed very scripted. Iwata was the one who made the most natural impression and was easily the best speaker of Nintendo's conference, even with his experimental English. The rest weren't comfortable. Reggie was plain boring (why the pause after every sentence. And step it up a notch! We understand you perfectly fine) and Cammie clearly had no clue. The WiiSport resort was quite good, come to think of it. Ah, looking forward to this! C'mon Holidays! Get a move on! :p

True! It were good conferences. In my opinion, Sony had the best conference, but atleast Nintendo showed us a lot of content when compared to last years Animal crossing 1.3. Now if only they could speak like they are talking to 'relatively' mature people instead of making a speech at a kindergarten. Ah, Yoshi. Finally you came home, after way too long. And you're not stealing fruit and spitting all over the place! Good Yoshi! But... who's that odd moustached fellow with the red cap on his back? Probably some power-up, I wager. I know the Koopa Kids make their return in SMBWii (:yay: and more ), but it would be mighty nice to see them in this game as well. Me, unsatifiable? I wonder how they are going to do it story-wise. Interesting...

It picks up your heartbeat and (possibly) your bloodpressure. And that's it, I'm afraid. Surely the thing gamers have been waiting for. I saw the Wii-remote, and saw how it could be fun. I saw the Wii-Zapper and saw it would be nice. I saw the balance board, and thought this could be used to very good effect. I saw the Wii Wheel and thought it was a good idea. I saw WiiSpeak and thought that's a great step for Nintendo. I saw MotionPlus and thought this is the next step. But when I saw this, I didn't know what to think. They don't even have anything to show it to good use. Sure, it has it's uses, but if you look how excellent stuff like the Balance Board and WiiSpeak is terribly underused, it doesn't bode very well for the Wii Vitality Sensor. For me this is the bottom for this overall quite good E3. Reading the title of this topic, I keep hearing those famous last words the Joker uttered: "That's not funny... That's not..."

Impressive! Most impressive!

Well, I was going to buy this any way or the other, but now I'm going to buy it even... more? That doesn't make sense. But despite this game being revealed a long time ago, this made quite the impact. Very good!

Sony's conference was the best of a lot IMO. Showed great games, and didn't talk to their audience like they consist of 5-year olds like the Nintendo speakers did even when Sony showed some very 'casual stuff'. Good job! The Last Gardian was a great announcement, but it's impact was't quite as big because I saw that leaked trailer a couple of weeks ago. Curses. That'll teach me. Anyway, this looks like a promising conclusion of the trilogy.

Hooray! Again! Great subtitle (it's the only new element, after all)! I'm definitely looking forward to this. On a sidenote, wasn't the DS-front of the conference a bit... underwhelming, with the exception of Golden Sun DS? They preached a lot about how great the DSi is, but told us so little about games.

Looks promising, but it needs a control stick somewhere. Otherwise it's might turn out to be too gimmicky, like Project Natal. Technically impressive, but limited in it's functionality. Those demo's are impressive, and useable in games, but like on Wii, most games need a control-stick. Both MS and Sony start at a disadvantage, though. They are add-ons, whereas it's standard fare for Wii. Well, bar MotionPlus, ofcourse. Still, between Natal and this, I prefer this one. It's treads a good middle ground.

Technically, this is mighty impressive... but at the moment I see this becoming nothing more than an Eyetoy-device. I'm extremely sceptical about some of the videos shown, though. At one point, someone walks in front of the television, and the character on-screen follows the passer-by with his head... which doesn't make sense on a 2D-surface. If a person tilts his head to the left on a 2D-plane, that person never looks directly at anybody, a anywhere near the tele. The only way someone can stare at you from a TV-screen, is when he's looking straight at the TV-screen. It's the poster-effect: when someone looks straight at the lens, it's like that person is watching you wherever you go. In short: rules of perspective dictate the character shouldn't be turning his head at all. Otherwise he's not looking at the passer-by.

Marvelous! The pics don't do it justice. It really feels like it's in LBP's league. I'm very interested in this one! My creativity-fountain is tingling!

So that's what happened to the Mario 128-demo. OK, technically, it was turned into Pikmin, but this pic brings out some fond memories. Now all we need is a giant pizza-shaped planet! Perhaps I sounded overly pessimistic. This looks great! I hope it's Lost Levels-style. Mucho Difficulto!

Ouch. That hurts. If I didn't know better, I'd think that was plain sarcasm. Either there has to have a lot going on on-screen, or... Yes, or what? It's odd they put the focus on multiplayer, but neglect to add any kind of online multiplayer in it. How very Nintendo. Anyway, looks like a lot of fun!

No wonder nobody on stage demonstrated this. None of the speakers seemed to have a pulse.

Not bad, but... Well, it's not like it's going to be as revolutionary as other Mario-games, is it. For now, it feels more like SMG v1.2. Don't get me wrong, more of something good is a good thing, but this feels more like an expansion pack than a real sequel. It's the exact same style, exact same physics, exactly more of the same game. on the other hand, it has Yoshi going for it!

Return of the Koopa Kids? Justice at long last! A cause for celebration! I'm more excited about this than about SMG2, truth be told.

Hmmm, wasn't expecting this one, and not quite sure I like it, for now. A Ninja Gaiden style Metroid? That's throwing all subtleness out of the window. Was it really necessary to use the Metroid-franchise? Why no new IP for this game? Why does every game have to be a old Nintendo franchise? Well, all but Kid Icarus. Then again, that's what people first said when Metroid went 1st-Person Adventure;

The sticker with "Download English through PSN", nicely plastered on the front, are pretty telling, though. Somebody at SoE must have had some explaining to do about that one. What an idea anyway... It's nice to have the option to play a game in your native tongue, but to force it onto the player. I'm against dubs, in movies or in videogames. The original language is usually the best. I set my PS3 to English, just so I wouldn't have to make my ears bleed playing Uncharted (though that one isn't half as bad), Resistance, or even worse, Heavenly Sword. Andy Serkis' great work... all down the drain ,replaced by a dude who can't even be bothered.

Both Infamous and Punch-Out are excellent games, but I give the edge to Punch-Out. Might just be my nostaglia-teared eyes playing tricks on me though. Anyway, a pleasant and frankly unexpected surprise, this one.

This discussion reminds me a lot if the similar pre-release discussions about Fahrenheit/Indigo Prophecies. And we all know what a quality game that is, even to this day. If Heavy Rain is anything like that, we're in for an instant classic. Oh, and despite the amounts of fun thrown at MGS4 (yes, the cutscenes can last quite a long time...), it truely is a great game.