E3 08: Nintendo Impressions

Okay so last year Nintendo kinda bombed at the their press conference. This came as a result of them spending too much time focusing on gloating over their glorious comeback and not enough time focusing on their actual games. They failed to present anything of value apart from the release dates of 3 games we wanted, and they only unveiled two games to the masses: Mario Kart and Wii Fit. This year is even worse. The main problem with this year's conference is that Nintendo seemed to just flat out ignore the hardcore games and focus entirely on the casual market. There's no Mario, Zelda, Kid Icrus, or Pikmin titles that were revealed as everyone expected and hoped, So my favortive games that were revealed for nintendo wii and ds were titles that were revealed weeks piror like Wario Land: Shake it and Kirby Super Star Deluxe. There were 4 titles that were annonunced at the actually managed to get me a little interested even though they were causal games.

Animal Crossing: Okay I haven't played the other 2 games in the series, but I think I'm ready to at least give it a try. It was the first of 2 hardcore titles revealed in the show and this one is fairly interesting because Nintendo will finally be jumping on the online voice chat band wagon with it's new Wii Speak addition. I like this because it's not a headset like X-Box Live so the parents can keep their eyes on what's going on with the kids and what they are saying, which is something the parents needs to do with their kids on X-Box Live.

It's also worth noting that around this time it was stated that teams that work on the Mario and Zelda titles are working on games right now. Could have told alittle more about these games, but nooooo... they felt it was more important to talk about the sales of Wii...NOBODY CARES!!!! everyone already knows how well the wii and ds are selling.

Wii Sports Resort: Everyone loves Wii sports so it no surprise that evryone will love this follow-up. I don't really have much to comment on with this game, but my whole family loved the oringal so I don't think I have a choice but to pick up a copy. My only concern is that the game needs to have a bit more content if I actually need to spend money on the game. The orignial was great game that we got for free and I know that I personally would not have spent the money on it if was sold apart from the console.

Grand Theft Auto Chinatown Wars: Okay so it's okay for nintendo to release GTA on handheld, but not on the home consoles (not that I'd want to play it, if I have to play GTA it will be on 360 or PS3), but playing GTA on the DS would been nice if has more in common with it's console brothers that the horrible top-down game boy verisons of it.

Wii Music: I've wnted this one since the launch of the Wii and was worried that it wasn't coming, but it's here now and I can't wait to get my hands on it. I Think it's a nice alterative to rock band in that sense that you won't have large drums and guitars taking up space in yuor living room.

And that's it. I, like many others, wish there were more titles from their mainstream franhises, but i understand Nintendo is still still trying to grab some of those casual gamers that are still on the fence about the Wii. However they should be a bit more wary of this, while they know that they already have the hardcore audience that owns the system for mario and smash bros, and they have done a great job keeping us happy over the last year with Mario Galaxy and Smash Bros Brawl, they need to keep these people happy to ensure that they don't jump ship.