mrmonkeyman
05-11-2004, 10:36 PM
Well.
Today was the Media Briefing - the last of the big three's briefings, and, well, the other two haven't been two amazing. Sony's was PSP-centric, and in general felt a bit underwhelming, and Microsoft's spent 50% of the time saying how lame Sony were, and how laughable their online stuff is, and so on and so forth. Nintendo's setup was pretty impressive, and I got a bit manhandled in the way in.
You see, I don't so much look like a terrorist, but I look a lot like a british kid who isn't really sure where he's going, who isn't 100% sure he's meant to be there, and one who probably doesn't have any proof that he's meant to be there. I did have proof, but that didn't stop them from nearly denying me based upon some clause about needing other people from my work there, that wasn't mentioned upon registration.
Oh well, regardless, I got in.
We were greeted by a lovely man called Reggie, who apparently worked for Nintendo in some way, shape, or form.
He gave a speech about how Sony were evil, and wanted us to all use their "memory sticks" to interface with only THEIR HARDWARE. He made it sound like they were planning to take over our lives and our genitals, and that he had been sent back in time to stop this from happening. At this point I sung the imperial march theme and made about 9 people around me laugh.
Either way, there he was. He walked on, looked at us all funny, and then said "We at Nintendo like a kick ass, and make games," or something to that effect.
And then he showed us some videos.
Metroid Prime 2: Echoes
Samus returns, looking even more cool and shiny than she did before. She shoots a few aliens, who look far cooler, graphically and stylistically, than the first game's, and enters a portal. We see various shots of her fighting off aliens, and rolling around as she does. Then she runs into something, and it shocks her. From out of this...thing appears a black, evil looking Samus. An...echo, as it were. We see them fight, and it looks cool, with various different bubble effects as gun shots go off. Samus also is seen bouncing around in ball form, which is interesting. The most impressive and interesting element, however, for me, is the introduction of multiplayer - up to four players appear to be able to rock their way around the metroid universe in competetive games - no word yet on cooperative, which could be interesting enough.
This game received many whoops and claps from the appreciative american crowd. Personally, I just laughed at them. It wasn't long before I was joining in. More to come on that.
Starfox
This was great to see, after the lukewarm Starfox Adventures. We see a very cheesy space-schlok opening, with an arwing entering a portal. We then see lots of mixing footage between ground, space, and airborne combat; this time it's pure arcade action, on foot, in tanks, and arwings, and I wouldn't be surprised if there was some underwater action too. To me it looked great fun, and beautiful in places, but again, I call into question the substance of the game; Lylat Wars was quite short and limited, so this could put right wrongs in the past, then again, it could not, who knows. Shown was also the four player mode - the game is due out in the US sometime in November this year.
There was some interested clapping, but not as much as Metroid.
Resident Evil 4
This was less interesting. As usual, the graphics were great, the twist being that A) it was on the gamecube and didn't look like ass, and B) that the zombies were intelligent. Included was a chainsaw and a gatling gun. Oooh. How interesting. Yeah, i wasn't too impressed. Sniper rifle too. Oh, and a Yeti.
The crowd followed suit. They wanted to see Metroid again I think.
Here is when my notes suddenly become more dense than the average forest.
I wont bore you with all of these facts. Some guy called George Harrison walked out, showed - and I quote from my notes - "bullshit graphics, apparently they are win. Industry growth by Nintendo." Funny thing was, they gave all these stats, which actually showed they were second best instead of the best. I guess they were just happy to beat Microsoft. There was then all of this info nobody in the room cared about.
Then, Reggie was back. Rapture!
He talked about the introduction of Gameboy Advance Video, and the way in which they were already planning Pokemon and Spongebob GBAV's, and how impressive it all was. Again, they really didn't show anything, and thus it was rather underwhelming, but on paper it sounds interesting.
The classic line was announced, similar to the japanese re-release of SM1, Donkey Kong, etc, and a special NES-gameboy, which to me looks rather ugly, but each to his own.
A load of GBA games were shown in quick succession - A brand new Zelda game, Mario Party Advance, Donkey Kong Country 2, Mario Pinball (which looked surprisingly good!), and Mario and Donkey Kong.
The Gba, apparently, outsells the PS2. But there are obvious reasons for that.
Then came the rolling demos of the GC's new class.
