[CC'11] I Put My Hands on Games Part 1: Nintendo

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Reputation: 65 [CC'11] I Put My Hands on Games Part 1: Nintendo

So as some of you may know I had the fortune of being able to attend Comic-Con International in San Diego last week. And while there was a lot of cool costumes, tv shows and movie related news I decided to tell you about the one thing you all care about: games. So here's the first part of my hands on with the video games playable at SDCC starting with Nintendo. Mario Kart 7
The second the racing began I was reminded of the wondrous days in highschool playing Mario Kart DS. This game is everything MKDS was, now in glorious 3D. The gameplay was tight and focused and didn’t feel as loose as Mario Kart Wii. I really like the graphics. They’re not mind blowing but they’ve finally lost the fuzziness that was present in MKDS. I also got to play around a little with the cart customization which allows you to change body style, wheels and other things on your kart. The levels on display were quick ports from other Mario Kart games so I didn’t get a good look at any new stages that will be present in the final release. The AI seemed to be taking a little easier this time though this could have been a pre-set condition of the demo. I managed to stay in first place and only got hit by a blue shell once which is a huge improvement over the stupid amount of items that 1st place gets hit with in Mario Kart Wii Kid Icarus: Uprising
Now I’m really excited to play this game, especially after having tried out the demo. I managed to try both the flight and the ground combat. The flight controls were a little tricky. It requires that you use both the circle pad, the L button and the touchscreen. The touchscreen was used to control where you aim, the L button fired, and the circle pad was used to maneuver Pit around the screen. The 3D effect was really nice here which mostly focused on the fact that Pit seems to actually be moving around in a 3D environment. The gameplay was fast paced. Enemies swarmed the screen, forcing me to shoot and slash my way through. There was lots of dialogue (voiced over) between Pit and Palutena which was well voiced though came off as a bit cheesy especially near the end of the demo when Pit started spouting something corny about Medusa facing the light. The ground combat seemed interesting though I have a few doubts about the final product. In the sky, the game is entirely on rails. On the ground, you have a limited ability to explore the environment. There were a few hidden chests scattered about the world which contained items that healed Pit and possibly fulfilled other roles which I have yet to discover based on my limited time with the demo. At the very end of the demo there was a boss battle with what was basically Cerberus. On the ground Pit still could fire his bow and slash at close by enemies only now you had to actually dodge attacks as opposed to just flying about. It was rather easy to defeat Cerberus who didn’t put up much resistance despite jumping around the coliseum the battle took place in. All in all I’m well excited for this game and the demo only increased by excitement. The controls may take a little getting used to but I’m sure that more than twenty minutes with the game and they’ll be perfectly fine. Super Mario 3D Land
Ah this is going to be a big one. I can already see it. But Mario always is. The levels on display here were the same as E3. The 3D effect was astounding in this game and I can see that this game, much like Super Mario Galaxy on Wii, is going to push the system. I got my hands on two levels: a large open area, and a 2D style level that owned much to the older Mario titles. Rather than collecting a star however, the object of these levels was to reach a flag pole similar to Super Mario on NES. I also noticed that if you got hit by an enemy, there wasn’t a health meter. Instead, Mario shrunk down in size like the games of old. The Koopa Kids seem to be returning as well. So from what I can tell this game is basically a mash-up of all the great things from Mario over the years. All in glorious 3D. The gameplay was typical Mario. I jumped on goombas, collected coins and navigated through the environment by jumping. Mario had access to a rolling move which was used to smash cardboard goombas and get underneath objects to collect coins. Strangely it didn’t seem to kill enemies. Also I couldn’t seem to pull off Mario’s trademark 3-jump move. Perhaps it was there and I just suck at it but it didn’t seem possible in the build presented to me. There were 3 star coins present in each of the levels that could be collected similar to the coins in New Super Mario Bros. I imagine these will fulfill a similar role in this game as they did in NSMB. I can’t help feeling that the levels presented were merely a tech demo as this game didn’t really seem to have its own identity but rather took a bunch of things from older Mario games. That doesn’t mean that I don’t have faith in this game, quite the opposite given Nintendo’s track record on Mario games, but I’m curious as to how this game will stand out from the other Mario games. The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword
I have been waiting for Nintendo’s latest Zelda for a very long time and judging by the demo, it will not disappoint. Yes, the sword controls are completely 1:1 with the Wii Remote. There was very little, if any, lag present in swinging the controller and the on-screen animation. It was often annoyingly precise as I would swing the controller angled slightly crooked and it would mimic the move on-screen. Predictably, the enemies all had to be killed by swinging from a certain angle. It added a nice challenge to the game. The graphics are nice but they lack a certain sharpness to them, mainly due to the Wii’s hardware limitations. But they are by no means ugly. Everything else about the controls seemed to work flawlessly. I’m guessing that due to the fact that the Skyward Sword will transform into the Master Sword at some point in the final game, this game is all about upgrades. In the demo I played, the Beetle was transformed into the Upgraded Beetle, which gave it the claw that it has been shown with in various gameplay demos. Using it was controlled by tilting the Wiimote in the direction you want it to go. Using the bow seemed a lot more complex than it used to be, although I really didn’t have a whole lot of time because I wanted to see the levels they had on display. There were three: a dungeon, the boss battle with new villain Ghirahim, and a Skyloft stage where you raced on giant birds. Ghirahim is an odd fellow, not seeming to care what Link does so long as Zelda falls into his grasp. The battle wasn’t particularly difficult, revolving around the age old Nintendo ‘attack, dodge enemy attack, attack’ formula. And unfortunately I didn’t get a chance to check out the bird riding mini-game, mainly cause there was a huge line behind me.

And that's all the time I had in the Nintendo lounge. Join me next time as I tell you about Star Wars: The Old Republic and Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City

Written By: Norman Ford

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