Animal Crossing press conference '08

Tuesday, July 15, 2008 »

Nintendo officially announced Animal Crossing: City Folk for Wii this morning, and that was about the whole reason I tuned into their press conference. Even though I played Wild World obsessively, it's been long enough since I stopped that I'm getting pretty excited for the next version. Details about new features were pretty sparse, aside from there being a new urban area and an auction house, but even if it's mostly the same game with upgraded graphics (I never played the Gamecube version) and a bunch of new catalog items/neighbors/fish and bugs to collect, I'll be happy playing it for a long time. Of course, I'd still love for it to turn out to be my ideal next-gen Animal Crossing that I detailed here and here.

They talked about some other stuff, too:

New Mario & Zelda games for Wii

I would really love a new Mario game that's more in the vein of Super Mario 64, with sprawling levels that are fun to leisurely (for the most part) explore, with less of a feeling that I'm traveling along a preset path like in Super Mario Galaxy. Also, the new Zelda must be a cel-shaded Wind Waker sequel. The realistic style in Twilight Princess was so uninspired.

Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars

Weird.

Wii MotionPlus and Wii Sports Resort

So Wiimote 2.0? I don't really know what to make of this. It's sort of pitiful in that it finally provides functionality that people expected the wiimote to be capable of at launch. (At least Ubisoft did, HA HA.) I guess there's a lot of potential in 1:1 motion controls, but am I going to run out and buy one (or two)? Not if 90% of the games for it continue to be minigame collections.

...Which brings me to Wii Sports Resort. They're going to have to try harder to sell me on this, especially at $50 (plus the cost of another Wii MotionPlus so I can try the swordfighting). Without more to go on, I'm expecting this to be probably five more minigames that show off the new motion controls, with varying degrees of success. I don't know how well a jetski game's going to work, for example. And seriously, frisbee? The whole thing screams "tech demo" even louder than the original Wii Sports.

WiiSpeak

I'm glad this isn't getting bundled with Animal Crossing because I don't think I'm interested, at least not for that game. But, in the basically nonexistant likelihood that they patch SSBB and Mario Kart Wii to support this, I'll buy one right away. I'll admit the conference-call style is a perfect fit for the Wii.

Wii Music

I'm waiting to see a really good video of this before I make any judgements, and the only thing I turned up in a quick search was this, and while it may be extremely awesome, I have a feeling that—despite the what the title may say—it is not an accurate representation of the gameplay.

By the way, if anyone knows what song that is, please let me know so I can put it on my iPod and loop it forever and ever. I'm prepared for the inevitable embarrassment when it turns out to be the song from some level of Castlevania I never made it to or something.

My favorite week of the year

Monday, July 14, 2008 »

That's right. If there's anything that can drag me out of my posting coma, it's E3.

So what did Microsoft announce today? A lot of stuff that I'm surprised to say I'm looking forward to, actually.

"New Xbox Experience"

It's a new dashboard for your Xbux! While I'm OK with the current blades design for the most part, it does kind of look like a neon billboard covered in ads. (If you apply a custom theme to it, it looks like a neon billboard designed by the typical MySpace user. Also, it's still covered in ads.) Any redesign to make the layout a little nicer is welcome, so I was surprised to see that the above image (thanks, ArsTechnica) is the actual interface. It's looking very slick and XMB/Front Row-ish. I'm sure they'll find a way to cram some ads in there by release, but it sure makes for a nice demo.

Avatars

This is Microsoft blatantly ripping off Nintendo's Miis so I should probably be up in arms like most of the Internet, but I'm a sucker for customizeable characters. I'm looking forward to building my own Avatar, but in support of Nintendo, I'll do it with a disapproving look on my face the whole time. Extra points, though, if I can make one wearing a shirt with my wicked N7 gamerpic. Or even better, wearing this N7 shirt.

Installable games

NO MORE DRIVE NOISE. Oh my god. They're saying the major advantage of this will be reduced loading times, but I beg to differ. The worst part of those Mass Effect elevators wasn't the length, but that I could hear my Xbox trying to take flight during the ride. This may even convince me to go buy a bigger drive. I've actually been doing so much disc swapping on the PS3 lately that I'd be all for a console with permanent installs and—god forbid—CD keys at this point, but I know that'll never happen.

Netflix

Now you can watch stuff in your Netflix queue right on your 360. I had to read a few articles about this before someone mentioned that it's only for Gold subscribers. I was upset at first, but then decided that this would actually be a good excuse to upgrade my account. (I have an unused 13 month card lying around, anyway.) It is, unfortunately, only for the movies currently available to stream, but the streaming library seems to get bigger every day and watching them at my computer desk (in IE, no less) is not appealing. I just wish this was happening before the fall update because there are a ton of movies in my streaming queue that I'd watch right now.

Final Fantasy XIII

This didn't really faze me beyond the fact that Sony lost such a high-profile exclusive. This is the first FF game that doesn't really interest me in the least, although in the back of my mind I know I'll probably get it, and it'll be the PS3 version. Good for non-PS3 owners, though. But please, Xbox owners on the Internet: Please stop acting like you have a personal vendetta against Sony and that this will be the evil tyrant's downfall. I really don't understand this.