E3 roundup [So far]

[Vympel]

My GameCube is broken, so fuck Nintendo.

[Spanky The Dolphin]

So what about Gamecock's little anti-E3 EIEIO party? Did they have enough clown white to go on all the strippers?

[CaptHawkeye]

Holy hell, Call of Duty 4 has a level in Chernobyl? Is this a potential homage to S.T.A.L.K.E.R.?

[Praxis]

Wii Fit is where it is at.

[Ace Pace]

Morning people, linkdump time.

Ea press conferance.

[2:03] The press conference room is starting to get quite crowded, and some people are having to stand at the back. A lot of coffee is being consumed.

[2:06] People have been told to turn cell phones, pagers, Blackberrys, and "anything else" off. We will be starting soon.

[2:09] As the Pink Panther theme is playing, a herd of gaming press is cramming into the hall, with some having to stand at the back. People are being urged to squeeze in next to each other so everyone can "enjoy" the presentation.

[2:12] The lights go down. A presentation starts to play, showing a montage of upcoming games, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, playground, mobiles, a Wii trivia game, and Boogie.

[2:13] An exec takes to the stage and encourages the audience to visit the company's booth in the Barker Hangar to see the games there. She introduces Kathy Vrabeck, head of the company's casual game division.

[2:14] Vrabeck talks about the company's lofty goals, to get to the 2 billion consumers that are not gamers but the company thinks are out there "ready to game."

[2:15] She's been thinking about what's next for the gaming industry. She says the issue with casual entertainment is that its different business models, game sensibilities, and the like are different from those in core gaming.

[2:16] The company wants to "truly bring gaming to the masses," going after kids, middle-aged women, girls--anyone who doesn't self-identify as a traditional gamer.

[2:17] Casual is very much a multiplatform genre, she says. Consoles like the Wii and the DS handhelds are good because they are family friendly. EA will become the "clear leader" in casual gaming, Vrabeck vows.

[2:18] The first group at EA to get casual was Pogo.com, which has more than 6.5 million subscribers, half of whom are women over 30, and it will be coming to Asia soon.

[2:19] A short montage showing off Pogo.com.

[2:21] Now we're on to Boogie. We haven't really seen it until we have seen it in 3D, apparently. Time to get out the 3D glasses!

[2:22] Alan Tascan, general manager from EA Montreal, takes the stage, and picks a Boogie character--a big guy with spiky hair, wearing a pair of white underwear and a vest.

[2:23] He looks quite funny dancing across the stage. Someone calls out, "Work it baby!" and the audience cracks up.

[2:23] He's had enough now.

[2:24] No, he hasn't--he's going on to the singing part.

[2:25] He's singing "Dontcha" by the Pussycat Dolls. "Don't you wish your girlfriend was hot like me?" he asks the audience.

[2:25] Time to put on the glasses!

[2:26] This is one of the special effects in the game, you can play it in 3D. There are many others.

[2:28] Now onto EA Mobile. This is the quickest way to expand into the nongaming market, Vrabeck believes. Not everyone can afford a console, but almost everyone has a game-capable mobile.

[2:28] A montage shows EA mobile games Madden, Tetris, NBA Live 08, Bejeweled, and Nuclear Meltdown.

[2:29] EA Canada's Dave McCarthy, executive producer of the title, comes on stage to talk about EA Playground with an entourage.

[2:30] McCarthy and friends play Dodgeball, in a "four-player Wii-only action game." There are three moves: catch with the B button, throw with the Wii Remote, and move with the D pad.

[2:31] They lose 3-0.

[2:31] EA is not just a multiplayer game, it has a full single-player mode, too. There are traditional games like Dodgeball, but also some "over-the-top fantasy games." He is going to show us one called Kicks, a mix of football and tennis.

[2:32] The aim of the game is to take your player on a series of quests to become the king or queen of the playground. It's a game for kids, and the kid inside all of us, he says, and leaves the stage.

[2:33] Vrabeck steps up again. She's talking about an EALA title called Smarty Pants, which is a trivia game for the Wii.

[2:35] The gamers playing spin a wheel by using the Wii Remote to pick a player to start. The game seems to be a combination of trivia and minigames like tug of war.

[2:36] EALA is doing more too--they're in partnership with Spielberg. Neil Young takes to the stage to talk.

[2:37] "We announced in 2005 to develop three pieces of IP with Spielberg, and in 2006 work started on two of these," he says. "The first game attempts to answer the company's founding question: Can a computer game make you cry? The second is a blocks-based game." These are the LMNO and PRQS games Young talked with GameSpot about early in the week.

[2:40] The player demoing PQRS uses the Wii Remote to knock down a pile of blocks, some of which do things like disappear, explode, or react with others. The aim of the game is to knock down the structure in one throw.

