Awesome Nintendo announcements from E3!

E3 is always such a crowded, messy in-take of information. Among the main presentations, companies are also releasing little bits of information in other places online. It's difficult to keep up with everything! Nintendo had a great presentation though, so why don't we focus on that?

I thought it was pretty strong, they hit a lot of important marks! There was plenty of information on the Wii U, as well as exciting new titles for both the in-depth gamer and the casual ones. It's difficult to attempt to keep up with the expectations of the crowds, but they did it. The lack of information about the 3DS would have been more upsetting were they not doing a dedicated presentation tonight at six pm.

Let's look at the 3DS aspect of the presentation.

In the ten minutes given, audiences were shown New Super Mario Bros. 2, Paper Mario: Sticker Star, Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon, Disney Epic Mickey: Power of Illusion, and more. Nintendo is rolling out the punches to create a stellar line of games, and they are really catering to the needs of 3DS gamers. It's particularly exciting that, after all these years, the Mickey "Illusion" series is getting a re-boot. Even though Epic Mickey for the Wii didn't do particularly well, we can thank its presence for this coming 3DS title!

Two side notes: the 'Sticker Star' subtitle for Paper Mario feels very cheap to me. It provides no real insight as to the game's story (like 'The Thousand Year Door' subtitle did for the Gamecube version), and instead is a call-to-attention of the series's newest feature: collecting and using stickers for battle. It certainly looks interesting, and I'm glad that for the 3DS version the turn-based battle is making a comeback, but only time will tell if the stickers are a gimmick or a beneficial battle system.

A setup well suited to the 3DS. Source.

We were given a few demonstrations of the Wii U's capabilities, including a fairly comprehensive video of the newly redesigned controller. Unfortunately, Nintendo's presentation didn't eliminate all existing doubt; the controller simply seems too bulky. In every demonstration video it seemed that the players had to reach uncomfortably to access the touch screen with their thumbs. This doesn't seem all that different from the way people handle tablet devices, and the issue is that maneuvering tablets can be uncomfortable. How long will it be until hand fatigue sets in during attempted lengthy gaming sessions?

Considering the array of involving, mature rated titles that are slated for Wii U release I can see hand cramping or Wii U gamepad weight becoming an issue. Hopefully these concerns end up non-existent, because it would sure be frustrating to have to stop mid-Assassin's Creed or Batman adventure! Or, worse than that, what if a hand cramp sets in and spasms start in the middle of playing ZombiU? There would be many angry zombified gamers out there.

Wait, wait, do over! I wasn't ready! Source.

Some final thoughts on the presentation: NintendoLand looks like the perfect way to get new Wii U owners comfortable and acquainted with the Wii U's capabilities and controls. Whether or not it will be available on the system at launch remains to be seen. The system's ability to transfer the gaming action to the Wii U gamepad is a great feature, which must mean the screen is pretty stellar, and it's something that I wish had existed on previous consoles. I can't count how many times I've been kicked off a TV so that someone could watch football. Pah.

Oh, and baby Yoshis again? Yes, please! Source.

What's your favorite E3 announcement so far?

-MJ

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Will E3 put our collective Wii U doubts to rest?

So E3 is happening next week, and the internet world could not be more excited. Don't believe me? Try to find some gaming news that isn't related to E3. I've found that it's not possible. As per usual, my eyes are trained on the Nintendo press event that's happening on Tuesday at 9am.

They even sent me this great reminder e-mail. What a nice company!

I hear that there will be a new Mario game coinciding with the Wii U's launch; maybe we'll see a little of that? Also, it really wouldn't be a Nintendo E3 presentation without some sort of Zelda announcement. I'd love to know if all of the Zelda tech demos used for Wii U images will be transferred to an actual game. The spider looks pretty cool!

More than information about the Wii U, I want some release dates for my most anticipated 3DS games! That's right, I'm talkin' about Paper Mario, Animal Crossing, Professor Layton, and Luigi's Mansion. When OH WHEN will I have a beautiful and portable Paper Mario?

The palms of my hands will never be happier. Source.

Alright, I'm back to thinking about the Wii U already. My unbridled fandom for Nintendo has me hyped and excited and simultaneously extremely wary. This has happened with each launch since the original DS. One would think that by now I'd relax and learn to trust the masterminds, but doubt nudges in no matter what.

Wii U skepticism has run rampant since its initial announcement. And why is that? From a young age we're incredibly gullible, believing every fantastical thing we hear. The more outlandish and exciting, the better. Eventually, we grow wise to the stories and we realize that they are mostly untrue. This translates well to technological innovations: the Wii U has many amazing, wild features, some seem too good to be true, and more than that, too unusual to be possible. The knee-jerk reaction is, "Wow, that'd be so cool!" and then we quickly go, "...wait, how would that work? I need more information, I don't want to be let down."

They insist that it's true. Maybe they should send out demo systems to households! Source.

I'm ready for Nintendo to provide the information necessary so that the gaming community at large can stop spewing doubt and uncertainty. And confusion. Dammit Nintendo, stop keeping your newest system shrouded in mystery!

Are there any announcements that you're excited for?

