PixelatedPixie

Marvel Pinball for me and maybe some more Warioland 4.

@Oddy - That game looks really fun.

Nintendo have alot to learn when it comes to sales promotions. 0.50P off for Freakforms? How's that supposed to be an incentive? I was actually interested in picking this up at a reduced price point, but a 0.50p discount is laughable.

EDIT - My bad, it's actually a larger discount that I thought. Perhaps I will buy it after all.

Reggie talks about the appetite of Nintendo fans being insatiable, but what isn't mentioned is their incredible pateince. Sure, we finally got a look at what was a very vanilla-looking demo of Pikmin 3, but we've also been waiting for that game for way too long. He talks of fans desire to see a Mario game at launch, what isn't mentioned is that another NSMB game might not have been exactly what was wanted. I personally don't think it was unreasonable for Nitnendo fans to expect more from Nintendo this E3, especially given the absolute lack of Wii software and the abysmal launch of the 3DS. We needed Nitnendo to show us why we would want to buy Wii U. It's not a question of wanting more, it's a question of fulfilling what has already been promised, and in that regard Nintendo failed entirely

Am I the only one who thought that Viewtiful Joe was pretty, stylish & funny, but not necessarilly fun to play? I mean it was OK, but wasn't it...you know...just a beat-em-up (ocassionally a shoot-em-up) with a bullet-time mechanic? I don't know, maybe it's just me? But I've owned that game for years now and still haven't found the will to finish it.

Where do I know EnoyUp from?

Yeah, they really should announce the price and launch date already. It's going to be hard for Nintendo to get their message our or for the hype machine to gain traction without those two crucial pieces of information.

I've never played Harvest Moon, but I'd like to give it a go. If it reviews well, I'd be up for it.

I'm going to go on record and say that isn't true. Nintendo have stated that they learnt lessons from the 3DS launch. The lessons I imagine they would have taken would have been to launch hardware with appealing software and to launch at an affordable price point.

@FluttershyGuy

I don't know about that. NSMB U is certainly a love letter to Nintendo's investors (these games sell like gangbusters) and I'm sure casual gamers, who would shy away from a Mario Galaxy-type game, will eat it up. For long suffering Nintendo fans though I would have thought that something more exciting and novel would have been desired. If any announced Wii U game is a love letter to core Nintendo fans I would argue that it's probably Pikmin 3, which holds a place in fans hearts but in terms of sales has greatly underperformed.

I thought NSMB Wii was a decent game, but it was pretty forgettable. I'm dissappointed that they've stuck to the exact formula with this release. I'd love a 2D Mario game which actually felt novel and interesting rather than a rehash of concepts from previous Mario games.

@Chicken_Brutus

In my earlier comment I said exactly that. I said,

"Nintendo need to look at the market and set their prices accordingly."

The sentence you quoted was in response to L4DYK0M1C's claim that the price increase might be attributed to localisation costs. I could be wrong, but as I understood it developers suggest what price their game should be sold at but that it is Nintendo who ultimately take the decision. I would be very surprised if developers had no say in the price of their game.

@L4DYK0M1C

There's some logic to that, but to be honest just how much localisation do you think was required for Mutant Mudds? Is there much in the way of story or dialogue? I'm sure there's the cost of getting it certified to be released in Europe, but that's a cost that should be factored into the games development costs and not one which should be borne by the consumer.

@Jese_1

I have to agree with Geonjaha and McHaggis. There is a huge difference between whinging and discussion. From the comments I've read here today it does not seem to me to be whinging, but rather a healthy debate about Nintendo's pricing structure for digital releases in Europe.

Like sketchturner, I'm not really a big fan of Smash Bros. Still, I understand it's importance for the platform. The sooner they get it out the better.

The price of games on eshop are becoming increasingly difficult to justify. Nintendo need to look at the market and set their prices accordingly. People can purchase games similar to Mutant Mudds on Steam or on their mobile device for a lot less. Hell, I just bought a brand new copy of Epic Mickey for £7.95. By all accounts Mutant Mudds is a great game, and I'll probably buy it, but for every person like myself there's probably several who would have purchased it at £5 - £6 but who wont at £8.10. I worry that the eshop pricing structure in Europe is undercutting sales.

The pricing structure in Europe also angers me because it takes away from the game itself. When people should be getting excited about playing a long awaited game, instead we're talking about the price. It's pretty dissappointing.

I was considering buying Heroes of Ruin but, and this is going to sound pretty shallow, the game is really ugly. The character models don't look all that great, the game is littered with ugly textures and the frame rate was pretty bad in spots. I might consider it at a lower price point, but nothing about the demo really grabbed me.

