::        home        :: ::        news        :: ::  game profiles  :: ::        news        :: ::  game profiles  :: ::        news        :: ::  game profiles  :: ::        news        :: ::  game profiles  ::	Pre-Show Conference Impressions An extentive opinion on Nintendo's latest unveilings Another year, another Nintendo E3 pre-show conference has come and gone. What was one of the most anticipated shows of the year, as far as the gaming industry is concerned, was presented in about 50 minutes, with a focus on everything in Nintendo's arsenal...or at least, everything that they didn't feel the need to be secretive about, which wasn't that much. It started out with a rather cheesy intro with a voice recording of some quotes made by company president Satoru Iwata and the infamous Reggie quote about kicking ass and taking names. From there, Reggie talked a whole lot about Nintendo's successes, with a jab or two at the competition. However, with a few stutters here and there, the Reginator unfortunately did not seem as confident as he was in last year's presentation. Iwata's speech was an introduction to the Revolution, and while it was a good presentation, it was uneventful in terms of software media. The system was unveiled live for the first time, and it is looking slick. The black and blue colours blend together very well, and the system's size makes it very attractive and gives it a technology-driven look. No niche cube-shaped console for Nintendo this time around, it's something that will be widely accepted, as far as new machines are concerned. I was very excited to hear about the downloadable legacy system games for the Revolution...it's actually got me very interested in the Revolution, as nostalgia plays a big part in gaming for me. One thing we all hope is that these downloadable games don't cost too much, as I'm sure Nintendo won't be giving them all away for free. The news that a Super Smash Bros. game will be ready for launch, with online wi-fi, basically just made the Revolution launch for me. It's all I've always asked of Nintendo, that's all they really need for me to be satisfied at launch. Of course, they'll have more than that, but anything else is just icing on the cake that is Super Smash Bros. online. I look forward to challenging all of you to duels and insane battles. Finally. Other games that were announced for the Revolution, such as Mario, Zelda, Donkey Kong and Metroid were not really surprising, as we all expect them to make an appearance or two on the next-gen console. The Metroid tech demo, which I assume was running on what could be an early version of Revolution hardware, was nice to see, considering the huge Metroid fan that I am, but technically speaking, at least compared to Sony's PS3 showing yesterday, it wasn't too fancy looking. The Game Boy Micro left me rather underwhelmed. I don't see why Nintendo needs to release yet another version of the Game Boy Advance, after their upgrade with the SP. It's understandable that they want the GBA to live alongside the GameCube and DS for a while, which is a testament to their "three pillars" comments last year, but I would think the SP could do that just fine. They need more killer software, not a re-release of the GBA with a few new features. The thing does look tiny, and cool, I must admit. I just don't think I'll be picking that one up. I see no reason to, as I have three handhelds that can play Game Boy Advance games, as I'm sure a lot of you handheld gamers out there do too. The DS presentations of ElectroPlankton and Nintendogs were just odd. While the DJ made some pretty good beats with ElectroPlankton, there was no point to it, as the vast majority of players won't be able to nearly achieve the sounds that he made, considering the mixers and other DJ tools the man had...not to mention two DS systems. The game is interesting, however, so I'm glad it's getting more show in North America (look out for a review of the import version of ElectroPlankton on Gen-N soon). The Nintendogs presentation with G4TV host Tina, who, by the way, I am not a fan of and can't understand the reason for her being there, barely showed anything that wasn't presented before. I did find it neat that if another Nintendogs player wants to play with you, your DS would bark and you could have your dogs meet. It's an interesting concept...especially with what happened with the puppies that belong to Tina and Shigeru Miyamoto, who was the mysterious player on the other end of the Nintendogs DS signal. Overall, the presentation of these two games did not do anything shockingly new, as they were both demo'd to us at the GDC back in March. The other DS games looked great. Mario Kart's visuals are definitely nice to look at, Metroid Prime Hunters looks better than ever, which is saying a lot, and the previously-announced side-scrolling Mario Bros. game looks absolutely fantastic, especially with the concept of multiplayer co-op play. I was ecstatic to hear about Mario & Luigi 2, as the GBA version is a worthy contender for the 'Best Game on GBA' title. The DS version looks to carry on the same, 2D style of the original, which can only be good. In addition, I was glad to hear about Mario Kart going online. I was getting worried that Nintendo wouldn't put it online, but alas, I was proven dead wrong. Finally, I was surprised and pleased at the amount of GCN games that were in store. I thought the GCN barely had any life in it, but it seems that both Nintendo and third parties are still going to be cranking out games in 2005, with around 60 planned for release by year's end. Mario Soccer and Baseball both looked fun, and the art for Dance Dance Revolution Mario Mix was just great. Mario Party 7 is not something I'm looking forward to, as I don't think a new, gimmicky way to play the game (2 players on 1 controller, making for a total of 8 players in some minigames) is not enough to warrant yet another game in the series, especially considering most of the new mini-games ideas in the series have been getting stale. Battalion Wars and Geist both looked improved upon and got me interested. The third-party games, of which there were many shown, all looked like rather average rentals, but of course I'm not going to judge from just a few seconds of footage for each game. The Legend of Zelda was the obvious highlight of the GCN presentation, with what appeared to be the darkest of the Zelda trailers thus far. I'm not digging the sub-title Twilight Princess, but it just might grow on me in time. After a long day of Nintendo unveilings, while there were certainly some excitingly positive aspects of the pre-show conference, it was more disappointing than not. Most people were expecting a bigger Revolution unveiling, including myself, with software footage in a trailer that lasted in the likes of at least 2 minutes. The reason everyone was expecting Nintendo to unveil more about their next-gen console is because Sony and Microsoft's conferences both, very heavily mind you, focused on the next generation. Sony even failed to show anything from this generation, except for one game, which was shocking, considering the recently-released Playstation Portable. Nevertheless, the Xbox 360 and the PS3 were unveiled in full force, and as such, Nintendo fans and haters alike expected to see the Revolution unveiled in such a way. It was not. Not even close. Not even 20% of the competitors' unveilings. Granted, Microsoft needed to show their next-gen console, as they are launching it this year, but Sony is not and yet they managed to focus on next-gen the most out of all three gaming companies. That said, could there be more to Nintendo's E3? Are more unveilings up ahead in the next few days? There have been rumblings, but nothing is confirmed, so getting our hopes up will not be a good idea. Nintendo's pre-show conference was disappointing, and as far as the pre-show is concerned, there's nothing that can change that. Let us just focus on the positive, shall we? We'll be playing Nintendo games that span 20 years on the Revolution. That alone is enough to get excited about.