Wi-Philes

I just got out of the Nintendo Wii booths, after waiting over 3 hours in line then 2 hours in the booths themselves to play the Wii games. It was definately worth it. There was an insane amount of people waiting to play Wii, that you would think the system would be selling billions of copys on launch. But as it were, Nintendo usually has a pretty good show, and it doesnt mean it is going to have the same enthusiasm with the general public. What they need to do is have those Wii booths in Best Buy, Toys R Us and etc. They were very nicely setup and the demos explained how to play the games. Ah yes, the games. I did not play every single game, but I did play most. The way it went was that each person got about 20 mins of playtime for each game, and when there are 30+ people in line it sure takes a while to get to actually playing.

One thing I figured out was that even though the games were very intuitive, they were damn hard to get good at. Take the Duck Hunt prototype demo. Yes, it is very easy to aim at a TV, but since the controller is so damn sensitive it is difficult to shoot where you want to. It is like a mouse at the highest sensitivity setting. Or maybe I just really suck at Duck Hunt. Tennis was better. Swinging the controller like a real racket is a blast. I can see four people playing this game, but I am worried about all those arms flying around. Just watching the game I almost got smacked a couple times. I know I am going to definately move my coffee table when I pick this game up. One game that really impressed me was Excite Truck. Controlling the truck was awesome. While the graphics wasnt too impressive, the controls made up for it in spades. Heres hoping they include a level editor like the original Excite Bike and allow players to trade maps over the WiFi connection. The other three games I played were Mario, Zelda and WarioWare. Mario looks great. Some may think it looks like a super Mario Sunshine, but I disagree. The shading, the lighting, the levels...everything looked superb. The game needs some additional tweaks to the controls, but it is almost there. I can see why Miyamoto doesnt know if the game will make launch or not, there is still work to be done. Be assured though, that this game is going to be an absolute classic. Zelda seems to be the same way. While the game is beautiful, the controls just arnt there yet. It seems overly difficult to perform the most basic functions. I have full faith in Nintendo to iron out this details and bring us the best Zelda yet. The game I probably had the most fun was Wario Ware. Everyone knows the crazy minigames they developed for the GBA Wario Ware and this one is no different. You are performing all sorts of stunts to get past each minigame. You look like a damn fool but you dont care because of how much fun you are having.

There were many other games there, but having spent damn near 2 hours waiting in lines just for the handful of games I did play I was hurting to get out of there. My next blog will bring pictures of various sorts (no idea), and hopefully show you more of what is in E3.

This is my first E3 and damn hopefully every day won't be as bad as today was. From LA traffic to almost losing my drivers license to actually losing my E3 press pass (they dont give you reprints), it was a pretty long and crazy day. Luckily I can still get into E3 (dont ask how I pulled that one off!), and bring the latest pictures and (hopefully) video. We did actually get some video today but it was pretty bad. We figured out what went wrong and are going to re-do it in the next day or two.

Tomorrow I am basically going to be waiting in line to play the Wii. When I stopped by the Nintendo booth today it was about a 3 hour wait to get any playtime. Since the first day I wanted to get the lay of the land and not wait in line all afternoon, Ill make sure tomorrow I actually do get to play the Wii. The plan after that is to get some gameplay video of the DS and hopefully of the Wii. I do not know if Nintendo will allow me to record in the Wii area, but I will certainly try!

I didn't play very many games today, but of the ones I did try Dragon Quest Slime and Final Fantasy III really stood out. The Dragon Quest entry for the DS has some pretty innoviative gameplay features and is looking to be an awesome game. Final Fantasy III looked excellent. Taking alot from Final Fantasy 9, the game was showing very nice 3d effects. Definately a must buy for me. There were also some non-Nintendo items that looked excellent, including Diagaea 2, CivCity, the FEAR expansion, Conan and Neverwinter Nights 2.

I can't believe how tired I am for it only being 10 pm. Well, I'm off and I'll be back tomorrow!