Pikmin 2, Paper Mario 2, Zelda: Four Swords (again, a dark horse success I predict, it looks really good), Geist (which looks nothing short of amazing), and Advance Wars on the GC, which gained the biggest cheers yet, even from me. Viewtiful Joe 2 also received much whooping, as did Baiten Kaos and Tales of Symphoria, which made me wet myself.
However, the true brilliance of the event was yet to come.
As any press event, this was all propoganda. However, I was beginning to, at this moment, feel the love from Nintendo for actually making games as opposed to making "entertainment experiences" as Sony wishes to. I was liking it at this point, and there was a good, impressive air to what Nintendo were doing.
He then started talking about the Nintendo DS.
A tangent, yes, I know, but I'd just like to make a point to everyone saying it looks dodgy, and all that. So does the SP. The SP is plasticy and is generally not that aesthetically pleasing. The DS looks similar, but I like it more. That, and it's mooted at about $95 pricewise, which is reasonable. Anywho, point is, is that the gameboy has always been about games, and the DS seems so.
He began talking about it, and then from inside his jacket, he pulled one. He gave us the expected talk about it being a gaming revolution. At the moment, I'm not really feeling that, because I'm not a developer and don't have the vision to do crazy things. The two demos they showed were Mario 64/64, and Metroid. The mario one showed one screen involving a map, with a mario head on it, and the other showed mario and wario flying around. It looked really, really slick. Better than the N64, which is saying something.
Now I do realise that Sony has the power behind their console, but I'm wondering about exactly how much fun it'll be to play these games on the go.
There was a lot of interview footage, including this from Yoichi Wada, President and Representative director of Square Enix;
"I believe that Square Enix has a promising chance in the platform, since Nintendo DS allows users to experience whole new game play with both its input system and its output system."
Amongst others, there were Atari, Activision, Namco, THQ, and Vivendi showing their support for the system.
To me, it looked great, and sounds really promising. The version of Metroid they had showing was incredible, with a map on one screen and first person action on the other. It didn't, to be honest, look that different from the GC version, but more on that once I play with both the PSP and DS tommorow.
There was a lot more talk about the innovation and revolution of it; the touch screen technology, the four buttons, the full WiFi capabilities of it (This got a resounding applause and "WOOOHOOOO" from the americans. I turned to my friend and said "Easily impressed," because this is pretty much a standard in everything, including toasters. Still, it means a lot for wireless multiplayer gaming.) and the way that everything you saw was genuine footage and that you could play it tommorow.
Then, the president of Nintendo came on, and talked about their next console in broken english, and about how he didn't want to tell us about the specs, as they weren't really important. The general message was that it was going to be a revolution, and that games were becoming stale because each system just updates the graphics and never really does anything really "different."
There was a lot of talk about the difference of the new systems. What I question is whether difference will equal success, but I'm reasonably confident that Nintendo will get it right, as they seem to have their eyes on getting things out cheaply and effectively.
Now, the best part was yet to come.
Reggie came back on, and told us he was so happy to see us all, and that we'd all play the Ds tommorow, and that he wanted to take us to another world to finish it all off.
That was when everyone broke into spontaeneous amazement, and I screamed "FUCK ME SIDEWAYS!" at the top of my voice, but it was absorbed by the rest of the crowd.
The new gamecube Zelda, sporting those very same (but upgraded) graphics that originally demonstrated the gamecube. Fighting with a gigantic lava creature, and riding on a horse, FIGHTING ON A HORSE, fighting in general, lots of rolling plains and stuff. And then, out of the darkness as the screens went off, appeared...Shiguero Mayamato, with a Link Shield and Sword, grinning like a drunken japanese man at a kareoke bar. I had earlier made a joke about him dressing up like mario, and I was kinda shocked. He's become a bit of a joke character at nintendo now, appearing at events like this doing like, stand up comedy. Anywho, he spoke a bit about the game, and how that nintendo are giving us the big name in games. Reggie then finished it all off and thanked us for coming.
My thoughts are very positive. Nintendo impressed me. The speech from the Nintendo President was in a way very sweet, and I admit I am biased. He's either a great actor, or genuinely gives a shit about what he's doing. He made it clear he knew the specs, but didn't care about them, more about innovation and doing something different, and actually progressing the genre, and how he was really looking forward to the revolution it would bring.
I'm enthusiastic about the DS, moreso than the PSP, and whatever joke console Microsoft has to bring to the plate. The portable xbox, which also functions as a portable toilet.
Screenshots as I get them uploaded, but that could take a day or two :)
More once I get back from E3 tommorow!
