E3 09: Nintendo Impressions

Well...This was a pretty good improvement over last year. Sure Nintendo still had those dull, annoying as hell bragging speeches to bore us with. But Nintendo was a bit more on point to the business of telling us about the games they had coming. Nintendo had a tad more games than Microsoft that I was interested in, but I really wish they would have said a little more about some these games.

New Super Mario Bros Wii: This appears to the major triple A title for the holidays that was long rumored for past couple of months. Co-op Super Mario Bros is something that I feel was long overdue. I'm not super excited for it since this appears to be mostly the same as the Ds game and we've already seen that (plus New Super Mario Bros wasn't my favorite iteration of the series). Also why are the 3rd and 4th players both Toads? Why not Wario or Waluigi? Oh well, its Mario...I'm gonna buy it...and the co-op better be online.

Wii Sports Resorts: Really...they showed us all this game really had to offer last year, but at least it looks a bit more like full game now....Still not gonna buy it though.

Kingdom Hearts Ds: We've known about this game for a while and the press conference didn't tell us anything more than a release date (Sept. 29). I love the Kingdom Hearts series but Chain of Memories for the GBA kinda tainted my feelings for Handheld iterations of the series. But at this one isn't card based so I'll probably buy this when it releases in Sept.

Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story: Another Ds game that we've known about for quite some time as the game has been out in Japan since February. I love the Mario & Luigi rpg games but I don't really have anything to say about this game other than it's release date which was an unannounced date in the fall...why? All they really had to do with the game was localization and Nintendo doesn't really have anything for the summer...so why wait til the fall?

Golden Sun Ds: A nice surprise announcement. The Golden Sun games on the GBA were wonderful and it was a little confusing as to why the series was absent from the DS. Well it's here now and although we were not given a date, it looks nice.

Mario Vs Donkey Kong: Minis March Again: Wow more Mario stuff...I didn't care for Mario vs Donkey Kong 2. It's lemmings-like gameplay was too much of a departure for me. The one thing was cool about that game was the custom level builder which Minis March Again basically is. It's a downloadable game for the DSI which I don't have and even if I did I probably wouldn't buy it.

The Legend Of Zelda: Spirit Tracks: They didn't say anything about this game other than "it's good" which wasn't enough for me. I didn't care too much for Phantom Hourglass, the last DS Zelda game, and this looks pretty similar, just with trains instead of a boat. I'm sure it will be good and it will sell well. I'll check it out...but most likely not at launch.

Super Mario Galaxy 2: Wow..just wow. It was pretty much confirmed beforehand that would be a new 3d Mario title on the Wii and here it is. I was hoping that it wouldn't be another Galaxy...but who cares, the first Mario Galaxy is in my opinion one of the best games of this console generation and this seems to just be an extension of that which is fine by me. It also appears to harder than the first one which would address my only real complain against the original. Oh...and Yoshi is the game...which makes things 10 times better. The game will release in 2010...hopefully in the summer.

Metroid Other M: A new Metroid game developed by Team Ninja of all people. It's a nice change of pace from the Prime series and it'll be nice to see this as a sort of what could have been if Metroid Prime had been taken in another direction. It won't come out till next year along with Galaxy 2 so at least there are 2 big games to look forward to next year..finally.

So all in all, Nintendo did pretty well. At least they have actual games coming out this year.