[2:40] There are a variety of themes, including medieval and Western. It comes with a designer so gamers can design their own levels.

[2:40] He then blows up some virtual cows in a level one of the testers created.

[2:42] Alex Rigopolous from MTV Harmonix takes the stage to talk about the game "which opened the Sony conference yesterday to much applause." He is referring, of course, to Rock Band at the Microsoft Press Conference.

[2:43] He shows us some of the peripherals, including the drums and the Fender guitar.

[2:45] "Rock Band is not just a game or a title, it's a platform for delivering and exploring music in a new way," he says.

[2:46] "Every single week after the game is released there will be a new batch of songs online," promises Rigopolous. They aim to have thousands of songs available online.

[2:46] There will be a Rock Band advisory committee set up which will include celebrity musicians, who will help decide which songs to include. Steven Van Zandt, the guitarist of Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band and a star of TV's The Sopranos, will be its chair.

[2:46] Celebrity alert! "Little Steven" takes to the stage. He thinks the game is fun, and that it will introduce a lot of great music to people, and that it will help a lot of upcoming musicians.

[2:50] Van Zandt is going to announce some of the songs. This is just the beginning, he hastens to add, so if you don't see your favorite, don't panic!

[2:53] He announces a selection of titles. The Who's "Won't Get Fooled Again," David Bowie's "Suffragette City," Bon Jovi's "Wanted Dead or Alive," Rush's "Tom Sawyer," Nirvana's "In Bloom," Stone Temple Pilots' "Vaseline," and Foo Fighters' "Learn to Fly."

[2:53] MTV Games will be offering full albums for download on the platform. The first to be available will be The Who's Who's Next.

[2:53] They will also be releasing a "substantial amount of tracks" from heavy metal supergroup Metallica, including "Enter Sandman," which will be on the game disc.

[2:54] A group take to the stage to play Bowie's "Suffragette City." It's all over, kids.

Wii Fit preview
HEY PRAXIS, Post your OWN preview

This morning Wii Fit was announced at Nintendo's E3 press conference, and Shigeru Miyamoto surprisingly took the stage to show off the project. Nintendo showed videos and live demonstrations of the game in action, as well as demonstrating how the game could calculate the body mass index (BMI) of Nintendo US president Reggie Fils-Aime. Luckily, we were scheduled in for some time at the Nintendo booth shortly after the conference for some hands-on time with most of its upcoming portfolio, and Wii Fit was first on the agenda.

As we saw with the Reggie, you can't play Wii Fit without first letting the game calculate your BMI. This figure is apparently a realistic indication of fitness based on height, weight, and age. Once the game has this information, it can set goals to help you lose or gain weight and reach your optimum BMI level. After entering the relevant details, the game takes about 20 seconds to work everything out, and it then modifies your Mii character's appearance to fit. As it turned out, our body posture was bent slightly backwards and our BMI was in the red area, so our little Mii arched his back and grew a little belly accordingly. And as with Nintendo's own Brain Age series, your body is given a "real" age based on its BMI rating. It looked like we had some work to do, given the seven-year difference between our real age and our Wii Fit age.

Still lamenting our lack of fitness, we jumped into the first game, hoop twirl. In the game, you need to rotate your hips to keep a virtual hula hoop going, while two other Miis will stand on the sidelines and occasionally toss hoops toward you. When this happens, you have to stop twirling and point your arms out in the right direction to catch the hoop, then continue rotating again. It's pretty undemanding stuff, but it's a good introduction to the game. The second game is called ski jumping, in which you must re-create the daring actions of many famous sports stars, only in a much safer environment. As you hurtle down the ramp, the idea is to bend your body down and forward to pick up speed, while an onscreen guide shows you your optimum position. At the end of the ramp, you have to jump up slightly to gain height, then bend back down to ensure an optimum landing.

It's easy to see that Nintendo's peripheral essentially just monitors your balance, but Nintendo's game designers look like they've managed to come up with many different ways to exploit it. The third game we played was very different--a marble madness-style puzzle game in which you shift your balance to tilt a maze and try to get balls through holes in the floor. Each ball you sink adds time to the clock, but each puzzle increases in difficulty, and before long you'll be juggling many different balls over some very tricky mazes. Lastly, we played the same soccer-heading game that had been shown earlier in the day at Nintendo's E3 press conference. Shifting your balance to head the flying balls is actually very tricky, and the devious artificial intelligence players soon begin to kick cleats toward your head, which you obviously need to avoid.

