Mason

@kobe1724 This is a 'personal favourites' list from a collective group, not based on scores.

Personally I wish Zack and Wiki had made it, and I ranked Excite Bots pretty high in my voting.

EDIT: Also Rhythm Heaven Fever / Beat the Beat.

@Koto Thanks for the extra info Koto!

As far as I know, in Japan the first character was free for a while and then became paid, then the rest were all paid from the beginning.

Definitely my launch title.

La Mulana for sure!

@Prof_Clayton Thanks — I've fixed that now. A fitting avatar!

@StephenYap3 I agree, along with Canvas Curse / Power Paintbrush.

@mamp Not entirely serious...

My bad, it's North America as a whole according to the press release. Corrected.

Ahhh, brings back memories of Continental Circus.

If it's anything like the first Vita FIFA, don't worry — traditional controls will probably be there too. The touch controls worked quite well in that game, particularly for shooting, so I'm looking forward to seeing it on Wii U.

@Shockerz @Bobhobob Neither of these features were in the demo I'm afraid; it was a straight set of three levels.

@Kage_88 Well, it was me / us... sites gotta help each other out!

@Dark_Oddy_Rises Ta!

@warvad To the SEGA lab!

Great introduction!

I took that SEGA photo if I recall rightly.

Good luck James. All the best at Nintendo of Europe!

@battLeToaD That would be an amazing twist of fate.

@Tasuki You've not got rid of all of us SEGAites...

@MadAussieBloke 7's a good score.

@Big_Gamer Nope, not at all.

Kirby's Dream Collection Special Edition pictured
Kirby's rubbish though so nobody cares.

I've got two US copies of Wild World as well. Cannot wait for this.

@chewytapeworm Haha, well, something resembling Sweetums at least!

@Kyloctopus You can play around in a few pre-set levels and basically strip them down to nothing and build up your own from scratch using plenty of different panels, so yeah, you can do quite a bit with it. You can also control which items and enemies appear, plus the movement speed of enemies and your character. It's a real shame that you can't share them with passwords or something, though.

@Rect_Pola Yeah, I think it does by one year. The arcade version of Tumble Pop was 1991, Kirby's Dream Land was 1992. The Game Boy port of Tumble Pop didn't come out until late 1992 / early 1993, though.

We didn't get to see those unfortunately; they floated about on the title screen teasingly, but nothing more!

I'll try to answer a few of the questions that seem to be popping up.

Can you save / are there checkpoints?

I'm unsure. I assume there's some kind of save system, or else it'd have to be quite a short game if there's an overall storyline. Maybe at the least there'll be some kind of quick save so you can switch off quickly and pick up where you left off next time.

Are there goals?

In the demo you're being directed by a stranger through the tablet device that each character has. The goal of the demo was to creep through a part of Buckingham Palace, though I'm not sure why. I suspect there is an overall storyline to do with this stranger. He gets disgruntled every time somebody dies and is claiming to be trying to help, but I would imagine there's something more to it.

Are Wii Remote and Nunchuk supported?

I don't know at this stage. They weren't in this demo, but that's not to say that they won't be in the final thing. Hopefully the asymmetrical multiplayer mode, where one person controls zombie hordes with the GamePad and others fight against them FPS style, will support them at least. It used Wii U Pro Controller at E3 if what I've read is correct, but unfortunately it wasn't available to test at this showing so I can't really comment any more on that.

@NintyFan The capsule machine turned up after each mini game. You could shake the GamePad to jig the capsules about in the machine, then pushed a button to release one. No clue yet what the extras will be, though.

The screenshots released are of higher quality than what was playable, so I assume they'll be improved. This seemed to be an early demo of two small areas; I'll be more concerned if the textures still look like this a couple of months before launch.

I'd have to say that I prefer Arkham Asylum to City as well overall; it felt more tightly focused in the smaller world.

@hydeks In the areas shown in this demo at least, many of the textures weren't pretty. I'm sure it'll get cleaned up and improved a lot before launch, but here it really seemed like the focus had been on controls rather than visuals.

@aaronsullivan I didn't really have any problems with calibration or anything — not on this game, at least. Felt accurate to me whether aiming with the back of the GamePad facing away from the TV (normal style) or turned vertically.

@rjejr Something to help those thoughts along even more: at the end of each game you're rewarded with a capsule out of a bonus machine. The capsules pop out of a chicken's behind, of which there's a zoomed in view on the GamePad. The Wario vulgarity is here alright! Not sure what bonuses you get just yet, it was just promo art teasing the full game in the demo.

@Miss_Rarity Ralph's role is to climb up and smash the building, Rampage-style.

@Radixxs I'm not sure when exactly the 3DS news will be coming, but Iwata does mention that there will be some at the end of the video. Whether that means 3DS will feature on the E3 stage or Wii U gets it all to itself, or whether 3DS is the focus of the 'Software Showcase' later on in E3, I don't know.

@tat2 I believe that's a mistake on Nintendo's part; it's listed as 11pm GMT / 12am CET, when we're actually in BST and CEST at the moment.

@6ch6ris6 I believe it would be 12am on 4th June for Central European Summer Time.

At last! I've been waiting for this for ages.

I love E3. Biggest, best and busiest time of the gaming year.

@player310 We did when it was announced.

https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2012/04/nintendo_reveals_new_super_mario_bros_2_for_3ds

https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2012/04/talking_point_what_new_super_mario_bros_2_means_for_3ds_and_nintendo

This is actually what I expected a 'final surprise' of 3DS to be before launch, the ability to move the stylus in front of the console to essentially double the number of touch screens while retaining a 3D screen. Interesting...

I'd like the Yoshi's Island game to be developed by Good-Feel, which has proven itself with Wario Land: The Shake Dimension and especially Kirby's Epic Yarn.

Also wouldn't say no to a Platinum Games / Nintendo collaboration on a new IP...

Looks fantastic!

@GameCube Pokémon Trozei is probably the best comparison, actually.

It's a real shame about the audio; I got to hear uncompressed versions of some of the tracks last year, and the music was pretty great.

Still looking forward to playing, though.

@cyrus_zuo What would you like to know about the multiplayer? I've got / reviewed TNT Racers too, so any comparisons you want... I personally preferred this to TNT from a single player perspective.

TNT has the advantage of online multiplayer — this is local only — but unfortunately I could never actually find anybody playing online.

@battLeToaD Why thank you!

Good to see most people enjoying this!

Totally agree on the 10/10. One of Wii's best games.

It was really cool — I saw the green light flicker on, and I had a bit of a feeling about it before I even checked. Lo and behold, there's James; a bit of neck stretching over seats and we were reunited.

Long live StreetPass!

@MikeyMikeMike There are plenty of positives: the rise of challenge through three distinct difficulties / speeds (normal, fast, turbo), the latter two at least ensuring that it'll last a while; tight controls with multiple schemes; varied objectives; tension caused by the knock out style gameplay that sets it apart from the usual 'win the race' driving game; the idea of shadow cars; funny local multiplayer and quite a high level of options for custom races.

@Koops3 DTP is the publisher; it's actually developed by Keen Games, who have previously done Anno (Wii / DS) and Secret Files Puritas Cordis (Wii / DS).

Really glad to see this review has persuaded some of you to give it a chance!

@Magi Movemodo and VitaGamr are now part of Push Square.

@Swiket Why not give them a try and find out?