PAX Prime ’11: Nintendo Wrap Up

I got a chance to tour Nintendo’s booth at PAX Prime last weekend, and I have returned with previews of some games you probably already knew if you were going to buy or not.

Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword

The big difference in this edition of the Zelda franchise, which takes advantage of Wii Motion Plus. Some of the PR handlers in the booth were saying that it features one-to-one motion controls, but not really. Not that that’s a bad thing.

While just pointing and twisting the sword and other items while exploring works close to one-to-one, thankfully combat does not. No one plays Zelda because of deep simulation mechanics, so forcing them on everyone would have been a poor decision.

Overall the game looks, well, like a Zelda game. Make of that what you will.

Mario Kart 7

I have a bit of a history with the Mario Kart franchise, but I set my feelings aside and gave the demo a whirl.

It was an early build, so features like selectable karts, tires and some of the playable characters either weren’t available or didn’t really work yet. What did work was the addition of gliders for (temporary) aerial racing and propellers for underwater track sections.

Yes, you read that right. Water doesn’t always meen insta-death anymore.

The 3D effects looked good, but didn’t really add much to the gameplay, so if you are so inclined to turn that feature of your 3DS down you won’t be missing much.

Star Fox 64 3D

It adds the 3D effect to the N64 game. That’s about it.

Super Mario 3D Land

The levels I got to play were based on old 2D Mario games, mainly 1 and 3 from the NES days, but with the ability to move back and forth in the (narrow) 3D world. Kind of like Super Paper Mario, really.

The controls took a little getting used to, but I think the new camera angle had a bit to do with that. I figured the little differences out quickly though, and by the end of the demo levels I was taking out boss characters with ease.

If the 3DS would have launched with this, I’m not sure we would have needed a price drop so soon. At least it’s not another N64 port.