-MJ

P.S. - Beyond Good & Evil 2 announcement, please!

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The parabeetles and scorpions are trying to kill me.

Where do I even start?! Nintendo held a press conference the other day, which I missed because I forgot about it. However I was quickly filled in on the presentation and have done additional research on the parts that interest me most! Today's post will largely be about Nintendo titles, such as Paper Mario 3DS (good gracious I am so excited for it), an incident that Andrew and I encountered in NSMB Wii, as well as some thrilling new developments in my Fallout 3 file. Prepare yourself!

Two video games, one television.

Since I can't get enough of Fallout and I also can't play it alone because I get nervous, Andrew and I have been spending our evenings playing through it "together". I use quotes because he sits behind me while I play and advises me when I'm about to do something stupid. What a sweetheart. He, on the other hand, can't get enough of Mario for the Wii. He's a nice guy and doesn't want to stop me from playing Fallout, so we've been utilizing the double image feature on his TV. Fabulous! Genius! Endlessly satisfying! The picture above is a little difficult to make out, but that's Fallout 3 on the left and New Super Mario Bros. Wii on the right. The dynamic range of the camera on my phone isn't great (none of them are), so it had a really tough time balancing the dark screen on the left with the hyper bright and colorful screen on the right. My goal was to demonstrate what we've been up to though, and I think I succeeded. 

My adventures through the Wasteland have been fairly mellow. I've been exploring slowly and staying close to Megaton. I'm in the process of leveling up and becoming competent with the controls. Just the other day I killed a boatload of radroaches and one terrifying scorpion and then explored some sewers. Upon my exit of the infested building I was greeted with some mercenaries who were hellbent on killing me. I didn't let them.

See?! "Kill Miranda"! How rude.

In more palatable Fallout news, I have a house in Megaton now! My first task was to find something to collect and then begin decorating. I'm pleased with my decision.

 Click to enlarge and take a gander at my stuff! I have some beautiful lunchboxes on 

display, as well as some really awesome Nuka Cola toy trucks. They're not easy to set down.

I was unbelievably jazzed when I was given my apartment. Andrew mentioned that so long as I disarmed the bomb in Megaton that I'd have a home base where I could store extra items. I had no idea this meant I would get a house! I ran around excitedly exploring each room and talking to my robot house butler over and over again.

My bitchin' Nuka Cola machine that I saved up a bunch of bottle caps for.

PLUS, me admiring my one bobble-head while wearing a party hat that I stole

from a scary clown raider after I killed him. 

When Nintendo announced that the 3DS would have a new, portable Paper Mario I think I peed my pants a little bit. I absolutely adore the Paper Mario series. I know I've talked about this before, but humor me for a minute while I fawn. The gameplay is superb, the graphics are crisp and adorable, the items are fun and unique, the dialogue is witty and entertaining, the RPG style battle system is engaging and satisfying. If you haven't played any of the three currently available Paper Mario games, then please, do so as soon as possible. Here, I'll help you. Paper Mario 64, $18 used on Amazon or through the Wii's virtual console for $10 or $15. Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door (Gamecube), around $20 on Amazon. Super Paper Mario (Wii), around $10 on Amazon. 

Thousand Year Door is my personal favorite, but the original one is so amazing too. Super Paper Mario is my least favorite of the three. I found the method of progressing to new levels to be too convoluted, and I didn't like that they removed the RPG style turn-based battle system. Fortunately, they've brought it back for Paper Mario 3DS. Take a look!

 Beautiful, isn't it?

Sadly, Nintendo hasn't released any word of when this gem of a game will be released. I'm considering starting a new file on Thousand Year Door just to hold myself over!

And speaking along the lines of Mario, something most perplexing happened while Andrew was playing NSMB Wii other day. We're currently in the process of collecting all of the star coins from each of the worlds. It's proving to be quite the challenge, but one that Andrew is more than up for. I really can't stand playing the same part of a game over and over again, so I've had to sit out on the coin collecting for a while. Fortunately, with our double screen action as shown at the beginning of this post, I can still be a part of our Mario progress while ridding the Wasteland of all the evil I can find. 

But anywho, Andrew was on World 7, level 6 gleefully bouncing from Parabeetle to Parabeetle, when finally he collected all three star coins and completed the level. That wasn't unusual. But this was:

It's a little hard to tell, but he's not wearing his hat!

Upon completing and exiting the level, we both noted that for some reason Mario was not wearing his hat! We both sat, very confused, and Andrew asked me if that had happened before. I said that it had not. Of course, in Mario 64 in the desert level that giant bird can steal your hat, but I've never known it to happen otherwise! Andrew went on to beat the castle for kicks, and he still didn't have his hat. We're still extremely perplexed.

Did anyone enjoy or download the backgrounds that I posted last week? Would you like to see more? Let me know, I'm happy to provide content for your enjoyment! 

-MJ

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100% about Nintendo. No surprises there.

