E3 press conferences are not rock concerts, they're press conferences. When someone complains of a press confernce being boring, I often wonder what in the world they were expecting to see? To me we should judge the big three's showing at E3 by what games they brought to the table. I am happy to say that Nintendo's press conference this year, was significantly better than last year due to what they brought to the table this time around. "Super Mario Galaxy 2" is the biggest announcement of E3 by Nintendo, in my opinion. Mainly because we weren't able to see anything from the next Zelda for Wii, and had very little on the curiously interesting "Metroid: Other M". And because the original "Super Mario Galaxy" was amazing.
Having a sequel to "Super Mario Galaxy" means that for the first time there will be two 3D Mario platformers on a Nintendo console. Sequels in Nintendo franchises have always been oddballs compared to their predecessor, dating all the way back to the NES with games such as Super Mario Bros. 2 and Zelda II. "Super Mario Galaxy 2" seems to stay with what worked the first time, with some great new additions, which is the best route to go in my opinion. The first "Super Mario Galaxy" is one of a few games to have ever received a 10.0 rating from me. If significant improvements are made to the second one, and I trust they will be (Yoshi), then I know we will have yet another amazing Mario platformer to enjoy.
The "New Super Mario Bros." game for Wii doesn't have me as excited as I feel I should be. Looking at the demo that was showed at the press conference, the game looked too easy. The easy difficulty was my main beef with the "New Super Mario Bros." title on Nintendo DS. The addition of four player multi-player looks like it could make it even more easy. Aside from that, the graphics don't look impressive. Of course, I hope I am wrong.
The other Wii title that had me geeking out when I first saw some gameplay footage was "Metroid: Other M". It's hard to tell how the game will work, but it looks like it combines 2D shooting and 3D shooting gameplay along with sweet action sequences into one. Needless to say I am anticipating to see how this one shapes up. Announcements on their big 3 franchises was the biggest thing Nintendo could have done. The DS also has a healthy picking of titles to loo forward to, with the new installment in the Mario & Luigi series being the biggest one in my opinion. But with Wii not living up to a lot of gamer's expectations, it is the main focus of many. Though we don't have a large slate of games to anticipate for the console, we have the hopes of our Nintendo gaming needs resting once again on the best that Nintendo has to offer, which rarely fails to deliver. Quite frankly, Nintendo has no choice but too.
Nintendo E3 Report Card Grade: B-
