Thursday, May 13, 2004

The Wonders of E3

	E3 has been absolutely amazing this year. There are so many games being shown this year that I want, it's not even funny. It's almost painful to think of just how few of these games I'm actually going to be able to afford, but hopefully my friends and I can split up our purchases and then let each other borrow the others' games once we play through our own. No matter what, though, I'm going to be getting all three of the new Zelda games and Metroid Prime 2: Echoes, whenever they're released. Other gaming purchases will be planned around those four, heh. Speaking of those three Zelda games, I'm eagerly awaiting Four Swords Adventures in June (so close!), but we've been getting info on that for a while now; what I'm really excited about seeing more of is the next 3D Zelda game for the GCN. You can find a post about the game, for now just titled "The Legend of Zelda" on OtakuBoards if you want to read some specific thoughts on the game from me, so I won't go into a lot of detail here. What I will say is that I've got that same giddy excitement that accompanied my anticipation of both Ocarina of Time and The Wind Waker and will, most likely, forever accompany any big Zelda game's announcement. I'm just dying to find out more about this game. As for the third Zelda game, The Minish Cap, I've also made a post on OtakuBoards about it. Going along with that post, this new GBA Zelda looks to be the strangest game yet in the series. I mean, the previous Game Boy Zelda titles have all been pretty strange, but from what I've seen and heard about The Minish Cap, it beats them all. One of the best things about the Game Boy Zeldas is that they kind of take themselves seriously, but there's always that completely off-the-wall strangeness permeating them, so I'm really looking forward to just how strange this new game will get. And then we come to Metroid Prime 2: Echoes. . . . Wow. Everything in the trailer for this game looked amazing. One thing that really stood out for me was the "Dark Samus" enemy that we see Samus fighting during a couple clips in the trailer. That, and the black stuff that transformed those two enemies. The light and dark thing looks like it's going to be used in some really cool ways. Also, something that I'm very interested in but still have a few doubts about, is the Nintendo DS. Overall, the system looks great, but I'm not liking the idea of the touch screen a whole lot. Sure, for some things I think it would be great, but from what I've been reading about the game demos, it sounds like you're going to be using it a lot. Now, for things like the Metroid Prime: Hunters demo, using it to select your beam and going in and out of the Morph Ball, I think it's great; you're not going to be be needing the face buttons while doing this, so taking your thumb off them to tap the screen is fine. But for things like camera control where you have to roll your finger over the screen to control its movement, I have a feeling I'm not going to like it. For something like the Super Mario 64x4 demo, where you're going to be constantly changing the camera angle, having to reach over and move your thumb across the screen seems like it would get annoying really quick. True, you had to use the C buttons for the original Super Mario 64, but those were right next to the face buttons and all you had to do was tap the button. Same with the C stick on the GCN controller -- right near the face buttons, and you just had to tap it over in the direction you wanted. Having to slide your finger across the screen seems like it would be both slower and more prone to mistakes. Personally, I think they should have included some little C buttons, like on the N64 controller, below the A, B, X, and Y face buttons for things like camera control. But, until the system is released and I'll actually be able to see how well the touch screen works, I'll just continue to drool over the system's other features and the game demos. The wireless linking sounds absolutely awesome; hopefully it will open up the potential for more multiplayer games. Both of the demos I mentioned above, Metroid Prime: Hunters and Super Mario 64x4, look like a lot of fun. One of the things I missed in Super Mario 64 was a two player mode, so I'm really excited about that. Metroid Prime: Hunters not so much, since there'll be multiplayer in Metroid Prime 2: Echoes, but still. And of course, we can't forget Mario Kart. . . . So many possibilites.

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