E3 2010: Nintendo Impressions

Wow...that's all I really can say about Nintendo's press conference. It truly feels like this year was an apology for the last two years of so-so and just terrible E3 showings. Nintendo rocketed back into what they do best, showing off great games. The best thing about the conference was that long dormant home console franchises are getting Wii games this year and almost every game they presented seemed worth checking out.

Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword: So the first official Zelda game made specifically for the Wii was finally unveiled and it looked great. The graphical style seemed to combine the cel shading of Wind Waker and the more detailed Twilight Princess. The Wii Motion Plus is required to play the game and apart from a new beetle item, what they showed here was just generic Zelda gameplay, though there is a twist to typical story that has yet to revealed. The game is slated for release sometime next year.

Mario Sports Mix: Mario's sole game for the time being. After going on two proper adventures, the plumber finally takes a break and goes back to all the sports plaaying we usually have to put up with inbetween those big adventures. The difference this time is that instead of the whole game focusing on one sport, there are at least 3 sports on display: hockey, volleyball, and a second go round with basketball. The game will also release sometime next year.

Wii Party and Just Dance 2: Nintendo showed how fair they've moved from casual gamers as these were the only two games aimed directly at them during the show. From what was shown, Wii Party is just Mario Party with the Miis and Just Dance 2 is...well Just Dance 2. Neither of them were interesting but neither of them looked horrible either.

Golden Sun: Dark Dawn: The Golden Sun DS title that they showed off last year and haven't given any info on since has finally gotten a trailer, the subtitle of "Dark Dawn" and vague release date of this holiday season. If there's one thing that really bugged me about Nintendo's conference its was their failure to set a concrete release date for anything. Anyway, the trailer looks cool and I can't wait to try it.

Goldeneye 007: A semi remake of that popular N64 game. The only thing I know has been changed for sure is that James Bond's Pierce Brosnan appearance had been updated to that of the current James Bond: Daniel Craig. Never played the original game so this should be a treat.

Epic Mickey: This one kinda disappointed me, mainly because the pre-release screen shots and character models looked really dark and steampunk like, while the material shown to us here didn't reflect any of this. I guess that just wasn't in this portion of the game. What was shown was very straight forward platforming material and that is enough to get me a little interested in it.

Kirby's Epic Yarn: I was so happy for this game's announcement. Kirby hasn't stared in a home console platformer for over a decade (Kirby 64 was the last one). The game's art style is incredibly unique what with everything looking like strands of yarn. It also looks like Kirby's traditional vacuum ability has been altered in some fashion. I can wait to get my hands on this one this holiday.

Metroid: Other M: Some actually gameplay footage was shown in the new trailer and it still looks cool, but they didn't say anything new about the game Nintendo had had already been releasing info about the game throughout the past year. In one of the few release dates given, the game will launch August 31st.

Donkey Kong Country Returns: Retro Studios, the people behind the excellent Metroid Prime series are working a revival of the original Donkey Kong Country series. The classic team-up of Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong returns and lots of elements of the previous country titles as will as Donkey Kong 64 show here. I'm looking forward to its release this holiday (so tired of that vague release date)

Nintendo 3DS: So, this is it. Nintendo's successor to the DS. its capable of 3d images without the need of those dumbass glasses. I can't really say anything about this because the problem of the showing of a device like this is I can't talk about it without playing it myself. It looks cool and the analog stick is an interesting addition (maybe Super Mario 64 DS will actually play well now) and the graphics shown off were amazing for a handheld. I want to try it out.

Kid Icarus: Uprising: Everyone's really excited for this 3DS launch title as the first title in the franchise since some game boy game released in like 1991 or something. I'm not terribly excited in it since I never played either Kid Icarus game and what I saw of the original wasn't that great. I did notice a lot of voice acting (for a handheld Nintendo game) and It the games premise seems interesting enough to give the game a shot.

So yeah, Nintendo really stepped up their game this year.