Conference Reaction: Nintendo Comes Out Swinging

Microsoft and Sony were in an odd position this E3, doing their best to hype up a batch of current-gen games while pretending that new hardware wasn't on the horizon. Nintendo wasn't in a similar bind, and the company gave a series of impressive demonstrations on the Wii's successor, Wii U.

Pikmin Are Back!
Nintendo started off its press conference with a video of Shigeru Miyamoto leaving his dressing room and heading toward the stage, followed by a small army of Pikmin. I was a huge GameCube fan back in the day, so I was understandably stoked to see an announcement for Pikmin 3. The canned footage showed off a new Pikmin type, stone, who can break glass obstacles. There's also a multiplayer component, which supports up to four players. Since it's a Wii U game, the GamePad's screen has to be used for something. In this case, it's a minimap. If you're not used to that kind of functionality yet, you should get acclimated to it as soon as possible. My hunch is you'll be seeing a lot of minimaps on that screen. The game looked like more of the same, only better looking. Considering how much time I spent with the series, I'm not complaining.

It Takes Two
Nintendo also revealed that the Wii U will support two GamePads. We still don't even know a lot of the Wii U basics at this point, such as the price or even its release date. Will players be able to buy GamePads separately, or will people have to lug theirs around with them when they visit friends? Regardless, it's pretty cool to learn that the system will support two of the controllers, even if Nintendo didn't bother giving any concrete gameplay examples.

More Mario
Nintendo revealed a new Super Mario Bros. game, called (drum roll, please) New Super Mario Bros. U. They may not get any points for originality when it comes to naming their games, but Nintendo definitely knows how to create classic-style platformers. Four players can man the sticks, as with New Super Mario Bros. Wii, but the new Wii U game also supports a fifth player. Their role is to add platforms and other helpful objects via the GamePad's screen.

The game also has support for the newly announced Miiverse, which is what you see when you fire up your Wii U. It's a lot like the Wii's Mii Plaza, only with online support. You can chat or sketch out simple drawings, which appear in cartoon bubbles over your Mii's head. In the case of New Super Mario Bros. U, you can see your friends on the game's overworld. I've never been crazy about Miis, but at least they seem to have some actual functionality.

Warner Takes Control
Warner Bros. Interactive had a nice selection of games to show off, including a special edition of Batman: Arkham City, dubbed the Armored Edition. It adds a new B.A.T. power, which accumulates as you knock the stuffing out of the city's goons. The GamePad's screen displays a variety of information, including a weapon-selection screen. The pad's accelerometer can be used to steer batarangs, too. I'm a little wary of the fact that it's not being developed by Rocksteady (WB studios in Montreal and Burbank are handling that task), but the game looked quite good. Of course, that's the whole point of on-stage presentations.

On a lighter note, Warner also showed off a new Scribblenauts and the newly redubbed Lego City Undercover (formerly known as Lego City Stories. Perhaps Rockstar took offense?). Scribblenauts Unlimited adds two-player action to the mix, and the GamePad can be used as an interface for the new object-creation system. This looks much deeper than the addition of adjectives, allowing players to create their own bizarre (and helpful) objects. In a video, we saw some kind of wheeled dog with a mohawk. Useful? Perhaps. An abomination? Almost certainly. I've been enjoying Scribblenauts Remix on my iPad, so the HD upgrade didn't blow me away too much. Still, I always enjoy being able to create my own monstrosities, so I look forward to the Wii U version. Lego City Undercover looks like an open-world game with a cutesy Lego spin. You play a cop and scour the streets of Lego City for bad guys. I'm a sucker for Lego, and the fact that I can probably play it in front of my kids is an added bonus. I won't let them get their dirty little hands on the GamePad, though.

An Off-Key Note
I'll say it outright: I'm definitely not the audience for Sing, Nintendo's new karaoke/dance game. Reggie Fils-Aime says it gives people a chance to experience a music game without being relegated to the sidelines. How? Well, the lyrics appear on the GamePad's screen, and everyone in the room is encouraged to dance along. It's a novel idea if you haven't heard of Karaoke Revolution, Rock Band, Lips, or the later Guitar Hero games, to name a few. The people in the trailer seemed to be losing their minds over it, but they were also getting paid to do so. Nope.