Alright I'm going through my Google Reader, it's been a few days, I haven't bathed in two days and I had pizza for breakfast. I meant to get in the shower a while ago, but I had almost 400 articles to go through. A lot of them I don't really care about (there is a lot of news about smartphones and tablets), but what has really kept me glued to my screen this morning, other than a penchant for laziness and a lifelong disdain for bathing, is all of the Nintendo news that keeps cropping up!

Perhaps it all feels especially relevant to me because I'm frothing at the mouth to finally have my 3DS. It came out last month and I won't have mine until sometime in June. This is because of a certain geographical placement that I've found myself in and the added expense of shipping something not only trans-continental, but trans-Atlantic. I have mixed feelings about my situation. I am in Ireland, after all, and I guess that's pretty neat.

Ocarina of Time 3DS is no surprise, but Zelda Informer has so very many articles and screenshots to share. It is enthralling. Very recently they've been dropping more links related to the Super Mario 3DS title that is, apparently, due out this year. We will see the return of the raccoon tail, which excites me to no end. This installment is supposedly going to be a cross between Mario 64 and Mario Galaxy. Now, maybe I didn't exactly finish Super Mario Galaxy because one of the levels near the end was so brain-meltingly difficult that I died in the same exact spot fifty or so times before screaming 'Fuck this shit!' and never playing it again and this was about three years ago, but that doesn't mean that I don't absolutely love that game. So, this potential mash-up is exciting to me. Very exciting indeed.

Now, the only thing that I'm really missing is more news about Paper Mario 3DS. I love Paper Mario. It is a brilliant entry in the Mario universe. When I saw in the announcements last year that there'd be a Paper Mario for the 3DS I think I may have cried. However, I've read little to nothing regarding it since then. A handful of screenshots have been released, and there was a very small video I think from the Tokyo Game Show last fall, but I'd sure love a release date and a bit more concrete information.

With this information in mind, it's really not so bad that I don't have my 3DS yet. There aren't any games at present that I even want to play. The launch lineup was very lackluster, in my opinion. The first game I want is Ocarina of Time, and that comes out on the 19th of June, which is just about when I'll get my hands on my system. I suppose some things are just fate, simply meant to be, and the stars align in my favor from time to time.

From there I don't even know the release dates of the big hitters that I want to get my hands on, like Mario Kart, Animal Crossing, Super Mario and Kid Icarus. That is something that I miss about working at GameStop; having access to constant release dates and information was certainly handy. Oh Nintendo, I do love you so.

Over the past few weeks my eyes kept skipping over rumors of Project Cafe from Nintendo. Now, I really hate getting excited about something that turns out to be fake or just pure speculation, and for some reason the thought of Nintendo releasing some form of Wii2 in 2012 just seemed... too soon. So I withheld any sort of mental involvement or interest or excitement until I found an article that proved concrete. Well, that happened today when I came across an article that had a confirmation from Nintendo that they're projected to release their next console sometime in 2012 and it'll be shown at E3 in June. Good on you Nintendo. I hope it's good!

Oh, this article got me all hot and bothered as well; I would absolutely take a 3DS remake of A Link to the Past. Nintendo really caters to me, I am all for remakes. I know a lot of people hate them, or feel like they're cheap or the companies are just milking for profits. Maybe that's true, but they appeal to me in a big way. I fell into a, I think, not uncommon bracket for gamers. I have very recently achieved the ripe age of 25, and as such I straddled the golden age of video games. I was alive and well cognizant of life around me, and I certainly played video games, but I did not play the video games. There are a lot of reasons for this too, the biggest factor being that even though my mom could afford the console itself, she couldn't afford many games for it. For every system that my sister and I owned, we had one to three games for it. That's it. Generally the pack-in (too bad that never happens anymore) and one other obviously big title.

I commend my mom on how well she did with such limited knowledge of gaming. Plus, it was just her and we had no outside input recommending good games for two little girls to play. She knew Mario was popular, there are pictures of us receiving a Nintendo when I was 5 or 6, and we excitedly unwrap the NES with Mario/Duck Hunt, Mario 3, Barbie and The Little Mermaid. Now, you may knock those last two, but they were actually fairly interesting and damn difficult. We never managed to beat Barbie, but we saw the ending of The Little Mermaid on more than one occasion.

But back to my original point. The titles that I listed were the only titles that we owned. At some point we acquired Marble Madness, but you see what I mean. We didn't have Zelda, we didn't have Kid Icarus, we didn't have A Boy and His Blob, or countless other amazing games that have blossomed over the past 20 years into long-standing and well loved franchises. This trend continued with the Sega, we only owned Sonic and Toejam & Earl (an amazing title that we owned simply because it was the least expensive game my mom could find, kudos to her though because my sister and I love it).

It was only once I graduated high school and got a job at GameStop that I started to own many games for any one system. As such, the glorious rereleases allow me to experience phenomenal games for the first time, just like everyone else did 20 or so years ago. Plus, they usher in the golden age of gaming for everyone that was born after the games were originally released. Not everyone has access to the original consoles, not everyone has an older sibling/aunt/parent to learn from or to borrow from. I completely welcome and encourage the releases. It gives everyone a fair chance to love and learn.

OK that tiny thought on remakes blossomed into something much larger than I anticipated. I apologize.

-MJ

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