Moderator: Thanas
First, Grossman described using the Wii playing The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. "Now I'm Errol Flynn, sword fighting with the controller, then aiming a bow and arrow, then using it as a fishing rod, reeling in a stubborn virtual fish," he said. While Nintendo confirmed the much-anticipated GameCube title would have some Wii functionality, this is the first official description of what said functionality is.
yesAce Pace wrote:Zelda sword fighting on Wii
First, Grossman described using the Wii playing The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. "Now I'm Errol Flynn, sword fighting with the controller, then aiming a bow and arrow, then using it as a fishing rod, reeling in a stubborn virtual fish," he said. While Nintendo confirmed the much-anticipated GameCube title would have some Wii functionality, this is the first official description of what said functionality is.
Your head is humming and it won't go, in case you don't know, the piper's calling you to join himClancy's Got a KnifeFrom the team that brought the world Prince of Persia and Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell comes a sophisticated new franchise utilizing the power of next-gen technology for its complex action. The first game in the Assassin's Creed franchise is set in 1191 AD, when the Third Crusade was tearing the Holy Land apart. Shrouded in secrecy and feared for their ruthlessness, the Assassins intend to stop the hostilities by suppressing both sides of the conflict. Players, assuming the role of the main character Altair, will have the power to throw their immediate environment into chaos and to shape events during this pivotal moment in history.
Damn, looks like I might end up buying another EA/Dice disaster, er, game.Mr Bean wrote:Battlefield 2142 Ingame Video
Looking MUCH more impressive than before... and the portable Drop pod apc? That's acutaly looks like fun.
Oh and looks like BF2142 will have the TF equivlant of a Heavy weapons guy.
As confirmed in the company's earnings call last week, Call of Duty 3 is coming out this fall, and it won't be headed to the PC, where the franchise started. COD3 will be released for all next-gen systems, as well as the Xbox and PlayStation 2. As of this morning, a developer was not yet mentioned, but speculation has it that it won't be Infinity Ward, and will likely be Treyarch, the team that built Call of Duty: Big Red One for current-gen systems. COD3 will be set during the "Normandy Breakout," when the Allied Forces liberated Paris.
1:02 pm The conference is starting with a cavalcade of announced products on video--Dawn of Mana, Final Fantasy V and VI for GBA, Rocket Slime (!), some mobile stuff. President Yoichi Wada's now taking the stage, wasting no time talking about the promise of next-gen and telling us they've got some hot secrets for us today. So let's have 'em already!
1:06 COO Daishiro Okada is now on stage discussing the upcoming lineup. Final Fantasy XII will be out October of this year. Finally. Also some mobile stuff. Space Invaders? Elevator Action? Dirge of Cerberus: Lost Episodes also on mobile this summer.
1:10 Now we're getting into the meat with a long trailer for Final Fantasy XII, all in English. Sounds like they're sparing no expense on the voice acting for this one--it's all appropriately haughty, in line with the tone of the story.
1:18 More trailers for announced, current-gen stuff like Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth and the latest FFXI expansion. Now it's Final Fantasy on mobile--I knew my nerd sense was tingling for a reason.
1:24 Looks like their mobile strategy rages unabated--Dirge is the standout since it's all in 3D. Now we've got Final Fantasy III for DS, billed as "the only Final Fantasy never to reach Western shores." They're urging us to "complete the fantasy" with this 3D remake--fine by me since it looks like the best DS RPG yet.
1:28 Final Fantasies V and VI for GBA--not the biggest news, but near and dear to many hearts for sure. Promised to have new surprises. Now it's Mana time, starting off with the sorta middling Children of. But what's this? Ten years before Children of Mana, a 3D game: Dawn of Mana, of course. More CG than gameplay, but it looks pretty good.
1:32 Once upon a slime! It's Dragon Quest Heroes: Rocket Slime, which is the most bafflingly adorable name I've ever heard. Apparently, "it's payback slime." So cute, I'm sold. Now Shinji Hashimoto is taking the stage to talk about the utterly unsurprising massive success of the many Final Fantasy VII projects, from Advent Children to Dirge and the mobile games. Hey, and a US date for Dirge: August 22, with new features included.
