Mario Super Sluggers
- The more you play it, the more you enjoy it – Bozon
- A lot of waggle
- With nunchuck you can aim, becomes a little more fun
- Arcade baseball, fun

- IGN exclusives planned throughout the week

NPD Data
- Nintendo still on top
- Crazy numbers since July wasn’t a huge month for Nintendo
- Bozon says that third-party games ARE selling on Wii, he had the numbers right in front of him
- Upward trend with sequels (Madden, Guitar Hero)
- Matt says there are a lot of misconceptions about sales numbers on Wii
- Tiger Woods selling best on Wii

- Some talk about Metroid Prime 3, Matt praises its graphics highly – Says art the best on Wii. Galaxy has better tech.
- Bozon thinks he likes Metroid out of the big 3, Matt still sticks by Mario Galaxy – loves music, looks good on the new screen in the IGN demo room

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InvenSense, the company that makes the MotionPlus accessory, has told Eurogamer the relationship with Nintendo is “not an exclusive” one.

According to bigwig Joe Virginia, other companies are interested in the tech – but he’s not naming any names.

“Of course we’re incredibly pleased – delighted would probably be a better adjective – that Nintendo approached us… but it’s not an exclusive relationship,” Virginia told us.

“I can’t get into details about other folks that are interested in this technology, but as you might imagine of course there is more interest out there.”

The clip-in Wii peripheral adds a “MEMS (micro electrical mechanical systems) rate gyroscope” to the Wiimote. This allows rotation around the X, Y, and Z axes produced by the accelerometer.

When asked if the technology will open doors for Wii developers, Virginia replied, “Oh absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. And the reason we say that is the type of capabilities they have.

“With six degrees of freedom you can basically make any movement at all, and be able to track that in combination with the sensor bar and other sensors included in the Wii remote. Add the gyroscope capability and you have the ability to work in all three dimensions of space,” Virginia continued.

“What you’re looking at are golf swings; tennis rackets where you can put top-spin on balls; bowling where you can bowl curves; sword motions with forward thrusts; and in Wii Sports Resort the throttle ability.” Sounds golden, Virginia.

Motion-sensing cannot work on any more axes; “Six degrees of freedom is the holy grail,” apparently. The future will be more responsive and robust gyroscopes that are smaller and cheaper to produce. The power of force feedback within the peripheral is important, too.

“I really think we’ve just begun to scratch the surface, gaming is a huge application. But if you think of where motions and where motion-sensing can be applied then there are so many applications; this is a great time to be in the business,” added Joe Virginia.

“What we hopefully have done is provide our partner with new, increased capability, and what we’re so excited to see and await with bated breath is how that will be used.

“Of course in Wii Sports Resort is one application, but what’s the future in gaming? I don’t know. We provided some great capability and we’ll see what happens,” he said.

Nintendo is yet to set a standalone price for MotionPlus, but will be bundling the peripheral with Wii Sports Resort – the game used to demonstrate gyroscopic potential during Nintendo’s E3 press conference.

We had a chance to see the game and MotionPlus at the show and were very impressed. Head to our hands-on impressions of Wii Sports Resort to find out more.

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Wii MotionPlus
- Long overdue
- Is basically what the Wiimote should have been initially
- Measures subtle rotational shifts, 1:1 – Craig says it actually works, he likes sword-fighting
- Craig “called” a new Wii Sports game right before Nintendo’s conference

Wii Sports Resort
- All 3 minigames were pretty fun
- Matt liked the disc dog game, since you can see how accurate Wii Motion Plus is – worked perfectly
- Angle, rotation played a huge part where the disc would land
- Craig thought sword-fighting was really accurate as well

WiiSpeak
- Laughably made
- Can put it anywhere in the room, cord looks gigantic (based on photos)
- Made for 3 – 4 people playing on a couch
- A third-party might make a work-around eventually (headset, microphone)
- Can use wireless keyboard in AC: City Folk
- Matt will remain skeptical until he can really test it
- Nintendo playing it safe again – Craig

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Thanks to Sagatron for sending in his review for Agatha Christie!  Remember, any reviews you have for games, just drop them in an email to tips at purenintendo.com and we’ll be sure to post it!

Introduction:

This game is a one-player point-and-click murder mystery based on the Agatha Christie’s novel by the same name. If you’re a fan of Agatha’s storytelling and have read the novel first published back in 1939, you might be asking yourself why you would want to play this game when you already know the ending. Well good news, the ending for this game is different than the book. For all of us that have not read the book (myself included), what is the point of changing the ending? To me, this seems disrespectful to Agatha’s work. However, if you finish the game, a surprise awaits for those that don’t know the original story.

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• takes place on Rougetsutou island (ficitional)
• setting is a half-western half-Japanese hotel. Hotel was previously a sanatorium.
• mystical ceremony was performed every 10 years to worship the moon, but ceremonies stopped for unknown reasons
• 5 young girls were abducted and taken to the island, but were recovered by a detective. None of the girls remember what happened on the island
• story takes place several years later when 3 girls return to the island to try and figure out what happened
• 3 girls are the main characters
• subtitle “Mask of the Lunar Eclipse” refers to a mask used during the ritual that erases memories
• concept remains the same as the rest of the series, but gameplay has been ‘dramatically improved’
• Move the character with the nunchuk, direct the flashlight with the remote
• pointer is not used, just the motions of moving a flashlight
• Third Person, behind-the-back camera
• walk/run while moving the flashlight around
• eastern and western influences were used because they better flow with the type of camera, and make the game flow better
• character has been sped up, walks more quickly. This is due to complaints about earlier installments in the series
• vibration, Wiimote speaker used to further enhance the experience
• Nintendo/Grasshopper/Tecmo collaboration worked well, but it was hard to take into account all the differing opinions.
• full of bonus content
• dev team says this is easily the best entry in the series

Top Spin 3 is a game that has a lot of potential, especially with a system like the Wii.  Wii Sports Tennis set the bar really high for a fun, interactive experience, and Top Spin 3 aims to provide a more realistic approach to tennis for the Wii.

