Impressions from EB Expo: Nintendos lineup

We take a look at Wii and DS offerings that everyone hasnt already previewed

Some of our Queensland crew, Liam and Jordan hit up the EB Expo over the past week. In this, a first of two part feature, Liam has gone hands on with some of the games for Nintendo consoles at the Expo. We’ve got a huge review and recap of the actual expo coming soon too but for now we’ve got some fresh impressions from Liam who headed up to the Expo to check out the game. A contributor Rolan has also put together an ace video for us showing off the expo and a little of what we’ve got previewed below.

Mario & Sonic at the 2012 London Olympic Games – Previewed on Wii (Will be available on 3DS/Wii)

Whether you like it or not, Nintendo and Sega’s most famous mascots are reuniting for the third time in Mario & Sonic at the 2012 London Olympic Games. Although the original and Winter Olympics version of Mario and Sonic were received quite poorly, there’s no denying the fact that they made a lot of money for Nintendo and Sega.

The original game, Mario and Sonic at the Olympics became known as the best-selling gaming character cross-over ever with 7.09 million copies on the Wii and 4.22 million copies on the DS being sold. On top of this the Winter Olympics sequel was Sega’s best selling game in 2009 of the financial year. With this amount of success sale wise, there was bound to be another entry in the series even if die hard Nintendo and Sega fans didn’t really want to see it, and so here it is.

The brief amount of time we had with this title at EB Expo revealed that it was mainly just a refined version of its predecessors. Sega, along with the gentle guidance of Nintendo, has tweaked a few elements of the series’ gameplay here and there, changed the controls around a little, added in a few new sports, and thrown in a couple of new arenas to top it off. For those who haven’t tried out this series before, it’s much like the Mario Party games.

You select a character, a mini-game (or in this case, sport), take note of the simple controls to play that particular sport for a brief second or two and then start. Before you know it, it’s over and basically from there you rinse and repeat until your eyes bleed or your fingers and arms fall off from all the button pressing and waving about.

During our short hands-on session we tried out Football (Soccer) and also gave Kayaking, a sport that was included as a DS-exclusive in the original Mario & Sonic at the Olympics as ‘Dream Canoe’, a go. Football, was 5 versus 5, and was fast and frantic. This sport had very simple controls which allowed players to hold the Wii Remote on its side, and take control of up to two characters passing and kicking the ball around the field with a few button presses while moving them about in any direction they wanted with the control pad. This particular sport felt like a simplified version of the Mario Strikers games and is guaranteed to be one of the more popular sports with players when the new Mario & Sonic is finally released. As for Kayaking, as much waggle as it included, it felt spot on. It recreates the actual sport perfectly and will have you puffing by the end of each race (whether that’s a good thing or not is up to you).

This sport utilises the Wii Remote’s motion control and has players doing timed movements with the remote from left to right, right to left to win races against three other players or computer controlled opponents. While a lot of gamers may be quick to criticise the excessive waggle that’ll feature throughout the various sports in the new Mario & Sonic, these controls will no doubt create some hilarious moments in people’s living rooms worldwide, and it’s really not that bad in short bursts.

The sound and visuals in both of the sports played and across the menus, character and level selection screens didn’t exactly stand out. Unfortunately, this game seems to include untouched graphics and sound. It would have been nice to see a noticeable upgrade in these departments, but it’s not too much of a problem as they were already of an acceptable and appropriate standard.

Overall, Mario and Sonic at the 2012 London Olympic Games appears to be an improvement on the previous two entries in the series. If you’ve played the original Mario & Sonic or the Winter Olympics game then you’ll pretty much already have a good idea of how this one plays as well. It can be fun with all the sports and multiplayer opportunities on offer but also a little frustrating at times due to its often extreme use of the Wii Remote’s motion control feature. Mario and Sonic’s new game for the Wii is due out in Australia on the 17 of November this year.

Kirby’s Wii Adventure (Only available on Wii)

Nintendo has been trying so, so hard recently to get Kirby noticed by more than just long time fans, but nothing has really worked. This year in Australia we’ve seen the release of Kirby’s Epic Yarn, the Kirby TV Channel on the Wii and even the re-release of the Kirby’s Dreamland on the Nintendo eShop. Even after all of this, a random in the street probably still wouldn’t know who, or what exactly Kirby was if you asked them to identify the pink puffball. Hopefully his reputation changes though with the upcoming release of Kirby’s Return to Dreamland on the Nintendo Wii.

After success of New Super Bros. Wii and Donkey Kong Country Returns it was probably only natural for Nintendo to think, ‘hmm… what next for new gen multiplayer side scrolling platformers?’ and so Kirby’s Return to Dreamland was born. As with every Kirby title, this one will also be developed by the brilliant minds at HAL Laboratory, responsible for other non-Kirby titles such as, Super Smash Bros. 64 and Super Smash Bros. Melee. Speaking of Smash Bros, during our play test of Kirby’s Return to Dreamland at EB Expo we couldn’t help but feel as if we were playing some weird Smash Bros spin-off. And that wasn’t a bad feeling either, it was actually really good!