Sizzle-Reel Time
To keep things moving, Nintendo released a video with a rapid-fire barrage of other Wii U game clips. They included quick looks at Tekken Tag Tournament 2, Mass Effect 3, Trine 2: Director's Cut, Aliens: Colonial Marines, Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor's Edge, and Tank! Tank! Tank!. The most memorable part for me was from Tekken, which apparently supports Mario's mushrooms. Pick one up to tower over your opponent. That hardly seems fair, but whatever. I imagine Nintendo will be in a somewhat awkward position for a while, with plenty of enhanced versions of games that have already been released on other platforms. That's great if you haven't already picked up titles like Mass Effect 3, but we'll have to see what kinds of enticements developers add to those games to lure us into second looks. Something tells me a dedicated minimap screen won't do it.

Get In Shape
Hey, what do you know? There's a new Wii Fit game coming out on Wii U. It uses the Wii's Balance Board, and it tracks your progress via a meter. Aaaaaand. That's it.

Oh Yeah, The 3DS
If you're a 3DS owner, you'd be forgiven for feeling a little left out. Nintendo tried to make up for the Wii U focus by shifting attention over to its handheld. New Super Mario Bros. 2 got a release date (August 19!), and we got to see a nice look at Paper Mario: Sticker Star. We'd seen glimpses of that game in montage videos, but this was the first time we got an overview on it. It looks like a traditional Paper Mario game, with its unmistakable pop-up-book aesthetic. In Sticker Star, players can collect stickers, which serve as special attacks. We saw Mario using them to stomp on rows of Koopas and letting off blasts of fire. OCD gamers (like myself) may find themselves in trouble with this one. If the sticker variety is as large as I hope, this one could be a tremendous time sink.

Luigi's Mansion 2 got renamed, too, and it will be known as Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon from this day forward. This was a tease in the best sense of the word, with Nintendo holding back on details aside from its holiday release. There will be a 3DS event tonight, so perhaps we'll be learning more from that game and a slew of other games.

Zombieland...
Ubisoft highlighted its mature zombie game ZombiU at its press conference, but we got to see some actual gameplay today. The GamePad's screen is a handy tool, used to scan areas and snipe at undead enemies. Players can even use the controller's built-in camera to zombify themselves. We got to see this in action, via an excruciatingly long and glitchy demo. Reggie told Ubisoft's CEO how much he enjoys French cuisine, while a horrifying zombie texture slid across (and around) his face. It wasn't horrifying in the way they may have been shooting for, either. It was definitely the "ever wonder what the bottom of an avatar's shoe looks like?" moment of the show.

...And NintendoLand
The press conference ended with an extended look at a new game, NintendoLand. It's a minigame collection (surprise!), with levels based on Nintendo franchises including Donkey Kong, The Legend of Zelda, and Luigi's Mansion. We saw the Luigi level in a demo, which featured players on a static screen doing their best to avoid a hidden ghost, controlled by another player using the GamePad. The ghost is invisible, so players have to scour the mazelike environment with their flashlights to stay alive. It reminded me a lot of the criminally overlooked Pac-Man Vs., only this time you don't need to wrangle up a bunch of GameCube controllers and a GameBoy Advance. 

Gut Check:
Like everything else from E3, reactions were mixed once the lights turned on. I got a text from a friend dubbing it "a disaster," but I have to strongly disagree with that statement. I went into the presentation lukewarm about the Wii U, and about halfway through it I fired off an e-mail to my wife warning her than I was going to be adding yet another console to our home. I liked a lot of what they showed, such as Pikmin 3, New Super Mario Bros. U, and the Lego game. They're system exclusives, too, which means I'll have to get on board with the Wii U if I want to check them out. And I'm completely fine with that.

Nintendo tried its best to appeal to core gamers, too, but the majority of its stage time was devoted to core Nintendo fans. It seemed like a mistake to relegate the majority of those core games to a blink-and-you'll-miss-it video reel, but Nintendo never seems to take the obvious route. Like I said earlier, it may take publishers a while to wrap their heads around the Wii U, and what kinds of interesting things it's capable of. Until that happens, Nintendo can lean on its first-party games to help it through a dry spell.

Just don't expect me to sing. Ever.