Last up was Nintendo and there were many questions which gamers wanted answered, how much was the Wii U going to cost? What were the launch titles?
It was a great start, with Shigeru Miyamoto came out and delighted us all with Pikmin 3. Making great use of the extra screen on the Wii U gamepad this seemed like a great path which Nintendo were taking, were there going to be any more delights for us? Unfortunately not much jumped out.
Nintendo promised to concentrate on games and would not take the "entertainment" route taken by their two competitors. There were plenty of games on show, but none which stood out from the rest. There was a new Super Mario Bros 2D side scrolling game, Super Mario Bros U, and showed off the great new feature of being able to transfer gameplay from the TV onto the extra screen. As well as a Wii U version, a 3DS version entitled New Super Mario Bros 2 places great emphasis on collecting as many coins as you can. Not content with showing offjust two Mario games, Luigi's Mansion 2 and a new Paper Mario were both announced for the 3DS.
But many of the other games Nintendo showed were third party titles which have been released on other consoles. Mass Effect 3, Ninja Gaiden 3 and Alien Colonial Marines are all games which are/will be on competitor consoles. A title which falls in to that category is Batman Arkham City, but the Wii U has been given a subtitle; Armoured Edition. The addition to the Armoured Edition sees Batman with a new suit which has unique abilities like new combat moves. It seems a neat addition but would it appeal to you enough for you to spend at least £40 on a game which you played a year ago?
Not just appealing to the core gamers, Wii U Fit with new ways of using the gamepad and a working title called Sing were shown to the crowd.
One of the stand out games from the conference was Ubisoft's ZombiU. From the trailer shown, ZombiU looks like a first person action adventure game with the sole aim of surviving the zombie hordes. With many uses for the gamepad including as a sniper scope, an inventory and a scanner, ZombiU seems to be one of the few games which use the gamepad screen in a truly innovative way.
While many were expecting a new Zelda or even Metroid game to end the conference, that was not the case. Much emphasis was placed on NintendoLand. Nintendo have said that this will be the Wii Sports equivalent for the Wii U as it will get the player familiarised with the Wii U console and will launch with the console in the Winter. NintendoLand is essentially a massive virtual theme park with many different nintendo themed areas. An example shown was the Luigi's Mansion area where the person with the gamepad would act as the ghost and would be against 3/4 other players with wiimotes who are all trying to survive by working together. The GamePad players sees all the other players on the game screen, but the players can't see the ghost who the GamePad player is controlling. The Wii Remotes rumble when the invsible ghost is near – players will need to co-operate telling each other when they're rumbling to get the ghost. They then use their torches to 'burn' the ghost. When the ghost attacks a human, the human faint, but humans can revive the downed player.
It was great that Nintendo focused on the games as opposed to their competitors, but were there any games on show at the conference which you would say would persuade you to buy a Wii U on launch??
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