Hi, I have to ask if you’ve been watching the same E3 conference that I’ve been watching. You always say that content is the most important thing, the one thing that video game companies are in a habit of ignoring, and this is a point I’ve always particularly identified with. Going into Nintendo’s conference, I was thoroughly disappointed to see only one original IP (Epic Mickey) mentioned in the entire showing, drowned out by the unusally exceptional number of franchise sequels and remakes. Even Kid Icarus, the one franchise that hasn’t been touched in so long it may be called original, was a blatant mimicry of a sci-fi shooting game (*coughSin&Punishmentcough*), going so far as to have a mythical castle SHOOTING LASERS! It couldn’t even stay consistent with its own Greek mythological content.
.
So I have to ask, what made this conference the best since E3 2006, because I couldn’t see a single game in the list that surprised me or excited me.
After a long period of time, releasing an update on an old series is considered a ‘new IP’ by publishers. IF you read my website, you’d know I do not fault Mario 5 that it didn’t add anything really new to the Mario mythos. It has been 18 years since a new 2d Mario on console. That length of time made even old content seem fresh. My worry is that with Mario 6, they cannot just have ‘mountain world’ and ‘ice world’. They need to be more imaginative and add something to the Mario continuum or else Mario 6 will come across as ‘flat’ and ‘stale’ no matter what gameplay innovations they put in it.
Let us look at the Kid Icarus Uprising trailer together, shall we?
That voice acting is just horrid. Bad! Bad!
This is how Kid Icarus ended:
Note the laser beams coming from Pit’s sword and Meduce’s ‘eye beams’. Then there are blocks falling from the sky. So I don’t see anything in the trailer contradicting the original game. Except. The. Horrid. Voice. Acting.
Not sure where you are getting the Sin and Punishment gameplay from.
I love how Reggie says ‘Retroid studios, FROM TEXAS, has…’ because it was very important to know that Retro comes from Texas. Most people do not realize that Texas is the third biggest state in terms of game development. From my standpoint, all my favorite game companies have come from Texas. Origin. Simtex. id. And others. The reason why Retro games are so good has to do with a combination of Atomic Fireballs and Texas barbecue. (If any journalist asks, Retro will confirm this is the truth.)
DKC 4 is the new Mario 5. There hasn’t been a new DKC game in 16 years. Even if DKC 4 has the same exact content as DKC 1, it won’t matter since it has been 16 years since everyone forgot DKC 1 content. And we don’t know what content DKC 4 will have until we see more of the game. If DKC 5 comes out a few years from now and has similar content, then there will be problems. But after 16 years, DKC 4 can do whatever it wants.
With Zelda, we didn’t see any content. How do we know if they are using old content or new content if nothing was shown?
Aside from Other M and GoldenEye, there were no sequels shown at this E3. There were series revivals such as Kid Icarus and Donkey Kong. But no sequels. Unlike Mario 5 and DKC 4, Kid Icarus NES was so primitive that its world is as undetailed as the original Super Mario Brothers or Metroid. Kid Icarus is going to have to define its game world which will be interesting to see how they do it.
There is a much wider diversity of content displayed here than there was a year ago with just Galaxy 2, Wii Fit, and Other M. As I said before, publishers consider a revival of a decade long sleeping series to be a ‘new IP’.
The theme of E3 2010 could be ‘revivals’ from Kid Icarus, Donkey Kong, Mario Sports games, and Kirby. Seeing Nintendo make games outside their usual three legged stool of Mario, Zelda, and Metroid is welcomed.
Malstrom's Articles News 