I found myself following E3 2008 more closely than I have the last few. Firstly because I am always interested in video games but having bought a PS3 I have a quiet yearning for some amazing news that will make fans of the Xbox 360 and Wii shit themselves, piss themselves and then die of shock. But mainly, because I am as student, who has 5 months to spare, and nothing else to do.First up comes Nintendo's Conference. Now I don't have anything against Nintendo, I bought a GameCube and thoroughly enjoyed it! But over the last few years I have become to fucking hate them! Perhaps it's because no matter who I see supposedly promoting their product, they always seem to be smiling their faces off and having a jolly good time. When I myself try to re-enact this sense of fun I am left thoroughly without.
However I also believe that Nintendo, and their Wii console, are no longer in the video games market- that's reserved for the PS3 and Xbox 360. No, what they are making are not video games, they're just shit cartoons which require you to control an annoying little character with a plastic baton of hatred!!
Things kick off with Rings of Fire blurring out of the sound system while snowboarding teen sensation Shaun White shows off his skills on an over-charged pair of bathroom scales. This is nice, yeah the music's fair good, he looks like he's having fun, yeah looks cool. And then some woman enters the stage, smiling more than it should be legal to smile, and starts to brown-tongue her way through a demonstration of Nintendo's new winter sports game: Shaun White's Snowboarding (Obvious title I know..).
After some more smiling, Nintendo's Satoru Iwata takes to the stage to enlighten us further on the progress of the Wii. I didn't understand a lot of what Iwata said, mainly because he kept banging on about bloody paradigm shifts and how it affects the world of gaming. He ends with something to do with putting creativity and community together and then leaves the stage.
What followed was a montage showing various Japanese designers and how they came about creating games for the Wii. The game on show was Animal Crossing, a game which I have never got the hang of and couldn't possibly imagine why anybody would want to waste their life playing such a childish, simplistic game. One thing that confused me was the designer saying "Even when you are not there the animals go to bed and get up in the morning". What? What's the point in that? If you aren't playing the game, what is the point bothering about what characters in the game are doing? I don't switch off Final Fantasy VII and expect half my team to be dead when I load it back up because the monsters are still running round killing them, I actually do need to sleep thank you very much!
Then we get to see a revolutionary new microphone, guess what it's called- Wii Speak! Yeah I bet you didn't guess that either.. Anyway the thing with this microphone is the fact that it isn't a singular headset, it lets everyone in the room speak. Which is great, you can be playing your game online while all you can hear from your friends microphone is the particular episode of Eastenders on in their living room. Nice one Nintendo! It's all about community playing apparently, we'll just have to bare with them shall we.
Another Nintendo exec, this time from America, takes to the stage and bombards with audience with some facts and figures. You can't blame them for this, you might as well sing while you're winning. And if you go off sales figures, like some people do, Nintendo seem to be winning. Ten more minutes of numbers and we then get a glimpse of Star Wars: Clone Wars, Rayman Raving Rabbits TV Party and Call of Duty: World at War. The last 2 games being shown played by a group of people who must be having so much fun they can't stop smiling. Maybe they all won the lottery and are imagining how many Nintendo Wii's they could buy with their winnings.
And then I am rushed with a feeling of great dred as the smiling woman strides back onto the stage, this time talking about Nintendo's handheld console- the Nintendo DS. More importantly she talks about how the DS seems to be connecting with female gamers. This doesn't surprise me one bit, what does surprise me is how they have so many male gamers buying the Wii. But then I realised that there is no way they could know the gender of every gamer who bought a DS, so thus putting their figures into disrepute. Aha I won that one!
Amidst the video footage shown is a new Guitar Hero game for the DS. Now the cool thing about playing Guitar Hero is the fact you can pretend like you are actually playing a real guitar and are a world famous guitarist. It helps when the controller basically is a bloody guitar! Now the DS doesn't play by the rules, they do things their own way. Do you get to play it on a guitar? No. Instead you strum the screen while tapping your fingers against a 5-buttoned finger strap. Yeah man rock ouuuut! Err it's just not the same sadly!
But then Nintendo go a whole step further! They just ruined one large franchise- Guitar Hero. But that's not enough- Grand Theft Auto. Yeah that's right, GTA for the DS. An all new story, with all new characters and an all new.... nice plastic box with a bow and free snake. Somehow I don't see how GTA will transfer over to the lovable, cuddly, DS. It's like giving a toddler a flame thrower and telling it the kid next door stole his teddy bear.
And apparently now we are being told that the DS is not just a console, no, it can go with you anywhere! Take it to the park, take it on a plane, take it into the kitchen, take it to Camden while you watch Amy Winehouse punch a man in the toilets. Seems to me like they're taking a leaf out of the PSP's book. I knew they would catch on eventually.
What's happening now? Oh it's some new accessory for the Wii. It makes the Wii remote even more respondent then it currently is. So basically the Wii Motion + makes the controller do what it was supposed to do in the first place. To show off this revolutionary new device we are shown a demonstration using the new Wii Sports: Resort game, and probably the most boring and tedious even you could possibly imagine in a video game. You throw a Frisbee for a dog. The dog has to catch it. Yeah, that is it. The whole concept. Whoever said "hey let's do a game where you have to throw a Frisbee for a dog" should be shot, stabbed and set on fire.
The sword-fighting event could have saved us, but alas it failed. Instead of mutilating your opponent, letting you fly around on a roaring rampage, a la Kill Bill, no, instead you have to sharpen pencils and chop blocks of wood. Such a shame.
Now, look back through all I have written above, take in the disappointments, the failings, the angst. All that is about to be blown away by Nintendo's finale. We see a drummer using the Wii remote to play the drums, a CGI drum kit is on the screen, we say a man using the Wii remote like a Saxophone, a CGI character playing the Saxophone on the screen. Now I know what you are thinking, it's like Rock Band and Guitar Hero: World Tour. They're tapping into that whole experience! Well actually no, what you are actually doing is pretending to play an instrument, and the Wii makes you look like you actually are. There isn't even any skill or track to follow, you actually just choose which instrument you want to play and the music plays for you. It's a rhythm game without the rhythm elements.
So basically it's a music game for retards and lemmings. Are the words WHAT-IS-THE-POINT spiraling round your head too? Thought so, it's just stupid. It's like plaing football without keeping score. It's okay lads we're all winners really, then we go home and blow are brains out because we realise we are not winners, we are in fact- failures.
And failure is going to be my buzzword to sum up Nintendo's E3 2008 Press Conference. So, so long, and good luck, especially if you own a Wii and have been sucked in by this non-competitive style of gaming.
Over and out.
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