I was really looking forward to playing Top Spin 3, because Wii Sports Tennis is one of my favorite games on the Wii right now.  The game perfectly uses the Wiimote to give a fun, and surprisingly deep level of gameplay for such a simple concept.  Top Spin 3 is definitely marketed more towards the hardcore gamer because of the control scheme and gameplay they adopted.

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Alone in the Dark is a franchise that has been around a long time.  The series recently debuted on next gen systems, Wii included.  The game is a third-person action/adventure that follows a very large, episodic storyline.

The game starts out with you waking up in the middle of, what looks like an examination room.  The opening cutscene sets up the beginning of the story where these large cracks or fissures are appearing all over the place.  As the player, your only job during this cutscene is to continuously blink your eyes using Down on the D-pad to clear your vision as you’re trying to gain your bearings.  This can get a little monotonous, but thankfully it doesn’t last long.  I don’t want to ruin the storyline, but suffice it to say Central Park plays a key role as it was built to hide something ‘big’.  Your job in the game is to survive, but also figure out what the hell is going on.

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Wii Version

One of the most amazing third-party Wii games at E3 was EA’s Skate It.  The game carries a lot in common with last year’s Skate for the 360 and PS3.  The storyline revolves around a disaster that happens in the city from the first Skate.  The entire city is now in ruins and your character gets to skate wherever they want.  EA really wanted to emphasize an open environment where the players could skate virtually anywhere and anyway they want to.

The demo of the game consisted of one basic area in the heart of the ruined city.  All the main elements for a skating game were there: gaps, jumps, verts, fun boxes, rails, and all sorts of skatable rubble.  First, I got to try the game using just the Wii Remote.  Every move and button can be mapped to only the Wii remote, and it basically controls just like a skateboard.  To turn left, tilt the Wiimote left.  To ollie, flick the Wii remote up.  It’s very intuitive and easy to get used to grinding and performing tricks to string together multiple lines.  The game’s scoring system is based on how many tricks you can do within a given ‘line’.  There are all sorts of combo multipliers and linking varied tricks can lead to a lot of points.

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Right now, Animal Crossing: City Folk is the topic of discussion

- Halloween has returned to the game

- WiiConnect 24 will send you new items

- the city has a theater that puts on comedy shows

- friends can visit the city while you aren’t there, and the other way around as well

- You are now able to create the front, back, and sleeves of your shirt

- once again, you can take photos, save them to an SD card, and send them to friends

- If you have a friend that leaves the town, the connection will disappear for everyone…just like Wild World

- you can transport your Wild World DS character to City Life to play as them. You can also bring data that represents all of your all of your items/collectables, and then visit Tom Nook in the Wii version to recollect them.

- You can take character data to your DS, move the data to a friend’s Wii, and visit a town that way. That’s for people that don’t have wifi at home.

- In Japan, you can take your DS to a download station to grab the new content for City Folk.

- the DLC is brand-new, not already on the disc

- There will be no NES titles available in City Folk

- There will be no interconnectivity with the Wii Forecast Channel, on real-time in-game weather.

- seasons are still inverted for souther hemisphere

We’ve moved onto Wii Sports Resort. No new information yet, just dev playthroughs of each game.

- Wii MotionPlus measures angles of rotation and adds that measurement to what the Wiimote is already capable of, allowing for 1:1 motion.

- Wii Sports Resort features multiplayer in the sense of passing Wiimotes with MotionPlus attached, and then there are other multiplayer games that require each player to have a MotionPlus accessory.

- the resort setting was picked because it fit well with the collection of games included. Nintendo cannot talk about the total number of games in Wii Sports Resort, but they are hoping that there are at least 10.

- The MotionPlus was created just because there were games they would like to do, but the Wiimote didn’t allow for it. It wasn’t created as a necessity, but just something to make more movement possible.

- Nintendo will not answer whether the original Wii Airplane demo will be present in Wii Sports Resort.

- Nintendo is trying to decide whether or not they should create a Wiimote that has the motionplus tech already inside, instead of as an accessory. They have not made a decision at this time.

- Nintendo is trying to use the motionplus in a way that doesn’t over-complicate games, but adds to the overall experience.

We are moving on to Wii Music…

- So far, just a rehash of all the stuff we know

- there are roughly 50 songs. public domain songs, popular licensed music as well

- Nintendo isn’t thinking about adding new music via WC24. They do respect the growing connection rate and use of WC24, but they are mainly concerned with the widest user base possible.

- Someone asks why Nintendo is calling this a game instead of a musical toy. Isn’t it more like a toy, the person asked. Miyamoto answered (not verbatim), yes…it is more like a toy. That’s why it’s more fun than a video game.

Nintendo will not comment on a direct-sequel to Wave Race, but they feel that the mode within Wii Sports Resort will surpass Wave Race in depth

Miyamoto says that Pikmin team and the Zelda team are all enjoying creating their games…but he does not mention specifically what games they are working on. Of course, this statement would lead us to believe that they are hard at work on Zelda and Pikmin sequels.

Miyamoto just 100% confirmed Pikmin. his official statement as ‘We are making Pikmin’

Wii Music will feature tutorials for other instruments besides drums

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