As well as "games," the early demo build of Wii Fit includes some yoga and balance exercises. On the yoga side, you need to adopt poses such as the half moon pose, the tree pose, the single-leg stretch, and the sideways twist. The idea is to adopt the postures for as long as possible, stretching more and more as you progress. When you're finished, you can see how well you stayed within the optimum zones with a line diagram that shows how much you shook and stayed within the parameters. On the balance front, there are two-legged and one-legged exercises, as well as an overall body test; but our limited time in the Nintendo booth prevented us from checking these out.

At this point, Wii Fit is already looking polished, and like most Nintendo products, it's very easy to pick up and play. If Nintendo can make a product that's fun but also offers some real-world fitness benefits, then it will surely be on to a winner. The game is set for release in Japan during Q4 2007, while it will make it to the US sometime in Q1/Q2 2008.

Fable 2 hands on, One button combat?.

Fear 2 impressions.

Mega lame Konami conferance.

Bioshock hands on.

Crysis hands on.

Halo 3 preview.

Bungie showed off the first level of the game, titled Sierra 117. Not wanting to spoil some of the plot developments revealed at the beginning, the action picked up about one-third of the way through the level. What's interesting is that the Master Chief and the Arbiter have now teamed up, and they and a small escort of Marines must make their way through a Covenant-infested gulch to rendezvous with Sergeant Johnson and a couple of Pelican transports.

Though the opening level lacks what Bungie's Frank O'Connor said are the large-scale vehicle battles of later levels, it still packed an intense amount of action as the Master Chief and his friends battle their way through waves of opponents that included grunts, brutes, and what looked like to be some elites. The presence of the grunts and elites alongside the brutes is a bit puzzling considering the fractured state of the Covenant at the end of Halo 2, so we imagine that the answers are to be found in the exposition that we skipped over.

A number of things just stuck out to us as the battle unfolded. First, the combat looks to be as wild and dynamic as in other Halo games. The artificial intelligence of both the enemies and your allies pretty much guarantees that each battle can unfold differently. Second, the amount of intelligent chatter going on does a lot to add atmosphere and humor to the game. You hear the alien grunts cry, "What a world!" before a grenade explodes next to them, or another remark "I'll revenge my brother!" as he throws a plasma grenade at you. The chatter is constant and with the cacophony of gunfire and explosions, it makes for a symphony of battle. Speaking of symphonies, the music was missing in the work-in-progress version that we played, though it has been composed and recorded and is awaiting insertion.

So how it looks is a question that's undoubtedly a question on millions of Halo fans' minds. Keep in mind that after some grumbling by fans about the graphics in the recent multiplayer beta, Bungie stressed that what was seen did not represent the final look of the game. Well, what we saw wasn't quite final, but the graphics were undeniably better and more advanced than those seen in the beta. The game pops out right at you. The visuals are clear and crisp, as well as bright and colorful. There's a lush quality to the forest gully, with lots of ground clutter and towering trees. Most noticeable is the almost lifelike sunlight poring through the forest canopy. Halo 3 makes considerable use of high-dynamic range lighting so that shadows look dark, but at the same time, sunlight looks almost saturated. The animations and character models are also well done. The Master Chief encountered alien brutes in green camouflage armor that looks really cool and plausible, and it's possible to strip a brute of his armor with gunfire or explosions.

After battling through a section of the forest, the Master Chief and allies make it to a riverside clearing where the Pelicans await them. Unfortunately, a horde of Covenant is also there, so a desperate battle erupts to clear the landing the zone. However, it's all for naught as one Pelican, looking to avoid ground fire, collides with another, sending one crashing to the ground and the other spinning in a different direction. Your new mission: locate Sergeant Johnson's crashed Pelican; so it's like Black Hawk Down, only with aliens. An alien Phantom suddenly appears and hovers over the river, laying down suppressive fire, so O'Connor, playing the Master Chief, grabbed a canon off of its mounts and used it to shoot down the alien craft. Another large-scale battle erupted between arriving brutes and the Chief, and that's where the demo ended.

Bungie next showed one of the neat multiplayer features of Halo 3, which was the ability to record and play back gameplay movies of both multiplayer and the single-player campaign. While this was a feature that was somewhat crippled in the multiplayer beta, we got to see the all-but-final version of the film system. Basically, Halo 3 records game data as you play, and then when it plays it back, it reenacts all the events. Only now, you can move the camera around anywhere to change the angle, as well as pause and slow the action

To demonstrate, Bungie showed off a five-versus-five multiplayer match that was recorded last week on the sand-trap multiplayer level. We watched as the battle was reconstructed and replayed. The members on one team boarded Warthogs and Brute Choppers, which are basically hoverbikes on steroids and had a head-on clash with the opposing team on their vehicles. The action was then paused and explosions were caught in all their fiery glory. It looks awesome, and even better, you can take high-resolution screenshots of your finest moments. You can then take screens or movies and upload them to a special shared space on Xbox Live so you can show off. This is going to be a great feature because it has implications for everyone, from whether you want to rub it in to your friend about a certain kill or you want to make machinima to or user-created movies.