For me it's going to be Epic Mickey & Warioland 4. I decided not to get Heroes of Ruin until I've read a few reviews. The demo was ok, but I wasn't completely sold. I might pick it up at a later date if reviews are postive.

Although conceptually the 3DS design is fine, I have serious problems with my launch day 3DS in terms of it's construction and it's battery life. The D-pad on mine really sucks, as does the right shoulder button, and of course the battery is terrible. My sister has a new 3DS and already the D-pad seems to be slightly improved and the shoulder buttons feel more clicky. I'd kind of hoped they'd announce an upgrade this year though so I had an excuse to buy a new one.

It's not a big deal, but Pikmin is essentially a strategy game and strategy games can make for some exciting competitve multplayer. It's a shame they couldn't find a way to make it work.

I never purchased Dillon's Rolling Western because a) it was £9.00 and b) the combat looked repetitive. I've read NL's review but still wasn't convinved. Can anyone tell me if it's worth £9.00 and whether or not the rolling combat is repetitive?

@ouroborous - I have to be honest, I don't think it was as difficult as everyone said. There were certainly sections like 'Doing things the hard way' which were a little cheap, but I didn't find overly hard.

Some of the user-created levels on the other hand were brutal, and not necessarily in a good way.

VVVVVV is great, but better than Pullblox?

Mine would be

1 - Pullblox
2 - Mighty Switch Force
3 - VVVVVV
4 - The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening DX
5 - Donkey Kong ('94)
6 - Zen Pinball 3D
7 - Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3
8 - Gargoyle's Quest
9 - Art of Balance: Touch
10 - Kid Icarus: 3D Classics

It's 2012. I repeat. It's 2012! What the hell Nintendo?

@ Monsti - Me too. It was cruel to put Samurai in the title knowing full well that people would associate it with Sakura Samurai only to be dissappointed. Shame on you.

As GeminiSaint says, there are actually rooms in each stage in which you could potentially battle a Hunter. I personally thought the game did really poor job of giving the player information on how the Hunter fights worked. On at least two occasions I accidentally locked myself out of being able to fight all three.

I've been enjoying this quite a bit. The bosses are kind of dumb and some of the weapons pointless, but the action is solid and the graphics and music are great.

The sad part is that NSAF, who is an inanimate object, really did do the best job of all.

I too would really like a nice scarlet red. Or maybe a dark green. Just how expensive is it to colour plastic anyway? Nintendo had shown so many beautiful colours for the Wii but hardly any of them were actually sold. I don't get it. People clearly dig having several different options. White and Black just seem a little dull.

I have to agree with James. There really needs to an option to opt out of moderation. I, like quite alot of people, am disgusted by the casual racism and general idiotic language used by many on Xbox Live. However, being an Irishman, I also like to relax with friends and drop a few F-bombs. I assume you only see messages from people on your friends list anyway, so what's the problem?

@Tate24

Too be fair, I don't think anyone has moaned. Being critical of a certain aspect of a game, in this case the visuals, is not moaning. Similarly, you're positive impressions of the game could not be said to be superlative. They're just opinions.

Just played the HoR demo. It was pretty fun and the loot and skills seemed neat (I played as the Gunslinger). I have to say though, that games looks absolutely terrible. The textures in spots are akin to those you might see on an N64 and even the character models and particle effects look pretty rough. Definitely not a looker this one.

Wow, this truely was a terribly dissappointing E3. With the exception of Pikmin 3 I can't say that I'm excited by anything that I've seen or heard reported. Even an announcement from Retro would have provided a little reassurance. Anything!

I would just like to congratulate common sense for making this all possible.

This was quite important for me for the following reasons.

18 x NES = £63
27 X SNES = £132.30
10 x N64 = £70.00
8 X Turbo Grafx = £33.60
9 X Mega Drive = £44.10
29 X WiiWare = £203.00
Total = £546.00 (roughly $845.60)

Having spent all this money on digital games I really didn't want to have them languish on my Wii (which I intend on boxing up once I've played Rhythm Heaven Fever, which is released soon in Europe under the name Beat the Beat). I still haven't decided that the Wii U is for me, but if i do, it's reassuring to know that these games will be coming with me.

Naught for me.

I'll get the HoR demo, though. Just to give it a go.

That's cool I guess. It isn't enough to get my blood going about the Wii U, but it's one more thing to check off the list.

If it was there intention to sell core gamers on the Wii U, I can only say they failed. The decision to spend so much time on Arkham (a game which has been available for months on other platforms), Just Dance 4, and a Luigi's Mansion minigame (which is basically Pac-man VS) seems flawed to me.