Today was the Media Briefing - the last of the big three's briefings, and, well, the other two haven't been two amazing. Sony's was PSP-centric, and in general felt a bit underwhelming, and Microsoft's spent 50% of the time saying how lame Sony were, and how laughable their online stuff is, and so on and so forth. Nintendo's setup was pretty impressive, and I got a bit manhandled in the way in.
You see, I don't so much look like a terrorist, but I look a lot like a british kid who isn't really sure where he's going, who isn't 100% sure he's meant to be there, and one who probably doesn't have any proof that he's meant to be there. I did have proof, but that didn't stop them from nearly denying me based upon some clause about needing other people from my work there, that wasn't mentioned upon registration.
Oh well, regardless, I got in.
We were greeted by a lovely man called Reggie, who apparently worked for Nintendo in some way, shape, or form.
He gave a speech about how Sony were evil, and wanted us to all use their "memory sticks" to interface with only THEIR HARDWARE. He made it sound like they were planning to take over our lives and our genitals, and that he had been sent back in time to stop this from happening. At this point I sung the imperial march theme and made about 9 people around me laugh.
Either way, there he was. He walked on, looked at us all funny, and then said "We at Nintendo like a kick ass, and make games," or something to that effect.
And then he showed us some videos.
Metroid Prime 2: Echoes
Samus returns, looking even more cool and shiny than she did before. She shoots a few aliens, who look far cooler, graphically and stylistically, than the first game's, and enters a portal. We see various shots of her fighting off aliens, and rolling around as she does. Then she runs into something, and it shocks her. From out of this...thing appears a black, evil looking Samus. An...echo, as it were. We see them fight, and it looks cool, with various different bubble effects as gun shots go off. Samus also is seen bouncing around in ball form, which is interesting. The most impressive and interesting element, however, for me, is the introduction of multiplayer - up to four players appear to be able to rock their way around the metroid universe in competetive games - no word yet on cooperative, which could be interesting enough.
This game received many whoops and claps from the appreciative american crowd. Personally, I just laughed at them. It wasn't long before I was joining in. More to come on that.
Starfox
This was great to see, after the lukewarm Starfox Adventures. We see a very cheesy space-schlok opening, with an arwing entering a portal. We then see lots of mixing footage between ground, space, and airborne combat; this time it's pure arcade action, on foot, in tanks, and arwings, and I wouldn't be surprised if there was some underwater action too. To me it looked great fun, and beautiful in places, but again, I call into question the substance of the game; Lylat Wars was quite short and limited, so this could put right wrongs in the past, then again, it could not, who knows. Shown was also the four player mode - the game is due out in the US sometime in November this year.
There was some interested clapping, but not as much as Metroid.
Resident Evil 4
This was less interesting. As usual, the graphics were great, the twist being that A) it was on the gamecube and didn't look like ass, and B) that the zombies were intelligent. Included was a chainsaw and a gatling gun. Oooh. How interesting. Yeah, i wasn't too impressed. Sniper rifle too. Oh, and a Yeti.
The crowd followed suit. They wanted to see Metroid again I think.
Here is when my notes suddenly become more dense than the average forest.
I wont bore you with all of these facts. Some guy called George Harrison walked out, showed - and I quote from my notes - "bullshit graphics, apparently they are win. Industry growth by Nintendo." Funny thing was, they gave all these stats, which actually showed they were second best instead of the best. I guess they were just happy to beat Microsoft. There was then all of this info nobody in the room cared about.
Then, Reggie was back. Rapture!
He talked about the introduction of Gameboy Advance Video, and the way in which they were already planning Pokemon and Spongebob GBAV's, and how impressive it all was. Again, they really didn't show anything, and thus it was rather underwhelming, but on paper it sounds interesting.
The classic line was announced, similar to the japanese re-release of SM1, Donkey Kong, etc, and a special NES-gameboy, which to me looks rather ugly, but each to his own.
A load of GBA games were shown in quick succession - A brand new Zelda game, Mario Party Advance, Donkey Kong Country 2, Mario Pinball (which looked surprisingly good!), and Mario and Donkey Kong.
The Gba, apparently, outsells the PS2. But there are obvious reasons for that.
Then came the rolling demos of the GC's new class.