Bungie has the next couple of months to polish and bug fix, though what we saw looked to be almost ready for primetime. All we can say is that it's going to be a long 11 weeks until September 25.

Halo wars preview.

[PeZook]

So...am I to understand Assassin's Creed is not gonna be released on the PC? This sucks...

[Ace Pace]

Viva Piniata.

WH40K Squad command, on hand held.

Ratchet and Clank Future: Tools of Destruction Hands-On.

My sims, Sims for the Wiiiii.

Lair preview.

Haze impressions.

Space siege, the sequal to Dungeon siege.

Company of Heroes, opposing fronts preview.

Need for speed, prostreet preview.

Supreme commander forged alliance preview.

With all the improvements and enhancements, Forged Alliance almost feels like a sequel. The graphics and visuals have been improved considerably; there's a lot more detail on units, new explosion effects and heat blur, new shaders, as well as improved performance across the board (those performance improvements have also been included in patches for the original game). The enhancements also affect artificial intelligence because we're told that if you feel comfortable beating the AI in Supreme Commander, you're going to be fighting for your life in Forged Alliance. The AI is smarter than before, but there's also an option to play with a cheating AI if you feel like giving it a handicap.

The major new addition in Forged Alliance is the Seraphim, the first alien race to be introduced in the franchise and an incredibly potent one. With a design that makes it look incredibly sleek and yet alien at the same time, the Seraphim use negative energy weapons that are unlike those used by the three human factions. The Seraphim have an undeniably stylish look to them, and all three human factions will need to form a unit to defeat them.

The 110 new units are distributed among all factions, though the Seraphim get the majority of them, of course. The United Earth Federation, Cybran Nation, and Aeon Illuminate get about 10 new units each, which includes a new experimental unit for each existing faction. We saw two of those in action. The first was the Cybran megalith, a huge unit that's twice the size of the awesome monkeylord and even scarier. This is because the megalith is amphibious and moves faster underwater than it does on land. It's also armed with 12 torpedo launchers so it can take out entire navies. It's equally scary on land and serves as a mobile factory as well, so it can basically drop new units on the battlefield. The second experimental unit revealed thus far is the Seraphim experimental bomber, a huge hit-and-run raider that delivers negative energy bombs, which are basically miniature nukes. It has some antiaircraft capability as well, so it can defend itself against fighters to some extent.

Fans of the existing factions will love many of the new additions because each faction gets units that enhance their strengths. The UEF gets new tier-three point defenses that can chew up incoming ground units, as well as new tier-three armored bots and a mobile missile launcher. The Cybran Nation gets the new brick, a tier-three bot that is armed with a torpedo launcher when underwater that is swapped out for a laser when on land. Other new Cybran units have stealth or radar jamming features.

[Cincinnatus]

So...am I to understand Assassin's Creed is not gonna be released on the PC? This sucks...

Where did you read that? I'm pretty sure it's been confirmed for the PC for a while now.

[PeZook]

So...am I to understand Assassin's Creed is not gonna be released on the PC? This sucks...

Where did you read that? I'm pretty sure it's been confirmed for the PC for a while now.

Ace Pace's Link

At the end, it only says "For the XBox 360".

If that's true, my girlfriend's gonna kill me. I introduced her to this game, and she got real hot and bothered about it

[Cincinnatus]

So...am I to understand Assassin's Creed is not gonna be released on the PC? This sucks...

Where did you read that? I'm pretty sure it's been confirmed for the PC for a while now.

Ace Pace's Link

At the end, it only says "For the XBox 360".

If that's true, my girlfriend's gonna kill me. I introduced her to this game, and she got real hot and bothered about it

I think that's just an oversight on Gamespot's part. Every other source I've seen says it's coming out for the 360, the PS3, and the PC.

[Praxis]

So...am I to understand Assassin's Creed is not gonna be released on the PC? This sucks...

Where did you read that? I'm pretty sure it's been confirmed for the PC for a while now.

Ace Pace's Link

At the end, it only says "For the XBox 360".

If that's true, my girlfriend's gonna kill me. I introduced her to this game, and she got real hot and bothered about it

Oh yeah, I watched someone playing it and it looked decent. Was running on a 360 at the time.

[Praxis]

Sorry for the late updates, I'm completely exhausted after E3. It's crazy tiring and we have to do a lot of work once we finally make it back to the hotel and it's already late. But totally worth it.

Impressions of Crave, Natsume, and Capcom's Nintendo-platform products are available on my site. I gave a brief update on my blog (also on my site, see sig) but there will be a bigger one tomorrow.

[Ace Pace]

Linkdump of Praxis stuff, with some quotes.

