E3 '12: Nintendo Conference

Nintendo Conference 2012

Here we have it. Will Sony keep the number one spot, or will Nintendo kick it off the throne? Let's see if we can find out now!

The conference commences with a quick video of Miyamoto in his dressing room, surrounded by small and hiding Pikmin. It's all very whimsical and fun to watch. Endearing for sure. Miyamoto heads out for the stage, chased by the little Pikmin. On stage, Miyamoto even does a little shtick with the audience. Fun start to the conference.

Miyamoto calls his bitch, Bill, on stage to translate for him as he now switches from English to Japanese. Starts to talk about the WiiU, and about how they got the idea for the Gamepad. In short, they wanted to separate the gamer from the TV.

Mister Miyamoto then introduces Pikmin 3, the first real announcement of the show and it's one that has been known about for years but is finally here! The demo shows an amazingly realistic environment with the Pikmin having a very realistic effect on it. The design is great, and definitely a highlight.

New Pikmin is also announced with a Rock Pickmin, used as a boulder to crash in to stuff.

The gamepad will act as a map, or will be able to be used to play the game entirely. Overall, nice game. Long anticipated, and welcome to be shown.

Heeeeeeeeeeeeeere's Reggie! We will see 23 WiiU titles this conference. Cool beans! Let's bring it! (spoiler. They're cheating). Says WiiU will change three things in the end. It will change gaming, it will change social interaction and it will change your interaction with the TV. Also coming is Netflix, Hulu, Youtube and more.

After pimping some Nintendo sites, Reggies also announces that the WiiU will support 2 separate gamepads.

Video is shown showcasing the WiiU gamepad. It's basically a larger Gameboy Advance with analog sticks and Xbox influence with the triggers.

Reggie announces Miiverse, basically a “Main Street” for social activity on your WiiU dashboard. Mii's are there and you can talk privately or through speech bubbles.

New Super Mario Brothers U is announced. It focusses more on presenting you with a boatload of gold coins and having gold powers for Mario. For the rest, it's SMB. Buuuuut, the gamepad can help players by adding platforms for them to use.

Batman: Arkham City – Armored Edition is announced. Harley (Tara Strong) cuts Reggie off and calls out Martin from WB. Cute.

Video shows how the gamepad ads to the gameplay. This by B.A.T. Mode, which is a meter that, when filled, enhances Batman's Attack Power. It can also act as an inventory and a menu and you can select individual bombs to explode.

New Scribblenauts is announced called Scribblenauts Unlimited. It can use the gamepad as a creator. Basically, you can create anything now. Also, it has multiplayer.

At this moment, I've come to realize that the WiiU and its gamepad are a fancy 3DS, minus the 3D. It's cute, and well implemented.

Reggie headlines a video showing third party games like Darksiders II, Mass Effect 3, Tank Tank Tank, Tekken Tag Tournament 2, Trine 2: Director's Cut, Ninja Gaiden 3, Aliens: Colonial Marines and all for the WiiU.

Reggie returns with Wii Fit numbers and announces Wii Fit U. It's Wii Fit but it uses the gamepad too.

SING is announced. (working title. It's Singstar meets Just Dance. Yup.

3DS time with Scott Moffitt. By the way, they completely forgot to make this. Because it lasts ten minutes in total. Everything 3DS is for a different conference tomorrow.

What we do get is:

There will be a new Super Mario Brothers 2 game, also bout the gooooold.

New Paper Mario called Paper Mario: Sticker Star. Stickers are to be collected in the environment and will be used for card battle system.

Luigi's Mansion 2

Also, new Third Party games announced like Castlevania: Lords of Shadow – Mirror of Fate, Epick Mickey 2, Scribblenauts and Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance.

Reggie then brings us Lego City: Undercover for the WiiU. It's Lego GTA, really. And it is AWESOME. Game of the show. I'm saying it now. The writing is more “mature” than previous games. As in, it actually has a voiced story and dialog. And done marvelously so, actually.

Also coming is a portable version of this game.

Yves Guillemot comes on stage with a scripted conversation with Reggie, praising the WiiU. Then introduces Xavier to talk Just Dance 4. And, it uses the Gamepad quite nicely. The player with the gamepad actually gets to hand out dance moves to do. It's Just Troll 4! I love it.

Next up is ZombiU. One bite, you're dead zombie game where you use the gamepad as an inventory, as a scanner for the environment, as a sniper view and more. All on the screen on the gamepad. The graphics and the design are both quite nice. Very typically gamelike too.

Quick video follows with the Ubisoft lineup.

Another website pimping video. It's like they slapped this conference together in the last second.

Then … NintendoLand happened. Oh, god. NintendoLand. It's a digital themepark with 12 attractions like Luigi's Ghost Mansion, Donkey Kong's Country and Ninja Castle. It's Nintendo's version of Playstation Home with minigames. This segment was long and boring, but not as long and boring as what happened next.

Demo for Luigi's Ghost Mansion. It might be a fun game, because it looks well designed and fun to play, like a more complicated version of Pacman with 4 players and one ghost. But, in the end, it was too long, too boring and the guy showcasing the demo loved to explain every, single, solitary detail of this game and made it sound like the most boring game EVER.

And that was it. Save for a video of fireworks in NintendoLand. Fuck. This.

Nintendo's Conference was an epic fail on all fronts. Dare I say it? Yes. Microsoft's was better. Nintendo is THIRD for the Big 3.