Merrick can't wait to play with his own Wii...
Clairecakes wrote in about her efforts to fondle a Wii.
She was determined to wrap her nimble fingers around a silky smooth Wii-mote…and move it up and down…back and forth…in small circles…then larger circles…slowly…then quickly…squeezing it tightly…then holding it gently...pushing just the right buttons at just the right time.
She succeeded.
Here is Clairecakes…
Howdy folks. Thought I’d get off my duff and send in a report of E3.
Monki was right. The booth babes were clothed this year. Kind of nice as I like to look at games not some other lady’s boobs.
But really, who cares about a bunch of women dressed up in leather? Let’s get down to the business of Nintendo. I managed to get into the show a bit early (press pass you are a god) and my first stop was Nintendo. Good idea too as the lines after the show opened up were ridiculous. However I was in line for about twenty minutes. Time went by quickly as people were living in the walls and were happy to talk to us about the games inside. However one game they were mum about was Smash Bros.
Finally got inside. Of course then there was ANOTHER line. But this line was okay because you got to watch people try out a drum game and a game in which you conduct and orchestra. From where I stood (behind the velvet rope) the games both seemed to work quite well and the people seemed to be having fun.
After that line I was set loose on the games. People were packed tightly around them and so it was an adventure just to get near a Wii. I skipped over the sports games and headed for WarioWare. The mob was surprisingly small and after about three minutes I was pushed forward. A charming guy handed me the Wii-mote and set me loose on the game.
First, impressions of the Wii-mote. Great feel. Now my hands are pretty tiny, but it sat nicely and was light and comfortable to hold. But it still felt substantial. There was a small speaker, but in the den of noise it was useless. The buttons were easy to press and it all felt very natural. To be honest that was really a surprise for me.
Now for WarioWare. Wow. What a tremendously fun game. I sautéed zucchini, cut a piece of wood in half with a sword, hooked a little man onto a pole and tried (and failed) to spin a little dome so the marble would fall into the hole. The stuff on screen responded quickly and easily to all my motions. I held the Wii-mote like the handle of a frying pan and gave it a shuffle and my zucchini browned. I also got to put in on top of my head and do squats…I looked insanely stupid but the console responded so well.
Next I ran over and shoved my way through the crowd to get at Excite Truck. This was another fun game. You hold the Wii-mote horizontally and use it like the stop of a steering wheel to “drive” your truck. The game was fun and once again the Wii-mote worked great. Also, the graphics in this game actually looked pretty dang snazzy. Not quite PS3 level but easily above Xbox level.
After that I waited in line for something like fifteen minutes to get my hands on Red Steel. First of all. Red Steel is an Ubisoft game and it SHOWS. My god. Those guys love to use EVERY DAMN FUNCTION OF A CONTROLLER. Sure this allows you to interact with your game environment in new ways and it gives you greater control, but the learning curve ain’t pretty. If WarioWare, Excite Truck and the orchestra and sports games are for the “casual” gamers then Red Steel is for the hardcore guy who kicks Halo in the nuts.
Red Steel still has some ways to go. The graphics are current gen quality and sometimes the Wii-mote wasn’t entirely responsive, but that’s okay. Why? Because this game is so damn cool. It was the first game I got to try the attachment with. In case you didn’t know, the attachment has the same technology that the PS3 has. So you can rotate it around and if the programmers did their jobs something cool will happen. In Red Steel’s case I jiggled it to open doors and I swung it up and down to parry sword attacks.
Sword fighting in Red Steel is where the learning curve will be it’s steepest. You have to attack with the Wii-mote and parry with the attachment. As I have no coordination whatsoever this was quite a chore.
Shooting stuff was fun. The Wii might have been a little sensitive but that is to be expected from games in development (hopefully it will be fixed by launch). You use the trigger on the bottom of the Wii-mote to fire. Very natural and pretty fun. If they can work out the kinks Red Steel will be an amazing launch title that will keep hardcore gamers happy for days.
The last Wii-licious game I tried was Zelda. There were different booths for different portions of Zelda and I had no interest standing in line for each, especially as by this point the place was getting more crowded with all those filthy non-press folks. So I hopped in a line and prayed I’d get to try some really cool part of Zelda.
I got fishing.
All I can say is that it was neat and that all those people who like to fish in real life (WHY?) will have fun. Of all the fishing mini-games I’ve played over the years it was easily at the top of the list.
So after a little fishing I headed out of the booth, but not before noticing people trying they’re hand at some of the NES emulators running on Wiis. Super Mario Bros. looked really nice and bright. Instead of using the Wii-mote people were using a very snazzy looking SNES controller that was in the same design scheme as the rest of the Wii products. I took a picture of the controller…but it came out horribly. However a search of the web will surely provide you with pictures of it.
After a morning of Nintendo’s Wii I had to Wii myself.
That afternoon I set out for the other portion of Nintendo’s booth. Here I played MANY DS games and drooled over them all. I tried New Super Mario Bros. and the nice lady gave me a DS Lite case. The game was fun and just different enough from the original to make it purchasable (why buy when my PSP can just ROM it?). There was even a new power up that turns you into a giant. As a giant you proceed to SMASH THROUGH THE LEVEL. It was glorious to crush little koopas under my feet.
I then tried Starfox DS. It appears to be part strategy and part shooter. You have limited fuel and have to plan your course of battle accordingly. Then you go into the actual fights. The stylus controls your plane and gives you better control then a D-Pad ever could. You fire with the shoulder buttons. It was easy and fun and I wanted to play for hours.
Secrets of Mana was pretty neat as well. The graphics were nice and the touch screen was used to manage your inventory. Any RPG-fanatic will tell you that this makes the game so much more pleasant.
FFIII might have been interesting but the loading times were so painful that I nearly fell asleep waiting for the damn stuff to load.
After hours of Nintendo I headed to the South Hall to get my grubby hands on the WoW expansion pack. I am hesitant to report too much as a lot of what they had isn’t final for launch and will change. I can tell you the male Draeni have some strange Russian dancing thing and male Blood Elves dance like Napoleon Dynamite.
I can also tell you that one of the Draeni’s racials is the ability to heal and that the amount of healing increases with their level. Oh and that the Blood Elves have an uber silence racial that will makes mages and priests and pallys cry. That made me happy.
Lastly. The PS3. I have to disagree with Monki. I found it stupid. At E3 you can usually tell interest in a product by the length of the lines and the softness of the rugs underfoot. Nokia always has the best rugs around and that is where people flock to have a seat and go through their swag (considerably less this year). The line to test the PS3 was 30 minutes long. Folks the line to see Paris Hilton was longer.
That is just SAD.