Capcom.

Zack and Wiki is a game about achievement. And Piracy. In this game you play as Zack, a young boy who wants to be the best pirate out there. His sidekick, the ever informant Wiki, gives tips on how to complete tasks and get booty. To advance in the game, you must work your way through one clever puzzle after another. Naturally the part we played was rather easy, but the game does progress to being very tricky in the end. It was a blast to play, and Wiki's constant dry humor made the game very enjoyable. Mark was even seen laughing out loud in front of a crowd of Konami reps at the hilarious quips and silly character interactions.

Natsume

that adds dungeon crawling. As an RPG, it starts a little slow, and gradually gets more interesting. Mark only was able to play it for about 20 minutes, so he really didn't have a chance to see what the game was really about, but ge did see a lot of things that made him smile. The animation in cut scenes looks absolutely amazing, especially the almost five minute intro. (I'm exaggerating, but only by a little.) Also, the farming system seems very straightforward. We was told that the more you harvest, the more stamina you have. That's right. In Harvest Moon: Rune Factory you level up. At the top of the bottom screen you have Hit Points and Rune Points displayed in a pair of bars. Rune Points determine how much work you can do in a day without colapsing of exaustion. Once you reach your limit, you must rest for the night to regain stamina. As you progress through the game, you can work to level up in a number of different ways. Harvesting is obviously a big one. Also, each tool levels by gaining experience with each use. Once you have leveled enough, you can enter a dungeon, and you will need permission from the local Mayor to enter them, and you will not be able to leave without reaching the end of the dungeon. If you do, everything will return to the way it was before, so it is imperitive that you have enough stamina to finish a dungeon. Rune Factory builds on previous Harvest Moon games in many ways, so much of the game will come naturally to franchise fans, but it branches way out bringing the game onto a completely different plane of existance.

Thats just what I find cool, Praxis wrote up many more games, follow my links.

[/quote]

[Ace Pace]

Unreal tournament 3 mods to work on PS3, confirmed
SQUEEEEEE.

Excessive UT3 on the PS3. HAWT

[Ace Pace]

Metroid prime 3.

First, a quick primer on where we've been--Metroid Prime 3: Corruption is, quite obviously, the third chapter in the first-person shooter series that revolves around the bounty hunter Samus Aran. This being the debut on the Wii, it's important to note what has changed, and what hasn't. While Samus still has a vast array of weapons she can fire from her high tech armor, just how you go about enacting all that destruction has changed slightly thanks to the Wii's unique control scheme. Aiming your shots, for example, is done with the Wii Remote, and it's literally as simple as pointing and shooting to take down the bad guys. If you're looking to get some better aim on your opponent, you can lock in on your target with the Z button. At the lower difficulty level, locking in will mean that all your shots find their intended target--once you bump up the skill level in the game, you'll still need to aim your shots within the locked reitcile in order to make a kill. Locking onto a target will allow you to strafe around them as well.

You move Samus back and forth with the nunchuck's analog stick and can have her turn around by moving the Wii Remote to either side of the screen--she'll turn around quickly, and that speed is intensified at the higher difficulty levels. As before, Samus will still be able to transform into the morph ball, this time with the C button, and this form will allow her to access, in a pinball like fashion, areas of the levels she might otherwise not be able to get to. Funny how most of the levels in a Metroid game--be they enemy bases, or space pirates ships--seem uncannily tailor-made for a hero who can roll into a ball, isn't it? You'd think the enemy ship designers would mix in a triangular or square corridor here and there.

While basic movement and shooting doesn't take too long to get used to in the game, using all of Samus' different powers might prove to be a challenge. She's loaded in Corruption, as always and, in addition to her standard short and long-burst arm cannon, you'll be able to outfit her with missles and even a brand new energy grappling hook that will come in especially handy throughout the game. To use the grappling hook, you simply whip the Nunchuk forward and then backwards, Samus will unleash her hook and you'll be able to do things like lift debris out of the way, or yank away the shield from an approaching enemy, giving you the opening you need to blast them to wherever it is space pirates go when they die.

Now, back to that Berserker Lord fight. It's worth noting that this particular monster, in true Metroid fashion, is one tough cookie--his armor plating means that most of Samus' shots bounce off him like raindrops. He's probably 20 feet tall and he's got enough horns and spikes to mean real bad news if you get too close. Not that he's that much of a party at distance, either, thanks to his ability to shoot a nasty blue beam, or emit a stream of blue, acidic liquid from his face. After taking a few potshots at him, it wasn't long before we noticed a few purple glowing spots underneath his arm pits, which we proceeded to blast with extreme prejudice. After taking those down, the Berserker Lord began to shoot huge circular blasts of white electricity at us--the first time we took him on, those blasts were enough to bring us down.