1:43 Still showing off the Compilation of FFVII stuff, all of which is out here or in Japan. Bring on the next-gen games!
1:49 I spoke too soon: Here's our first real footage of FFVII Crisis Core for the PSP. Stars Zack of Soldier fame, apparently, and there's a ton of Sephiroth in here (down, boys 'n girls). No gameplay footage, only real-time cutscenes, but it looks amazing for a PSP game.
1:51 Here we go--Dragon Quest is coming to the Wii. Some dude is fighting a stone golem in a forest. Dragon Quest Swords: The Masked Queen and the Tower of Mirrors. Launch title for the Wii! No real footage of the game, but still, big news.
1:54 The hits keep on coming--now we have Akitoshi Kawazu, exec. producer of Crystal Chronicles. Two new games from that series: one DS, one Wii. DS game is Ring of Fates, and will have wi-fi multiplayer (duh). Looks a bit more whimsical than the Cube version, same basic sense of style though. They're showing four players at once, like you'd expect. Yay DS!
1:58 And here comes the Wii title. That Final Fantasy theme still makes me all misty-eyed. Wow, these visuals are nice--random shots of CC-style little dudes fighting bombs and other monsters. If any of that was real-time footage of the game, the Wii graphics ought to do us just fine. Hard to say if it was just CG, though. Code name: Chrystal Chronicles: The Crystal Bearers. No major details on the game available yet though.
2:02 Final announcement! For PS3! E3 is so damn exciting sometimes. What is it?!
FINAL FANTASY XIII. FINAL FANTASY XIII. They pulled a serious bait-and-switch on us. Sword-and-gun-wielding heroine who looks like Yuna, flipping her way around a high-tech, futuristic world. No idea what it was until the end when that NAME popped up. Yoshinori Kitase directing! This is the guy behind all the best ones--VI, VIII, VIII, X. Be still my heart.
2:08 Sorry, I jumped the gun--Mr. Kitase was merely presenting. Motomu Toriyama will direct the game. And apparently FFXIII isn't the only game coming out of this universe--there's a, uh, mobile game too. Oh. It's Final Fantasy Agito XIII.
Now it's Fabula Nova Crystallis--"the new tale of the crystal" in Latin. They're big on the Latin today. Whoa, wait, another new game? Another PS3 game?! Final Fantasy Versus XIII? They're emphasizing that in Latin, versus means "to change direction." This is a Tetsuya Nomura game, and he's taking the stage now.
2:17 Nomura is providing more details. The CG movie we just saw, featuring a spiky-haired character (natch) squaring off against machine gun-wielding soldiers, was created by the Advent Children team, but the game itself will be made by the Kingdom Hearts team, and will feature "extreme action elements." He says "bonding" will be the primary theme of the game.
1:58 And here comes the Wii title. That Final Fantasy theme still makes me all misty-eyed. Wow, these visuals are nice--random shots of CC-style little dudes fighting bombs and other monsters. If any of that was real-time footage of the game, the Wii graphics ought to do us just fine. Hard to say if it was just CG, though. Code name: Chrystal Chronicles: The Crystal Bearers. No major details on the game available yet though.
Your head is humming and it won't go, in case you don't know, the piper's calling you to join him
Well, Heavenly Sword looked good (although the combat style was taken entirely from God of War), and we got to see a FF13 vid...Mobius wrote:gosh, that was utter crap, i can't believe that i'll go to bed at 4AM because i wanted to see: a karaoke song shop, a rip off the Wii controller....
at the 500 and 600 dollar price tags for the 20 gig and 60 gig flavors.
9:00am A mass of industry media has assembled in the cylindrical multi-tiered lobby of the Kodak Theater, as they wait to file into their arranged seating. Things are moving slowly, but thankfully there hasn't been anything that resembles the hiccups that plagued Sony's conference.
9:25: The hall is filling up--it's about 80 percent full now, so it looks like the press conference will start close to its scheduled time of 9:30am.