Pikmin 2, Paper Mario 2, Zelda: Four Swords (again, a dark horse success I predict, it looks really good), Geist (which looks nothing short of amazing), and Advance Wars on the GC, which gained the biggest cheers yet, even from me. Viewtiful Joe 2 also received much whooping, as did Baiten Kaos and Tales of Symphoria, which made me wet myself.
However, the true brilliance of the event was yet to come.
As any press event, this was all propoganda. However, I was beginning to, at this moment, feel the love from Nintendo for actually making games as opposed to making "entertainment experiences" as Sony wishes to. I was liking it at this point, and there was a good, impressive air to what Nintendo were doing.
He then started talking about the Nintendo DS.
A tangent, yes, I know, but I'd just like to make a point to everyone saying it looks dodgy, and all that. So does the SP. The SP is plasticy and is generally not that aesthetically pleasing. The DS looks similar, but I like it more. That, and it's mooted at about $95 pricewise, which is reasonable. Anywho, point is, is that the gameboy has always been about games, and the DS seems so.
He began talking about it, and then from inside his jacket, he pulled one. He gave us the expected talk about it being a gaming revolution. At the moment, I'm not really feeling that, because I'm not a developer and don't have the vision to do crazy things. The two demos they showed were Mario 64/64, and Metroid. The mario one showed one screen involving a map, with a mario head on it, and the other showed mario and wario flying around. It looked really, really slick. Better than the N64, which is saying something.
Now I do realise that Sony has the power behind their console, but I'm wondering about exactly how much fun it'll be to play these games on the go.
There was a lot of interview footage, including this from Yoichi Wada, President and Representative director of Square Enix;
"I believe that Square Enix has a promising chance in the platform, since Nintendo DS allows users to experience whole new game play with both its input system and its output system."
Amongst others, there were Atari, Activision, Namco, THQ, and Vivendi showing their support for the system.
To me, it looked great, and sounds really promising. The version of Metroid they had showing was incredible, with a map on one screen and first person action on the other. It didn't, to be honest, look that different from the GC version, but more on that once I play with both the PSP and DS tommorow.
There was a lot more talk about the innovation and revolution of it; the touch screen technology, the four buttons, the full WiFi capabilities of it (This got a resounding applause and "WOOOHOOOO" from the americans. I turned to my friend and said "Easily impressed," because this is pretty much a standard in everything, including toasters. Still, it means a lot for wireless multiplayer gaming.) and the way that everything you saw was genuine footage and that you could play it tommorow.
Then, the president of Nintendo came on, and talked about their next console in broken english, and about how he didn't want to tell us about the specs, as they weren't really important. The general message was that it was going to be a revolution, and that games were becoming stale because each system just updates the graphics and never really does anything really "different."
There was a lot of talk about the difference of the new systems. What I question is whether difference will equal success, but I'm reasonably confident that Nintendo will get it right, as they seem to have their eyes on getting things out cheaply and effectively.
Now, the best part was yet to come.
Reggie came back on, and told us he was so happy to see us all, and that we'd all play the Ds tommorow, and that he wanted to take us to another world to finish it all off.
That was when everyone broke into spontaeneous amazement, and I screamed "FUCK ME SIDEWAYS!" at the top of my voice, but it was absorbed by the rest of the crowd.
The new gamecube Zelda, sporting those very same (but upgraded) graphics that originally demonstrated the gamecube. Fighting with a gigantic lava creature, and riding on a horse, FIGHTING ON A HORSE, fighting in general, lots of rolling plains and stuff. And then, out of the darkness as the screens went off, appeared...Shiguero Mayamato, with a Link Shield and Sword, grinning like a drunken japanese man at a kareoke bar. I had earlier made a joke about him dressing up like mario, and I was kinda shocked. He's become a bit of a joke character at nintendo now, appearing at events like this doing like, stand up comedy. Anywho, he spoke a bit about the game, and how that nintendo are giving us the big name in games. Reggie then finished it all off and thanked us for coming.
My thoughts are very positive. Nintendo impressed me. The speech from the Nintendo President was in a way very sweet, and I admit I am biased. He's either a great actor, or genuinely gives a shit about what he's doing. He made it clear he knew the specs, but didn't care about them, more about innovation and doing something different, and actually progressing the genre, and how he was really looking forward to the revolution it would bring.
I'm enthusiastic about the DS, moreso than the PSP, and whatever joke console Microsoft has to bring to the plate. The portable xbox, which also functions as a portable toilet.
Screenshots as I get them uploaded, but that could take a day or two :)
More once I get back from E3 tommorow!