Lot's of gaming news this week, with E3 going on and all, and some of it I even care about. Tons of new games for the Wii, but the first big announcement (for me) didn't come from a console at all. Valve is releasing Left 4 Dead 2 this November, roughly a year after the original came out. As last night was a LAN party where we played Left 4 Dead (1), I think it's safe to say that my friends and are I substantially pumped about this.
Okay, big announcements for the Wii were:
Super Mario Galaxy 2 - just the like the first, add Yoshi, increase the difficultly curve. Not coming out until 2010 because of...
New Super Mario Bros. Wii - a 2D platformer with 4-player co-op. The hands-on people have all given it the same treatment: "I was a little underwhelmed going in, but dammit is it ever fun."
The Legend of Zelda Wii - not this year. This franchise is subject to notoriously lengthy development cycles, so we'll just have to be sated with Spirit Tracks for the DS this fall. They promised to try and have a playable build of the next installment for E3 '10, meaning it might easily be 2011 before we get a genuine Zelda title for Wii.
Sin and Punishment 2 - haven't decided if I'm going to care about this one or not. We'll see soon enough.
Wii Sports Resort - new sports, new peripheral, good fun to be had by all. With Mii's.
Wii Fit Plus - streamlined the process a little, new balance games, the ability to generate workouts to target areas of the body. At least you don't have to get an updated Balance Board.
Wii Vitality Sensor - gimme a break already.
Metroid: Other M - kind of a strange title, but whatever. It appears to be a 2.5-D 3rd-person platformer Metroid game. This was a big reveal at the end of their press conference and has generated a great deal of buzz, although it's not due out until 2010. I particularly liked Penny Arcade's treatment.
There's lots of other random and 3rd-party stuff also being announced, but those were the big ones from Nintendo. It's worth noting that none of these include the still-a-mystery larger-than-life 1st-party title that Retro Studios is developing for a holiday '09 release. The one they told Gamespot to save extra shelf space for. We can eliminate a few options from the list, clearly it's not Metroid or Zelda (unless they're lying to us about Zelda... which I wouldn't put past anyone). Pikmin 3, MarioKart Wii 2, Starfox Wii, Donkey Kong Wii, and Super Smash Bros Brawl 2 are all potentials, but my vote is still Kid Icarus.
Microsoft and Sony, meanwhile, both demo'd motion control... things... for the Xbox 360 and PS3, respectively. Sony's seems to be an update of the defunct Six-Axis (Jesus, remember when they were consistantly ahead of the curve?). But Microsoft has introduced a controller-less control scheme. I like that they're innovating, but... it seems like all the things we complain about the Wiimote--namely the loose, gimmicky, exhaustively waggle-intensive controls--raised to the power of ten.
As ever, I look forward to being proven wrong.
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Google Apps highlights – 7/30/2010
1 day ago
1 comments:
Metroid was big news because Rare is passing the torch to Team Ninja, who were the masterminds behind the utterly perfect (for what they were) Ninja Gaiden games.
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