After a few practice runs dying at the hands of the Berserker Lord, the pattern of his attacks became clear--jump over the blue beam attacks, dodge the blue acid spews, blast him in the arm pits. Then, when we shot the big blasts of electricity down, we noted that it opened up an exposed area of crystal on his back which we could then unload on with everything in Samus' arsenal. A few well-timed missles and concentrated energy blasts later, and it was bye-bye Berserker Lord.

[JLTucker]

I wish Super Mario Galaxy could be played with the classic controller.

[Ace Pace]

Quick link.
GTA 4 demoed.


I'll have more, but I'm about to collapse.

[Praxis]

Met some more GameSpot guys today, they were cool. Jessica Chobot of IGN was very, very cool, talked to me for a while. Adam Sessler was awesome, I got his autograph, and a picture with Olivia Munn.

I definitely like the new format better. There's a chance I might meet Miyamoto tomorrow.

[SylasGaunt]

Yay, there's been more video released for Frontlines: Fuel of War the new game by the guys who made the Desert Combat mod for BF1942.

http://www.gametrailers.com/game/2833.html

Mmm.. those drones look fun.

[Ace Pace]

Heavenly Sword hands on.

Little big planet hands on.

Nintendo Roundtable. Praxis, got an image of you there?

[4:11] Mr. Aonuma has taken the stage, along with Nintendo's Bill Trinnen on game-demo duty, to show off Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, the company's latest Zelda release on the DS.

[4:12] He discusses the great success of the game in Japan so far, with 300,000 copies sold in its first week. Stark contrast to Aonuma's talk at the Game Developers Conference in March, where he stated the previous cartoon-like Zelda game, The Wind Waker, met with lower-than-expected sales.

[4:13] Aonuma moves on to talk about the challenges of designing this new Zelda for the DS' unique control capabilities, primarily the touch screen.

[4:14] Of course, the touch screen controls allowed the designers to come up with puzzles that couldn't have worked with regular controls--but surprisingly, Aonuma has found that players without previous Zelda experience have adapted to the new game's challenges more readily than Zelda veterans.

[4:15] He talks about the need to preserve the unique attributes of the Zelda experience--that "aha!" moment you get after a great discovery, for instance--even while adapting the game to its new controls.

[4:17] In addition to the impressive sales after release in Japan, Phantom Hourglass has been especially popular with new demographics, such as adult women.

[4:18] After a brief explanation of the game's hide-and-seek wi-fi multiplayer, Aonuma moves on to discuss the team behind Phantom Hourglass.

[4:18] Aonuma took a producer role on this title rather than director, allowing a new group to implement its own ideas within the Zelda world.

[4:21] In fact, the director of Phantom Hourglass made his directorial debut with this game. Furthermore, much of the game's development team was new to the Zelda franchise before starting on this project.

4:22] Trinnen is showing the game's sailing sequences, which are similar to those of The Wind Waker. Once again you'll be able to drop anchor and search for sunken treasure, which is on display here. Now you'll have to use the stylus to carefully hoist a treasure chest between floating mines, though.

[4:23] Aonuma emphasizes the satisfaction of successfully finding and rescuing a treasure chest. This is one example of a Wind Waker mechanic that's been refined and polished for Phantom Hourglass. The new fishing minigame is another example.

[4:24] That's all he can say about Phantom Hourglass today. Instead, he moves on to discuss...what's coming in the next Zelda project. Holy cow.

[4:25] Aonuma has a bullet-point list of features in his head already that he wants to implement in the next Zelda. Miyamoto forbade him from letting us in on the secret, though. Rats.

[4:26] But he says he has a child-like excitement about something new like this, and he wants to let us in on the info immediately.

[4:28] Luckily, he doesn't want us to wait for years on end to receive details on the next Zelda, as we've had to do in the past. What a nice guy.

[4:29] The Q&A session with Aonuma begins.

[4:31] When asked about whether we'll see sequels to either Phantom Hourglass or Twilight Princess, he leaves the possibility open to both.

[4:31] Q: If there's another Wii Zelda, will it have one-to-one sword control with the Wii remote? A: We haven't fleshed out all the gameplay ideas yet, but we're certainly open to possibilities.

[4:33] His favorite thing about Phantom Hourglass? Link can be seen scribbling on his map just as you annotate your own. He didn't even know his staff had included such a small detail, until his son gleefully pointed it out.

[4:34] Continues to answer questions about the multiplayer mode, which has Link fleeing from a number of pursuing statues through a maze.

[4:35] Q: After the lessons learned from Phantom Hourglass, will you continue to apply this philosophy of simplification to all future Zeldas?

[4:35] A: Streamlining the gameplay has been effective so far, but they'll wait for feedback from American and European players before making final decisions.

