Monday, June 11, 2007

What will E3 bring?

Despite popular belief, there will be an E3 conference this year, albeit on a far smaller and more exclusive scale. Nintendo will undoubtedly have some really great things to show. Please note, this article is purely speculation. I have no inside info whatsoever.



Many great things have been unveiled in the E3s of the past. The Nintendo DS, Wii Music, Super Smash Bros. Brawl, the list goes on. What will we be seeing this year? Here are some of my predictions, some hopeful, some based on fact.

Luigi's Mansion 2

Around the time of the Leipzig Games convention last year, rumours were floating around that we'd soon be seeing sequels to two Gamecube games, Luigi's Mansion and Super Mario Strikers. Well, Leipzig came, and we heard of Mario Strikers Charged!, but no Luigi's Mansion 2. We did, however, get out first glimpse at Battalion Wars II.

Shortly before the German gaming convention, Official Nintendo Magazine (ONM) stated that they had an exclusive announcement coming in their next edition. When the magazine hit newsstands, gamers were angered to learn that the "exclusive" cover story was about Battalion Wars II, which had already been previously revealed at Leipzig. This led many to believe that Battalion Wars II wasn't meant to be shown at that convention, and something else was. My assumption is Luigi's Mansion 2 was intended for the Leipzig convention, but something didn't go as planned, so they showed Battalion Wars II instead.

It's been 10 months since Leipzig, and we haven't heard a peep about Luigi's Mansion 2. Will there be one? I think so. Will we see it at E3? There's a high probability, yes. I, for one, really hope that they do announce a sequel to Luigi's only solo adventure. I enjoyed doing away with the Boos using the Poltergust 3000, and have dreamed of doing so again on the Wii. The controls would lend themselves quite nicely to the Wii remote. Here is how I would set up the control scheme if I were in charge:

Wiimote

A button: Suck with the Poltergust/interact with objects/talk
B trigger: Flashlight
D-Pad: Elemental move selection
1 button/2 button: Display map
+ button/- button: Menu
Pointer: Aiming the Poltergust and the flashlight
Motion sensors: Manipulate the Poltergust's angle

Nunchuk

Analog stick: Move/select options/change view in FPV
C button: Switch to first person view
Z trigger: Target ghosts/people/objects

I really, really hope Nintendo's working on this game!'

Star Fox Wii

The legendary Star Fox franchise has been seen on every single Nintendo console made since the SNES (Not counting the Virtual Boy), and even the DS! It only makes sense that there'd be one for the Wii! I already gave my thoughts on controls in an earlier post, so there's really not much more to be said here, except that I really hope that Star Fox Wii can return the franchise to glory.

The final game in Pokemon's 5th generation

Except for Firered and Leafgreen, every Pokemon generation has consisted of three games, two of which are released at the same time. Then, later on, a third game in the series is released, usually with exclusive features of some sort, such as new areas or side stories. Well, it's time for the successor to Diamond and Pearl to be revealed. What will it be called? What will be the difference? Heck if I know, and that's why we must wait.

New game console catalogs for the Virtual Console

It's been rumoured that we'll soon be seeing Commodore 64 and Neo Geo games on the Virtual Console. I believe these both to be true, personally. Other possible candidates for the virtual console are the SEGA Master System, Game Boy and arcade games. Don't get your hopes too high, though, we'll probably only get one more console, if any.

More original software for the Virtual Console

It's pretty certain that Impossible Mission will be hitting the Virtual Console as well as store shelves sometime later this year, but what about other games? Back when it was first announced that we'd be seeing original software on the Virtual Console, Nintendo said that they planned on making a few downloadable games themselves. What could they possibly be? A new Wii Tetris? Perhaps a Pokemon spin-off? Only time will tell when or what we'll be seeing, but I'm predicting that E3 will spill some of the beans on Nintendo's downloadable content.

A Wii hard drive/direct play off of SD cards

One things many Wii gamers are running out of is space. 512MB is nothing when you consider how many great games there are to download off of the Shop Channel! Think of how many save files some people must have! I think it's high time that Nintendo announces a firmware upgrade for the Wii that lets us use external storage devices and SD cards and play saved games and VC titles off of them. This would be a great help to those who are quickly running out of space on their Wii's Flash memory.

That's all I can think of for now. I'm sure the real announcements will dwarf my predictions by huge margins, possible in ways I never could imagine. Thoughts?

The Duck Has Spoken.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Actually, if you go to Nintendo's Japanese VC website, you will see NEOGEO and MSX on the list, so that's not a rumor.

PsychoDuck said...

I know that, p-killer, but these haven't yet been confirmed for North America, thus the rumour status.

The Duck Has Spoken.

Unknown said...

no reason to be picky but...it's the 4th gen of Pokemon.

PsychoDuck said...

Well, Reed, I sorta count Firered and Leafgreen as a generation. Maybe it's just me :|

The Duck Has Spoken.