E3 has come and gone, but not without the Big 3 console makers showing the gaming public their goods. Prior to the Los Angeles show Nintendo had confirmed they were working on a new console, but E3 brought the first glimpse of the Nintendo Wii U.

There was a very strong handheld presence at the show with Nintendo focusing a lot of it’s effort on it’s newly launched 3DS while Sony was showing it’s own Playstation Vita.

If their was one thing to be taking from E3 2011, it would be that gaming has really begun to emerge as a form of entertainment for everyone, not just people who live in their mother’s basement (my mother’s basement is rather nice, though).

Many of Nintendo’s offerings this year were of a somewhat smaller scale, so here is the best of the rest: (more…)

Although Zelda wasn’t playable at E3, the interactive HD experience was just what I needed to know that Wii U could cut the mustard graphically. It was basically just a looping video, but by pushing the touch screen buttons you could change the camera angle, change the lighting from dark to light, and change the from the television screen to the Wii U tablet. Just seeing video of the environments crumbling around Link with detail never before seen in a Zelda title gets me excited for what’s to come.

I have a feeling that what was shown at E3 will never make it into a Zelda title proper, but if Nintendo can pull off environments with as as much detail as what was shown at E3 for an entire epic all-new Zelda experience, sign me up.

Out of all the game demos available for Wii U at this week’s E3, I hope that Shield Pose is the one to become a retail release because of it’s unique rhythm based gameplay. The basic premise of the title was a simple one; you must use the Wii U tablet controller as a shield to block incoming suction-cup  arrows from the onscreen pirate characters. To achieve the highest possible score, you must block the arrows in tune with the beat and audio cues. The E3 build of Shield Pose had the player listening to audio ques from both the television speakers and the built in speakers of the Wii U tablet controller.

Where the Wii U controller really shines is it’s ability to give the player a window into the game world while leaving the main action on the television screen. Pirates fire arrows at you from all angles in Shield Pose, and with the magic of the Wii U controller, the player can look left and right from the main television screen and see those arrows coming at them on the Wii U tablet. If the arrows are blocked in rhythm to the music and in the order in which they were fired (left, right, center, or up), the end game score will be much higher. As I have no rhythm, the best score I manged was a ‘C.’

Shield Pose reminded me of rhythm games that came before it such as Parappa the Rapper, but with a unique Wii U twist. No word as to if the demo will become a full fledged game in the future, but I sure had a lot of fun and hope that it does.

The world learned of Heroes of Ruin’s existance right before E3 via the Facebook page of the games developer N-Space. The 3DS title is very reminisant of dungen crawling games such as Diablo and feel right at home on Nintendo’s handheld. In the E3 build availible at the show, I was given the option of choosing either a mele and a ranged class , but that was only the beginning of the customization. The Square-Enix rep that was guiding me through my playthough infomed me that the build I was playing was developed in about 3 months, but already the character customization very robust. Your on screen character could be customized right down to the fur color of the warrior. Yes I said fur. (more…)

I can honestly say that before E3 I didn’t expect much from the remastered version of Star Fox 64 for the Nintendo 3DS. After all, I waited until the the final day of the show to get my hands on the title because of the sheer amount of stuff to see at the show. Why would I waste my precious time at the show with a game I played over a decade ago? Turns out that I couldn’t have been more wrong about the title, and a good portion of my final day of E3 was spent dog fighting with Fox and the crew. (more…)