[4:37] Q: Will Aonuma continue to take a hands-off producer's role on future Zeldas from now on? And does he desire to work on other franchises?

[4:39] A: This time, he worked closely with the director, and the process worked out well. He'd be open to a similar arrangement in the future, but each project has its own requirements.

[4:39] Q: Has he considered including variable difficulty levels in a Zelda game?

[4:40] A: He's thought about it, but he wants the core Zelda experience to appeal to the widest range of people it can.

[4:41] Responding to a question, Aonuma has considered what would happen if Link were to visit the contemporary world, or be dropped into a World War II setting. But how such concepts would fit into an actual game isn't easy to say.

[4:42] Aonuma's segment ends as attendees are granted a five-minute break. So hey, give us five, eh?

[4:43] And don't forget--Miyamoto up next!

[4:50] The audience is still milling around, but Mr. Miyamoto has taken his seat (with Trinnen on interpreting duties), and Super Mario Galaxy is now on-screen.

[4:50] Scratch that--we're back to business. Miyamoto comments that it will be hard to focus on business with so many people enjoying themselves on the beach just out the window.

[4:51] He also laments the lack of a physical round table at these "roundtable" events--he needs a table to upend at a dramatic moment.

[4:51] Lately, he's been spending most of his time on Mario Galaxy and Wii Fit, the fitness application announced at Nintendo's press conference yesterday.

[4:52] That conference was geared to a wide audience, which is why the program emphasized Wii Fit. But today, we're looking at the hardcore games, starting with Galaxy.

[4:54] Miyamoto feels that the peripheral pursuits of a game designer are important in informing his or her work on a game. For instance, he's become more health-conscious and has weighed himself regularly on a daily basis, which directly inspired Wii Fit.

[4:55] Wii Fit and Mario Galaxy do have one thing in common--both are being designed to be accessible to anyone.

[4:56] Nintendo is hoping to attract new audiences to Mario Galaxy with a second-player assist mode, which lets another person play alongside the first player (this feature will be demonstrated shortly).

[4:56] Gravity is a big gameplay feature in Galaxy--there will be varying levels of gravity that will factor into the gameplay.

[4:58] One inherent benefit of Galaxy's focus on small planetoid-like levels is that camera control is essentially handled automatically. Since the land masses are so small, the camera's always on the action.

5:00] They're now going to show off a new level not yet shown here at E3.

[5:01] He shows how, after you've collected enough star pieces, you can feed them to a friendly little star dude. His hunger sated, he zooms off into the sky and creates a new little planetoid.

[5:03] Mario ascends a multi-level planetoid crawling with goombas and covered with spiky plants. He uses a star launch pad to fly over to a capsule-shaped level which he runs around the outside of.

[5:03] Once inside, the capsule becomes a sort of side-scrolling level, as Mario can only run left and right around the perimeter of the capsule.

[5:04] Different areas of ground have different gravitational properties here--some have low gravity, others have inverted gravity that send you right up to the ceiling.

[5:05] The game will have 6 greater areas with 40 galaxies spread across them. Of course, there will be 120 stars to collect, so this should have all the bulk of a typical Mario adventure.

[5:07] Now Mario is floating in a bubble around a star-shaped object, with Miyamoto using the remote as a pointer to click each of the five points of the star. A beam of light shoots out when the point is clicked to help slowly steer Mario. Meanwhile, a menacing-looking black hole floats in the sky.

[5:09] Showing another advanced level, the Star Beam Trail. Now the assist mode is being demoed, as a second player is using her own pointer to help Mario out. The second player will be able to block enemies and such with this pointer.

[5:11] Miyamoto points out that now backseat game players actually have their own pointer to tell their friends where to go or what to do.

[5:11] Of course, assisting players can use their pointer to interfere with Mario a little bit as well.

[5:12] Mario is running along a pathway of blocks floating in space that are constantly and rapidly shifting position and reforming the path in different directions.

[5:13] Next up: the Beach Bowl Galaxy.

[5:14] Not all of the game's levels will be set in space--this one is made out of stones and is set in a blue, slightly cloudy sky.

[5:15] Miyamoto misses a jump and falls off the stones into a very visually appealing vortex of water in the middle, which sends him flying into a black hole and costs him a life.

[5:15] Next, the Cookie Factory Galaxy.

[5:17] This candy-colored level features music from Super Mario Bros. 3 (level 1-3, we think?). It has Mario running along a vibrant conveyor belt marked with numerous holes of many shapes.

[5:18] Even Miyamoto has some trouble--he falls through several holes before inviting a member of the audience to try. But he says even when you die repeatedly, it's still fun in this game to keep trying.

[5:19] The assist mode will let parents help out their small children when playing the game--or maybe the children will need to help their parents instead.