9:28: The Kodak Theatre is a great venue for this event--a beautiful old Beaux Arts structure. Inside, the stage is dark except for a huge glowing Nintendo logo.
9:30: The attendees have repeatedly been told that the conference will begin promptly at 9:30. They've also been told to turn off their laptops, and cell phones. Neither side appears to be keeping its end of the bargain.
9:31: The MC has noted that the event will start promptly, an apparent dig at Sony, whose pre-show press conference yesterday started 50 minutes late. The announcement sparks a ripple of laughter from the attendees.
9:34: The conference did not start promptly. Laptops are still powered on throughout the theater. Stalemate?
9:35: The lights dim.
9:36: It's on. A giant screen rises behind the stage, and Miyamoto enters from the left, grinning like a little boy.
9:37: Mock symphony playing familiar Nintendo music as CG characters play the Legend of Zelda theme. Miyamoto is really hamming it up.
9:37: Thunderous applause. What looks like RC Pro Am is on the stage. Except this ain't your daddy's RC Pro Am. One player on an elevated stage is controlling the game using the Wii controller.
9:38: Red Steel is on now. Another player makes slashing motions with his controller. Miyamoto goes back to conducting to electronic orchestral music. Reggie welcomes the crowd with "If you're looking for the next genereation, you're in the wrong place. We're not just next, we're new. It's no longer confined to the few. It's about everyone. What you see is now always what you get. Playing is believing."
9:42: Video demo running now. Begins with Pixar rip-off Wii ad, with the bouncing lights. Hip kids and others use the controller to play drums, tennis, golf, play maestro, race cars, MARIO! Speaker in controller confirmed.
9:43: Mario fights a giant Octoboss in a pit of lava. A kid flies a biplane with the Wiimote. Metroid FPS shown.
9:43:: Table Tennis with wiimote - take that rockstar.
timsaky@mac.com (9:43:37 AM): Now they're showing wacky Japanese party games include paper sredding, key unlocking, squats???
9:43: Two-player ping-pong, a track meet game, a range of mini-games incorporating the controller (hula hoop, broom balancing), baseball, more Red Steel...
9:44: ...and here's Link!
9:45: Link is fishing with nunchuku. Player nearly falls out of his chair as the crowd goes ballistic. Zelda is confirmed for 2006. Reggie back on stage.
9:46:"Today you will see, and tomorrow you will start to feel." He says that Nintendo will offer up "inspiration" rather than "information" this week.
9:47: Now Reggie is talking about the fact that many gamers know people who have "never played a video game." He says "this has to change."
9:47: Reggie notes there are some questions that people probably want to ask: pricing/availability, why the name, why so different? Reggie pooh-poohs incremental improvements. "That strategy works, but ultimately it's fatal."
9:49: "In the same way that Mario 64 changed everything, we ask, how can we make games feel new again?" Reggie says there won't be a price announced today.
9:50: "As for date and price, we think its best to keep those details quiet a little longer. You will play Wii in the fourth quarter of 2006." That was met with tepid applause; the crowd wanted more details.
9:50: About the name: "We want to thank all the people that wrote good things about it the first time they heard it...both of you." Audience laughs. Name chosen to stress inclusiveness--all of us, all gamers, around the world. Promises more news on third-party partners later in this event and on the E3 show floor.
9:51: A video is shown: Metroid again, then Dragon Ball, Dragon Quest (Sword game announced ysterday by Square Enix), Fire Emblem, here's Mario again in a platformer. A Tony Hawk game, Sengoku Action from Koei.
9:54: Disaster Day of Crisis. SongeBob. Cars. Super Mario Galaxy. SD Gundam Breaker. Tony Hawk Downhill Jam. Excite Truck (RC Pro Am look-alike) Red Steel. Rayman 4. Super Swing Golf Pangya. Sonic Wild Fire. Project Hammer. One Piece Limited Adventure. Madden. Just Madden. No 07. FF Crystal Chronicles.
9:56: Twilight Princess--"It is by far the best Zelda game we have ever made, also the most beautiful." Zelda will launch alongside Wii. First look coming right now. Nate and Bill from NOA going to play Zelda on the Wii. Movement on Nunchuk. Weapons, items are mapped to d-pad on remote.
