E3 2012: The Nintendo Press Conference

It’s the second day of E3 2012, and the big press conference today was Nintendo’s. Here’s what happened.

• They start off with a demonstration of Pikmin 3, for the Wii U. The entire point of the demonstration seemed to be “Pikmin are adorable, so you must love them.”

• Nintendo of America’s President, Reggie Something, came onstage to start the conference. He says the Wii U will change three main things: your gaming, your social interaction, and your entertainment.

• Unfortunately for Nintendo, Microsoft beat them to the punch when it comes to the system providing entertainment like movies and TV. So all Nintendo did was promise their entertainment selection would be great, then they brushed it aside, saying, “The proof points will have to wait for another day.”

• They also talked about the Wii U controller. You can use your fingers or a stylus with the touchscreen, but they made it seem like the stylus is preferred.

• Remember the mysterious buttons on the controller? One is a TV Control button, which apparently lets you use the Wii U as a remote control for you TV. You can use it even when the Wii U is turned off. The other mysterious buttons were speakers, not buttons.

• They finished up by bragging that the Wii U, like the NES, can support two different controllers at once. They did not mention that nearly every system since then has supported four controllers. Nintendo: Proudly Matching Hardware Specs from the 1980s.

• Now for the Wii U’s social interaction element. The Wii U will help you connect with your gaming friends for a unique social gaming experience. Or, in other words, another Mii application.

• Yep, the Wii U will come with Miiverse! It’s like the Mii Plaza, only bigger! [Editor’s note: Or, as Nintendo painfully described at their hardware conference, it’s a combination of the words “Mii,” and “universe.”] The Miis will automatically sort themselves by the games their owners play, and they can talk in little speech bubbles. It looked like a bunch of Miis walking around, saying important Twitter updates like “Mario rules!” and “I got a high score on Beverly Hills Level 90210!”

• …Yeah, it’s pretty much Mii Plaza Meets Twitter. Nintendo warns that this application is browser-based, so it might not be available on Day One. However, you will eventually be able to access it on the 3DS and online.

• Nintendo shows off the application, in conjunction with New Super Mario Bros. U. The speech bubble status updates automatically appear on the game’s main map, letting you know important updates such as “Mario rules!” and “I got a high score on Level 3!” I am already hoping that you can turn off the constant status updates, because I don’t want them interrupting my gameplay.

• The preview for New Super Mario Bros. U demonstrated some kind of flying squirrel suit and an underwater level (ugh). There were Floating Yoshis from Super Mario Galaxy 2 and Yoshis who shoot out bubbles. Also, according to my detailed notes, “Someone can use the Wii U pad to do something to help the game.” All in all, it sounds exciting.

• Then, Nintendo showed off some third-party games. The demo of Batman: Arkham City: Armored Edition showed off new abilities that are activated by the touch screen, such as an invincibility mode and a boomerang that you can move left and right by tilting the controller.

• There was also a preview for Scribblenauts Unlimited, which has a multiplayer mode. Now you can play along with your friends and hear their important updates such as “Mario rules!”.

• They quickly showed a montage of third-party games. These include Mass Effect 3, Darksiders 2, Tank! Tank! Tank!, Tekken Tag Tournament 2, Trine 2: Director’s Cut, Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor’s Edge and Alien Colonel Marines. After seeing the montage, I can safely say that EVERY GAME IS ABOUT ALIENS AND/OR FIGHTING. Sometimes, you fight aliens.

• Nintendo shows off Wii Fit U, which comes with a brand new accessory: the Fit Meter. I have no idea what this accessory does, because it was onscreen for a grand total of two seconds, during the oddly-suggestive trailer, in which a sweaty guy and girl perform exercises such as jumping on trampolines and spraying people with hoses.

• Next was SiNG, a singing game which lets everyone join in, whether or not they have controllers. It’s pretty much karaoke. The lyrics appear on the TV and the gamepad, so everyone can sing and clap along with the song. It was slightly less epic than the singing featured in the GameCola Podcast rap battle.

• The 3DS got to show off three games. First was New Super Mario Bros. 2, which is completely different from New Super Mario Bros. U. This game is gold-themed, with gold coins, gold enemies and gold power-ups. I think this is a subtle message that Nintendo expects to make a lot of money off of this game, which will be released on August 19th.

• Paper Mario 3DS now has a brand-new gimmick, which is…stickers. STICKERS! There are stickers everywhere in the game, which you can collect and use as battle commands. For example, if you have the hammer sticker, you can use a hammer in your RPG battles. Paper Mario: Sticker Star arrives physically and digitally this holiday season.

• The third 3DS game was Luigi’s Mansion 2: Dark Moon. The game will have multiple mansions, and a cutscene where Luigi gets scared by a ghost and starts crying. This joke will be so hilarious that they will repeat it at least twenty times in the game.

• There is a brief montage of 3DS games, all of which have colons in their titles. That’s Castlevania: Lords of Shadow: Mirror of Fate, Disney’s Epic Mickey: Power of Illusion, Scribblenauts: Unlimited and Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance.

Could this be a screenshot from Paper Mario: Sticker Star?

• The next game they talk about is LEGO City Undercover, which you might remember as LEGO Grand Theft Auto from last year. Now it’s a detective game, where your crime-fighting hero goes undercover to stop criminals and complete missions. The big news, in my opinion, is that the LEGO characters actually talk in this game, instead of grunting like pigs.

• Nintendo takes a moment to mention the fact that the 3DS has full, glasses-free 3D. That has nothing to do with the Lego game, but they just wanted to mention it.

• Ubisoft comes on to show off Just Dance 4 and ZombiU. In Just Dance 4, you can use the controller to pick which dance moves the other people must perform. In ZombiU, you have to escape from herds of slow-moving, groaning zombies. It reminded me of going down the halls in high school, just before first period.

• Nintendo then wrapped up the presentation with the crown jewel of the Wii U, which they call Nintendo Land. This game will serve as the introduction to the Wii U system, just like how Wii Sports was the introduction to the Wii.

• Nintendo Land is a beautiful theme park, populated by Miis who wander around and say important updates such as “Mario rules!” In the park, you can visit twelve different attractions, aka “minigames.” These include Legend of Zelda: Battle Quest, Luigi’s Ghost Mansion, Animal Crossing Something, Donkey Kong’s Crash Course and Takamaru’s Ninja Castle.

• There was a long demonstration of Luigi’s Ghost Mansion: Haunted Hunting, which looks like multiplayer Pac-Man. The person with the Wii U controller can see the whole screen at once, unlike the other people who are playing along with Wiimotes. This seems like a grossly unfair advantage.

• Nintendo concludes the presentation by saying the Wii U launches on November 3, starting at $275, and–ha ha ha, just kidding. They didn’t mention a release date or a price for the Wii U. That’s boring information nobody cares about.

Well, that’s it for the Nintendo Press Conference! Next up, we have the Sony Press Conference, which actually took place yesterday. See you tomorrow, everyone!