[5:20] Now moving on to the Q&A session.

[5:22] The setup of Galaxy will be similar to Mario 64, in that you'll revisit stages multiple times to claim multiple stars.

[5:23] You knew this was coming--one press member asks about Reggie's comments at the media briefing that Galaxy is the first worthy successor to Mario 64. Does Miyamoto agree? What does this say about Super Mario Sunshine on the GameCube?

[5:24] Miyamoto feels one of Mario 64's best qualities was the simple joy of exploring its 3D environments. The new spherical levels in Mario Galaxy give that same sense of satisfaction.

[5:24] Q: What other applications does Miyamoto see for the Wii Fit controller in the future?

[5:25] A: There's a variety of possibilities. One example is a snowboarding game. In fact, Wii Fit already includes a skiing game, so adapting this would be easy. Third parties will be free to develop their own ideas for the Wii balance board as well.

[5:27] When asked about ideas that didn't make it into Mario Galaxy: The game is still in development, so technically all ideas are still in play.

[5:27] Here's an obvious question after the announcement of Wii Fit: Has the success of the Touch Generations games made Miyamoto less interested in developing traditional or hardcore-style games like Mario Galaxy?

[5:28] "You certainly don't have to worry about that." He's having a lot of fun working on both Galaxy and Wii Fit, and he thinks it's perfectly acceptable to have simpler games that can be completed in a few months while also working on more ambitious projects that take years to complete.

[5:33] When asked about more applications of the Wii balance board, some medical professionals have already expressed an interest in using the device for possible treatment of patients.

[5:36] Miyamoto comments on the recently announced peripherals like the Wii zapper and steering wheel. Since the expensive technology is all contained in the Wii remote and nunchuk, Nintendo is able to release numerous such peripherals at low cost.

[5:42] When asked whether the balance board will be available in different sizes for different markets, Miyamoto says consideration may be ongoing, but whether or not a "super-sized" version will be available in America isn't decided. (Yes, his words.)

[5:42] How long has Mario Galaxy been in development? It's being created by the team that made Donkey Kong Jungle Beat, and development began as soon as that title was finished.

[5:44] Regarding his involvement in Galaxy: He was director on Mario 64, but he's more closely involved with the actual game design for Galaxy. So in a sense, he's more involved in this project than he was in Mario 64. Development is taking place in Tokyo, but the team can send him new builds of the game over a high-speed network so they can video-conference and discuss design every day.

[5:49] Will Mario Galaxy's difficulty be tuned for skilled hardcore players or will it be made easier for a wider audience? Miyamoto has struggled with that question of balance for a long time. For Galaxy, he wants a sufficient level of challenge that the player will feel satisfied with completing the later objectives. He's been increasing the game's challenge level over the last few months, to the point that the team has almost expressed concern it will be too hard. But of course the final balance will be as close to ideal as possible.

[5:51] With that question, Walter retakes the stage to thank the attendees for sharing in the excitement of Nintendo's very busy last year. We're off to hit the boardwalk and continue our E3 coverage through the last day of the show.

Sony: No PS3 price cut or 80GB PS3 for PAL territories


Some hands on thoughts on the new PSP.

[Praxis]

Nintendo Roundtable. Praxis, got an image of you there?

ARGH! I was in the Loews Hotel when someone went in asking for Aonuma as he had an appointment (they wouldn't let me follow). Was earlier in the day though. Sounds like that was while I was at Disney's conference.

Sadly, I was not invited to that. Nintendo has yet to invite us to their roundtables or afterparties. I think I'll definitely rectify that next year, as I now have the email address of some high-up executives.

[Schuyler Colfax]

Honestly, "Fracture" was the most interesting that was at E3. I'm really looking foward to that.

[Elaro]

[5:27] Here's an obvious question after the announcement of Wii Fit: Has the success of the Touch Generations games made Miyamoto less interested in developing traditional or hardcore-style games like Mario Galaxy?

I still can't get used to the fact that game journalists are calling Super Mario Galaxy "hardcore". It's just... wierd.

[Covenant]

[5:27] Here's an obvious question after the announcement of Wii Fit: Has the success of the Touch Generations games made Miyamoto less interested in developing traditional or hardcore-style games like Mario Galaxy?

I still can't get used to the fact that game journalists are calling Super Mario Galaxy "hardcore". It's just... wierd.

What's hardcore about it? Or do they mean 'hardcore game' as in a game that's ultra gamey? Like how chess or some other esoteric game is hardcore strategy, but not hardcore in the sense of blood and violence and dragon skeleton wizards throwing fireballs out of electric guitars.

[Spanky The Dolphin]

I would assume they mean "hardcore-style games" in that games like Super Mario Galaxy's key and primary focus is almost entirely on gameplay itself.