9:57: When you shoot an arrow, you'll hear the bowstring twang at your ear from the speaker in the remote. Other developers also have a lot of ideas for how to use this speaker. There's a built-in rumble feature. Sony gave this up for their six-axis motion detection.
9:59: Link's iron boots return too, this time used in combination with magnets. They show Link using the iron boots and a magnetic ceiling to travel around a room.
10:02: Reggie back on stage on elevated platform. Nintendo will launch two different versions of Zelda - one for Wii, one for GC. The game will come out for both GC and Wii on the same day: the Wii launch day.
10:03:Metroid Prime 3: Corruption clip shown, it's dubbed the "most intuitive FPS ever." Then it's more Super Mario Galaxy.
10:04: "But can the system truly be new if all the names are the same? That's why we're working on new franchises," he says. ExciteTruck, Project H.A.M.M.E.R. (a beat-'em up), and Disaster, which looks like an action game.
10:05 Now Reggie seques into 3rd-party efforts, saying he'll introduce just a few of the games in development for Wii. Sonic! Gameplay footage of the hedgehog's Wii game. Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles, as announced by Square Enix yesterday, is coming to Wii.
10:06: And Madden 07 is coming to Wii, as is Tony Hawk's Downhill Jam from Activision. And Rayman from Ubisoft. A Wii SpongeBob game is coming from THQ. 27 Wii games are playable on the show floor. Of course, that doesn't include the games available for Virtual Console. Reggie introduces two Ubisoft executives, who will talk about Red Steel.
10:08 They are Xavier Poix and Roman Campos. The stage has now taken a nice red color. Player is doing something on screen, but we can't see the game footage. Ah there it is finally. They describe Red Steel as a "first-person action game set in both the US and Japan." It takes "full advantage of the Wii controller."
10:10: They're showing actual gameplay, though it's not clear what the game is running on--an actual console or development hardware. AI on enemies seems a bit dim. Player flicks nunchuck to reload. Levels incliude city streets full of neon and a pachinko arcade.
10:13: Z-button on Wiimote fires gun. "Freestyle mode" allows player to target enemies in slow motion, opting to shoot them fatally or disable them.
10:14: Now they're showing some swordplay. They describe swordfighting as "intuitive." You block with your left hand and slash with the right. In the game, the player is fighting a tatooed Yakuza member on a rooftop. Now Reggie is back. He wants to turn the focus to the DS, and introduces George Harrison.
10:14: Harrison describes the DS as a disruptive device that shook up dominant thinking with "a different approach to portable play." Harrison says that despite claims from detractors, it wasn't just the early adopters that came to the DS--the games brought a much broader slice of users to the handheld. Claims 16 million DSs sold worldwide since launch, a number that's "millions more" than PSPs sold since launch.
10:16: 1.3 million people have participated in WiFi gaming over DS. Harrison speaks on Brain Age: 120,000 units sold in North America in the three week since it launched here. Says this compares favorably to Japan sales when it launched there.
10:18: And now Harrison is talking about the DS Lite, set to come to the US soon. Gives some love to New Super Mario Brothers, which he notes will be on shelves soon. Other upcoming games: Starfox DS, Diddy Kong Racing and Yoshi's Island 2.
10:19: Final Fantasy III is coming to US on DS with improved 3D graphics. No release dates on any of these. Downhill Jam will feature VOIP. Zelda DS clip shown. 100 new DS games expected between now and end of year.
10:20:Mario Hoops 3 on 3 named. Star Fox DS clip shown. A pink DS lite is on the video. A game called Elite Beat Agents. Clips of Yoshi's Island show baby Nintendo charcters.
10:23: Pokemon Mystery Dungeon, Diddy Kong Racing, Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, Big Brain Academy and Mario vs. DK: March of the Minis finish up the clips. Now Satoru Iwata has appeared on stage. He's greeted by enthusiastic applause.
10:23: Iwata says his main goal when he took over the helm of Nintendo was to expand the number of people who play games. To do this, he needed to attract both those who used to play but then quit as well as those who have never gamed.
