Cubed has put together a nice roundup for what was said in IGN’s Wii-kly Review.
- To start with, they both reckoned that Wii Fit was worthy of “Oprah”;
- They describe Metroid Prime 3 as “frickin’ awesome,” particularly liking the cockpit scene. They say the story is Halo-esque and the gameplay is very smooth, stating “Our videos are not going to do it justice.” Bozon played Turok afterwards and said the controls felt archaic by comparison. Some journalists have made comments about how the Metroid design was watered down, but Matt says that such comments are stupid because it is a demo after all, and the MP3 demo was structured similarly to the MP1 and MP2 demos;
- Super Mario Galaxy is their game of the show and Bozon was able to play two levels not available to the rest of the press (thanks to Miyamoto). The long-jump manoeuvre helps increase the game’s speed. You can control the jump in mid-air with the analogue stick. A second player can use his cursor to freeze Mario in mid-air during a long-jump. If you long-jump off a small body, you might be able to do a full 360 around a planet. “Feels better than Mario 64″. The Galaxy design means that the designers are not grounded in reality or have restrictions;
- WiiFit talk. Many game-based elements are being added to increase the “fun” factor. Matt
thought it was nice.
- Bozon calls Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles a “mish-mash” that has “some ways to go” since the cursor is not smooth and shooting does not feel visceral. Bozon is comparing its development to Red Steel;
- The NiGHTS sequel is currently clunky and framey, but Craig Harris is looking forward to it, even though Matt is not;
- Carnival Games really does need to be $20 as it is far too simple;
- Furu Furu Park is yet another mini-game collection that proves to be pretty shallow and should certainly be cheap;
- The new Spyro game is a direct sequel to A New Beginning, whilst Crash of the Titans is two-player co-op. There is some IR work in Crash, whilst Crash’s spinning is done by rapidly hitting the B trigger and spinning the analogue stick;
- Fishing Master looks terrible visually. Yet there are some smart Wii control techniques implemented. Every time you cast, you catch a fish. “Kinda cool, but super basic”. Cool for a kid’s game or a rental;
- Dewy’s Adventure is “Sort of good, but not great. Has potential”;
- Trauma Centre: New Blood is looking really good. IGN is trying to get it in office within a month and trying to get exclusive coverage for it;
- Nitro Bikes is developed by Left Field for Ubisoft, the same team that did Excitbike 64 for the N64, which Matt and Bozon loved. Sadly, though, Matt does not think most of the original team is still there;
- Super Mario Galaxy is supposed to be as long and deep as Super Mario 64. The freeze manoeuvre seems to be a two-player only thing for now;
- There may well be an exclusive event within a month’s time devoted to Smash Bros. Brawl;
- Nintendo has not abandoned its core audience. However, casual games seem to be an internal
priority. The whole truth will be told in 2008;
- Matt believes that Smash Bros. Brawl will be online, despite recent speculation to the contrary;
- Nintendo failed to talk about the resurrected Nintendo franchise that Matt referred to last week. In response to this he says, “Even if it did get cancelled it would be taken up by another publisher. Oh, no it wouldn’t. Sorry. That couldn’t happen. Yeah. Well you can take whatever you want from that answer;”
- As for the Factor 5 issue, in which there has been speculation about a Wii project, Matt implies something about the company’s project not being disc-based and mentions up its back catalogue (presumably tying in with the ESRB listings for Turrican and Super Turrican on Wii recently). “Whatever we see from Factor 5 initially will just be a first step;”
- The Wii Balance Board really does feel like a set of scales;
- They believe there is no reason Smash Bros. Brawl should not be online since Jump Ultimate Stars is (Ed: but surely there is a major difference between DS and Wii online due to the amount going on on-screen?!);
- The lack of Battalion Wars 2 makes both Matt and Bozon angry! Matt thinks Nintendo may show it at Leipzig (where it was originally unveiled);
- There could be a hardcore-gamer-focused event from Nintendo in a month and a half or so;
- Both of them like the game concepts shown with the Balance Board, such as the snowboarding game;
- Akin to Super Mario Bros. 3, there will be lots of suits found in Super Mario Galaxy.
It looks like Matt was hinting around that we may be seeing a lot of stuff at the Lezbirg conference next month. Which is about a month and a half away. I hope it comes true.
Loading ...