I thought Pikmin 3 looked cool, ZombiU looked ok, and NSMBU looked...well...like a NSMB game. The console comes out in a few months time though, and if this is the best they've got for launch then I think will be taking a wait and see approach.

Might this play anything at all like those underground 'mole mitts' puzzles in Skyward Sword? Just reading the description makes it sound similar.

Castlevania: Lords of Shawdow: Mirror of Fate? Wow, Konami are really taking the whole '**** of ****' naming structure to new heights.

I don't know if Nintendo would lie about something as crucial as when they announce the price for their next home console. They have stockholders and investors to think about.

I wonder if this means that when you switch Gameboy and Gameboy Colour games to their native resolution they'll be actually big enough to see without using a magnifying glass.

This controller seems to have the two same percieved issues as the Wii U controller. Which are the symetrical placement of the analogue sticks, and the distance between where your left hand would naturally rest around the controller and where the D-Pad has been placed. I will of course wait until I've read further reports, or better yet tried it myself, before passing judgement, but at first glance it doesn't look anywhere near as confortable as the Gamecube controller.

@KoiTenchi

Yeah, MetalMario pretty much covers it.

The gameplay would be similar to Shantae in the sense that there is quite a lot of combat, the majority of which involves getting in close and dispatching enemies before you proceed. As Metal says, the power-ups are permanent so long as you don't purchase a replacement (which automatically supplants your previous equipment)l.

In terms of comparison, it would certainly be closer to Shantae than it would be to games like Mario or other left-to-right sidescrolling platformers. I don't want to get too niche here, but I would say that it's lineage goes back to 2D sidescrolling RPGs like Zelda II, Faxanadu and of course Wonderboy.

@KoiTenchi

I completed the game a few weeks ago. I wouldn't say that it's similar to Shantae. Now bare in mind, I've only played Risky's Revenge, but the most defining feature of that game for me was the Metroid-style temples/dungeons and the transformations (again, not unlike Metroid's power-ups). For me Monster World IV would be much more comparable to games like Wonderboy and to a lesser extent Adventure Island (which makes sense given that all three series have a family history). There are power-ups in the game but they're more along the lines of armor and sword upgrades which simply provide more defense or provide more attack damage.

I have to agree. Monster World IV is fantastic. My only gripes with the game were that the save points were too few and far between (which sometimes resulted in up to 20 minutes of progress being lost) and the later levels were a little too much like labyrinths for my tastes. That's me being nitpicky though, because overall the game was really enjoyable. The music in particular has really stuck with me.

I'm probably going to get torn to pieces for both these statements, but here goes.

Sonic games are generally terrible and I think Yoshi's Island is vastly overrated. There. I said it.

If I was to pick games I'd love to see at E3 I'd pick Eternal Darkness 2 (Wii U), a new 2D Metroid (3DS), A sequel to Punch Out!!! (Wii U - perhaps implementing mechanics similar to those shown in the 'Shield Pose' demo) and a new 1080° or Wave Race would be pretty cool.

I can actually see the Gamer Card being a definite possibility. In UK & Ireland recently Barclaycard introduced their new payment option which incorporates a magnetic strip that has an adhesive on one side, allowing it to be stuck to the back of mobile phones. The strip can then be used to make payments via NFC. If Nintendo were to use a similar technology on a card, the card could then be carried in a wallet or purse and then placed on the Wii U tablet to update the system with streetpass data etc. I'm not sure if the range of NFC is sufficient for this to work though.

It isn't even out yet and already developers are pulling their support for the Wii U.

Joking aside, this is clearly a reflection of the state of THQ rather than an omen for the Wii U.

@James - yeah, the quirks are pretty minor in the grand scheme of things and hopefully most people won't experience these issues. Just thought it was worth me mentioning it.

@chewytapeworm - True, it can sometimes be funny to see the physics wig out. On a few challenges though it became pretty irritating, especially when you know that the way you're approaching a puzzle is valid, your execution is perfect, but the physics and rules established by the game just don't act as they should. All in all though it's still a great game.

I was a big fan of the Wiiware version and am enjoying this 3DS release as well. Still, I'm surprised the review does not mention the game's physics which can often be a little dodgy. There are certain blocks for instance which dont behave as they should. One block, which is a circle with four legs poking off diagonally, for instance has the uncanny ability to balance on one of it's legs even when it really shouldn't. There are also cases throughout where the rules of gravity established in the game don't quite know what to do, and as a result blocks will shake or vibrate until they fall, despite being perfectly balanced. There are numerous other examples of this type of thing. I still really enjoyed the game, but the physics engine could definitely use a little work.