thirdworldgamer

Instead of just having a two hour press conference for game journalists, Nintendo decides to take over E3 by creating a SERIES of events on the first day to highlight their upcoming games for both the Wii U and the 3DS. What we got wasn't a short conference but an 11 hour odyssey, focused on the games and explaining DIRECTLY to gamers the best features of their upcoming titles. What Nintendo lacked in graphical horsepower, they made up in finesse, and they did this in spades. Knowing full well their console can't handle the gigantic textures and polygon counts of their competition, their first party games focus on providing cartoon-like graphics with very speedy animation and bright colors. Hardly a shade of brown, grey or red was to be seen during Nintendo's Digital Event. Nintendo showed off some spectacular visuals for their upcoming games: specifically, the Legend of Zelda and Super Smash Bros Wii U were just impeccable  in quality. Their work looks to be a triumph ...

Just sat through the two major press conferences for E3 2014. Without Nintendo yet for comparison, but perhaps I'll write again if anything notable comes up during their 'digital event', which is a few hours from now. (It's going to be today at 12 midnight, Philippine time) Microsoft had a strong showing. While I will admit they didn't have anything mind-blowing, or the type of 'shocking' announcements that these types of press events become memorable for....they did bring a good list of exclusive games. Most notably, the game that grabbed my attention (and seemingly everyone else's) is Sunset Overdrive. Part Dead Rising, Part Infamous, Part Ratchet and Clank....the game is very colorful and a big departure from the usual dreary, bloody games we get year after year. Yes it still has some adult-level violence but at least the presentation isn't the usual 'guy-in-military-fatigues' fare that all companies seem to be churning out for console...

Mario Kart 8 is the Wii U's strongest title to date. Based on my three days of play with the game over about a dozen or more hours, both in single player and multiplayer....this game is an absolute blast. The graphics are gorgeous and everything about it screams good design and art sensibility. I can imagine some people might be turned off by the cutesy graphics and Nintendo characters, but underneath all that is a well designed GAME. Multiplayer is the absolute star of the show. With my Philippine-quality internet I get into races in literally seconds. With past games on both Playstation Network and Xbox Live, matchmaking can take 15 minutes or longer. I don't know how Nintendo did it. Maybe Mario Kart is just simpler to code for since it just involves race cars? This game doesn't have the usual issues with driving games on laggy connections. Things like teleporting cars, cars going much faster than you....I have seen none of this happen while I was playing this game, ...