10:23: To get both types of non-gamers to play his games, the usual model of producing increasingly more complex, more graphically detailed games won't work; these gamers are put off by increased complexity. Instead, he decided to reinvent games. The DS and especially the Brain Age games are one example of how they've reinvented games. The Wii controller is another example. "In addition, most lapsed gamers have wonderful memories of the games they used to play." Hence, the Virtual console."
10:28: The Wii console uses the Opera browser!
10:28: "I have always been develpoing and playing games. But these days I am busier and busier. When I have to wait for a loading screen I get frustrated. Maybe this has happened to you, too. If serious gamers find this frustrating, how can we expect the mass market to show more patience? The Wii console can power up and load virtual console games almost as fast as a telephone, in a few seconds."
10:29: Now he's talking about something called WiiConnect24. The console can be connected 24/7, allowing developers to push content to consoles even "while you are sleeping." Networking software is included in the hardware.
10:30: We're aiming for a system that is "new everyday."
10:33: Iwata exits to more applause and Reggie returns. Reggie says "We'd like to invite all of you up on stage to play." That can't happen, but they do have three people selected through Nintendo's promotion with AOL.
10:33: Miyamoto will select one final grand prize winner to play the Wii onstage. Miyamoto comes to the stage, says that the game to be played is tennis. He gives a demonstration, holding the remote like a racket. Twisting the remote while swinging yields topspin.
10:35: Miyamoto pulls an envelope from his jacket and reads the name..."The winner is...Scott Dyer." Scott comes up from the audience, all smiles. He's going to play doubles with Miyamoto. They're going to play doubles against Reggie and Iwata.
10:36: The game features avatars of Reggie, Iwata, and Miyamoto, with a big question mark on a body for the contest winner. When the audience sees the personalized avatars, there's general laughter.
10:37: They're only playing three points. Dyer burns Reggie with a cross court shot. Another one. His angles are Wimbledon-worthy. It looks like the Miyamoto/Dyer team won, and they decide on a rematch. The second game is tied...no, Miyamoto takes game point for his second win. Tennis will be playable on show floor.
10:39 Reggie: "The bottom line of every E3 is what's hot and what's not. Here's our take. What's hot is what you can feel... It's about the heat of emotion, not the chill of technology... We were the disruptor 20 years ago and we still are today. DS was only the first example. Wii will come next." He says Nintendo knows that "seeing is just an impression. Playing is believing" and tells the audience he hopes he will see them all on the show floor tomorrow.
10:42: He walks off the stage and the stage lights go down--the press conference is over.
E3 06: Indiana Jones 2007
Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 title written under the direction of George Lucas and collaborating with Industrial Light & Magic.
By Guy Cocker, GameSpot UK
Posted May 9, 2006 9:54 am PT
LOS ANGELES--LucasArts has announced that Indiana Jones 2007 will head its E3 line-up this year. The name is provisional at this stage, but it will launch on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 and features an original story written under the direction of George Lucas. The game is also a technological collaboration with Industrial Light & Magic, which is based under the same roof as LucasArts.
The new adventure will feature locations from around the globe and Indy will be able to use his fists, whip and revolver against enemies. Other new technology to be included in the game includes NaturalMotion, which LucasArts promises will deliver lifelike action and awareness to every character in real time. Indy will stumble then attempt to maintain his balance, brace himself for falls then get back up and reach for nearby ledges when falling.
Pixelux Entertainment’s Digital Molecular Matter has also been employed, which is a technical way of saying that walls will crumble, glass will shatter and organic plant life will sway in the game. LucasArts promises that the power of these two consoles has been utilised to offer open-ended and completely destructible environments.
Indiana Jones 2007 will also feature vehicle-based sections that will be remeniscent of those from the film, such as the mine-cart scene in The Temple of Doom, and the free-for-all aboard the tank in The Last Crusade. The game promises a longtime rival, old friends, trusted allies, although no specifics have been announced as yet.
There's no release date for the game or information on whether it will be playable at the show, but we'll be darting over to the LucasArts booth to find out once the show opens.