The main difference Kirby’s new adventure had to NSMBW and DKCR was that as one of the four characters in the game, you seemed to just destroy absolutely everything in your path, creating a very different style of play to what was encountered in both NSMBW and DKCR. The characters to select from were Kirby, Metaknight, King Dedede and Waddle Dee. King Dedede in particular seemed more than capable of destroying just about anything that was in his way. Metaknight was as fast as he is in the Smash Bros games and Kirby and Waddle Dee were mostly slow and puffy. Just like in DKCR, each character features their own set if abilities. Kirby is able to suck up enemies, items and objects and other characters like King Dedede can wave about his hammer in a set of unique ways. Players also have the option to play as multiple Kirby’s but we found it more fun when everybody was different, and it was well-worth seeing Kirby ride on King Dedede’s back.

The control style featured in Kirby’s Return to Dreamland takes a leaf out of New Super Mario Bros. Wii. Players hold the Wii remote on its side to control and navigate one of the four characters around the screen with the assistance of the control pad and buttons. The graphics were the usual cute and cuddly Kirby/Super Smash Bros style visuals and the sound and musical backings were a combination of traditional and remixed.
All up, Kirby’s Return to Dreamland is shaping up to be one of the better Wii titles of 2011 (assuming it actually makes it to Australian shores before the end of year). If the rest of the game turns out to be as enjoyably chaotic as our short session with it was, then we’re sure it’ll be a hit with the majority of Wii owners who are looking for a new multiplayer Nintendo game to play when their friends come round for the night.

Professor Layton and the Last Specter (Nintendo DS)

Layton and Luke have had an excellent video game career when you think about it. It’s almost like they’ve had the perfect run that just about every other video game mascot can only dream of. Not a single bad game, really. Sure, there’s only been a handful of them, but think back to stuff like (insert game you don’t like here) and that was a nightmare by the third game or so. Anyhow, Level 5 are bringing Professor Layton, and his honourable little side kick Luke, back for the fourth time in bigger and better ways than ever before.

There’s been a lot more hype surrounding this particular Layton game as well. For those of you who didn’t know, Professor Layton and the Last Specter will not only feature the usual mystery and puzzle solving adventures of the Professor and his young sidekick but also an additional game within it known as Layton’s London Life. London Life is being co-developed by Brownie Brown and is a lifestyle/RPG style game that will reportedly keep players entertained for more than 100 hours and focus more on the normal side of life in Professor Layton’s world.

At the EB Expo we were lucky enough to have access to the main game and the additional game, London Life. Although there was only a single DSiXL unit containing this brilliant game at the Nintendo booth, it was more than enough for us to give the Last Specter and London Life a test run, and to be quite honest, nobody else was really that interested in the game due to it being tucked away in a lone little corner.

The good and bad news about the new Professor Layton title is that it seems to be more of the same. If you’ve played any or all of the previous entries in the series, then much like Mario & Sonic at the 2012 London Olympic Games, you’ll know what to expect. The puzzles we had the opportunity to try out were mainly a few brain teasers and a couple of drop and drag mini-games. The brain teasers weren’t exactly appropriate for the environment we were playing the game in but we pushed on and eventually got some correct guesses. Apart from the gameplay, the graphics and sound elements of the game are also presented in the exact same way they have been for the past 3 games, which is probably for reasons related to game consistency.

Moving back to Layton’s London Life, and that’s where the real fun of Professor Layton and the Last Specter began. It was not that the main game in Last Specter was bad or anything, it was excellent, but London Life is obviously new and uncharted territory. The copy of Last Specter at the Nintendo section of EB Expo allowed us to create a character, although it was rather limited in terms of customisation, and then explore the town as we pleased, engaging in activities such as fishing, flower picking and a series of quests which involved helping the residents. It had a very similar play-style to the Animal Crossing games and is presented with graphics in the style of the Mother/EarthBound series.

One last point worth making note of is that it was assumed Australia was not receiving the extra game, Layton’s London Life. So if Nintendo was featuring that version of Last Specter at the EB Expo here in Australia, well that leaves a lot of questions up in the air now about whether or not we are or aren’t getting the London Life version. Although we’re normally tied to the European releases and game versions, maybe this will be one of those rare occasions where we’re somehow excluded from the region not actually getting the extra part of the game. With or without London Life, the Last Specter is going to be yet another fantastic Professor Layton title that fans of the series will certainly not want to miss out on and all DS owners should add to their collection. Be on the lookout for it in Australia this December.

What about Skyward Sword, Mario Kart 7 and all those other awesome Nintendo games?

Don’t worry, we’ve got already got it covered! Yes, Skyward Sword, Mario Kart 7, Super Mario 3D Land and Kid Icarus were all playable at the EB Expo, but we’ve already previewed them back when the 2011 Connection Tour was travelling around Australia so you can go and read about all of these other upcoming games right now, here and here. We’ve also thrown together a video to highlight some of EB Expo’s main attractions and the great Nintendo games that were on offer.

Look out for our part two feature tomorrow which covers and reviews the EB Expo in general, it even includes things that are not Nintendo!