Nintendo Media Summit – Day 1 conference
Summary from IGN
Nintendo Media Summit begins. Cammie takes stage. Talks about her new role at Nintendo. Mentions Wii Fit. “Wii Fit can show people who have never had an interest in gaming that this is something that is a heck of a lot of fun to be involved with.” Dunaway also says, “Wii Fit is very much an answer to core gamers.”
Dunaway refers to Mario Kart as a “bridge” title that will appeal to both casual and hardcore players.
Confirms that NOA will spend some time over the next two days talking about WiiWare. (IGN knows of several WiiWare games expected to be demoed throughout Friday, including LostWinds.)
“Want to make sure that [Wii] is an opportunity for game developers to try something different.” References Boom Blox, de Blob and Guitar Hero DS.
One more piece of news: Mario Super Sluggers. Coming to America. “We think that this is going to take these three wonderful areas of Mario, baseball and the unique capabilities of the Wii remote and bring them together in an exciting experience.”
NOA’s Bill Trinen takes the stage to chat about Mario Super Sluggers. Begins demoing the game. Previews the pitching and hitting mechanics, which are operated by the Wii remote. Gamers will pitch the ball by making a throwing motion with the Wii remote. To add spin to the ball, players simply twist the Wii remote while throwing.
Fielding the ball seems extremely simple. Bill just shakes the Wii remote and the fielders will automatically run toward hit balls. Once a ball is scooped up, he makes a throwing motion and they auto-throw it to the intended base.
Several of Bill’s movements have gone unrecognized by the game. Not a very good sign.
Now Bill demonstrates the batting mechanics. When the ball is pitched, he can pull back the Wii remote and make a swinging motion to hit it. Alternatively, he can make a quick jerking movement with the Wii remote to hit the ball — ideal for players uninterested in making grand movements to play Wii titles.
“Very simple and very approachable. It’s based entirely off motion control. It’s going to take the Wii Sports crowd and bring them into something that’s more of a robust experience,” Bill explains.
From seeing the demo in motion, we can confirm the following characters thus far: Mario, Luigi, Princess Peach, Daisy, Bowser, DK, Hammer Bro, Baby Mario, Baby Luigi, Waluigi, Wario, Toad, Toadette, Shy Guy, and Boo. The two teams in play were the Mario Fire Bats, and the Peach Royals.
Trinen promises more information about the game to come — but not this week.
Next, he starts up Wii Fit and begins to demo.
Bill steps on the Wii Balance Board, at which point the game boots up, shows his BMI and body weight, and displays a number of graphs charting his progress since he first started playing. A BMI graph very accurately displays Bill’s weight loss and gain over the course of the last several weeks.
Trinen begins playing Wii Fit — specifically, the “warrior” pose in the game’s Yoga section. Bill seems well practiced and has good form as he holds this position. The game very accurately reads his positioning and the virtual yoga instructor doles out dynamic advice. In Bill’s case, she recommends that he apply more weight to his right leg since his balance is so good. After the session, the yoga instructor notes that one of Bill’s legs felt stiffer than the other — highly accurate given that Trinen recently sprained his ankle.
Next, Bill shows off a strength-training portion of the game — push-ups. Afterward, the yoga instructor says, “I’m impressed. You’re pretty strong.”
Trinen shows off a couple more exercises in Wii Fit and the demo concludes.
Now, Pokemon Mystery Dungeon 2.
The game is a sequel to the original Pokemon Mystery Dungeon, one on DS, one on the Game Boy Advance. This time, both games will be on the Nintendo DS.
At the start of the game you wake up on the beach with no recollection of how you got there. Like the original game you were once a human and now have been turned into a Pokemon creature. You have a partner Pokemon to help you along the adventure. Your relationship with your partner Pokemon grows over the course of the adventure.
Because it’s a Mystery Dungeon game, all the dungeons are randomly generated. You will not find the same set of dungeons twice. You level up your characters and learn new moves as you go along. It’s all turn-based, but it also features real-time gameplay elements.
The way you recruit pokemon is to defeat them in the dungeons. They’ll ask to join your party and then you can use them as team members in future dungeons. You have to get him safely out of the dungeon to keep him.
You can view your range as well as the enemy’s range by pulling up an on-screen grid that shows each on-screen character’s available distance.
Visually the game isn’t much of a step above the original Pokemon Mystery Dungeon. It’s entirely in 2D, the gameplay takes place on the lower screen with the upper screen showing the overworld map or dungeon map. You can change what the top screen displays during the action. The demoer put the team statistics up there while he battled.
The game has the same “rescue a friend via Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection” system that Shiren the Wanderer on the Nintendo DS. This time, you can register an email address where you can get an alert when your friend needs to be rescued over the internet.
Some of the questions asked include “You smell something delicious, what do you do?” “What do you do in the last stretch of a marathon?” “How do you blow up a balloon?” “What do you think a ship on the high seas contains?” “Will you dance if you feel happy?” “Do you get bothered by noise and ruckus?” “Have you had any hobbies?” “Are you male or female?” The answers determine what kind of Pokemon you will be in the adventure. During the demo, he became a Turtwig. You can pick a partner Pokemon character from a list, which removes same-type pokemon so players don’t double up on the same type.
There’s a pre-purchase incentive for the game: an Explorer’s Guide for each of the two versions.
End of the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon 2 demo. And now Guitar Hero: On Tour for Nintendo DS.
Karthik Bala from Vicarious Visions is demoing the DS game. But we cannot live blog this demo. Radio Silence.
The next demo is Boom Blox from EA. Developed by EA in collaboration with director Steven Spielberg. A gameplay montage is shown. Boom Blox is a block-based puzzler in which players use the Wii remote to knock down the structures. There’s much more to it, but think Jenga with balls and bombs. THe title features 400 levels. Gamers can pull any of them into the title’s create mode — a full-blown level editor. (Alternatively, gamers can start from scratch.) Boom Blox uses a very realistic physics system.
