Pre-E3 Expo Thoughts

Just a short update this weekend. This week I will be at E3 Expo 2013, I'll get to see all the awesome new stuff Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft put out there, as well as see what else is in store. Will there be a new Zelda? A New Final Fantasy? Will Call of Duty: Dog Warfare be any good, or just yet another cash-in sequel by Activision and Infinity Ward. And perhaps most importantly, does the Xbox One actually play video games?

I'll be doing a three-day analysis at the end of each day, try and give you some impressions of what I get to play. Bearing in mind I am working at E3 this year for gaming website Screwattack.com, for whom I'll be editing many of their videos in the media room. However I'll try and give my best impressions, specifically relating to the major conferences, we have Sony and Microsoft dishing them out and Nintendo with their hour long Nintendo Direct trying to bring the conference less in a bombastic approach and a more... well direct one.

How will E3 go down this year, no idea. Everything seems pretty level this year, Sony and Microsoft have their new consoles coming up, Sony appearing to be in the lead here. They've shown off more games, though people seem to forget how bad their conference was in face of how disastrous the XBox Reveal was. Microsoft have be all about the games this year, tell us what is going to make someone like myself a person who has never owned an Xbox console before, buy one. What exclusives are you bringing to the table? The DRM thing is a real crap, so maybe they might sort something out there, but it's growing increasingly concerning that they won't be changing that any time soon and we'll all have to pay full price for used games, which frankly is BULLSHIT.

Sony on the other hand have shown off a few games, however they haven't shown off any heavy hitters really just the usual Sony stuff that we expect from them. When I saw the PS4... the presentation that is, I really hope they actually show the goddamn console this time, I was quite disappointed that all they showed off were games that had minute graphical enhancements and there was nothing new about the PS4. They've spoken about using the Vita in a similar way to the Wii U, but for someone to do that would cost them somewhere in excess nearly $1000 in all likely-hood. One thing they should emphasises is a worldwide price cut for the Vita and a massive push for cross-platform play. I love the idea that you can play one game on your PS3/PS4 then go play it on your Vita when you leave your house. The only problem is that you have to buy full copies of each. They've changed that for a couple of games but really they need to make it across all games, buy one copy get the other digitally free. Or buy the game digitally and you get the game on both handheld and home console.

Nintendo have to show off their big guns on the software side, with a very rough start to the Wii U, as an old-school fanboy I'm hoping they can pull something out of the hat. We're expecting Smash Bros, Mario, Zelda and hopefully a few surprises along the way. I'd hate to see their direct show off stuff we already knew was coming. I'd like to see some Mario Kart going on and perhaps most important for me, I want to see what Monolith Soft is working on, everyone keeps talking about Retro Studios... yeah, yeah Metroid Prime was a good game and DKC Returns was great too. But Xenoblade Chronicles was probably the best game on the Wii, and now Monolith Soft are bringing that kind of awesome RPG to the Wii U. What's coming up, I have no idea. But I'm very excited, let's just hope they don't flop like last year's conference, which started out so well and then completely lost steam by Nintendoland, which ironically has turned out to be one hell of a game.

How will things go down, it seems all companies need to focus on their games, with Nintendo probably a step behind because despite their one year jump on the others, they've not done much with it. Let's see how things go down, I'll see you guys and gals on Tuesday.

What I Would Have Changed: New Super Mario Bros. U

It's no secret that right now the Wii U is struggling in sales, and while I don't believe that to be the case forever, I do think that it's certainly got a bit of an uphill battle compared to it's easy-to-understand predecessor. One of the main reasons for this is that the Wii U has yet to really demonstrate what it's potential is. Sure we've got Nintendoland, that while a fun game, serves little to show how a full-fleshed out game might be on this new console and more like a demo of neat tricks. There's ZombiU, an admittedly excellent game that brings the survival horror genre to new heights by being one of the most intense horror experiences since the original Resident Evil, but sadly that game hasn't really got mass appeal in the same way Mario does. Now let's look at Mario for a second, he has made his appearance on the Wii U in the form of New Super Mario Bros. U - A game that is the best 2D Platformer since Super Mario World for the SNES. However, could it have been even better, could it have surpassed World, or even my personal favourite Super Mario Bros. 3 for the NES? It wasn't helped that a handheld New Super Mario Bros. game came out precisely three months earlier for the Nintendo 3DS, a game that really until the cool new DLC packs came out was very lackluster compared to both it's Wii and Wii U cousins. Now while I don't think any massive improvements to NSMB. U are going to skyrocket the sales of the Wii U, I do think that in my Hindsight of 20:20, there are certain things I would have changed to at best, make the game a system seller.

WHAT I WOULD HAVE CHANGED"NEW SUPER MARIO BROS. U"

Rules:

As per usual with these blogs, here are the rules:

• I can only change things about New Super Mario Bros. U, I can't say "Don't release New Super Mario Bros. 2 for the 3DS, as that's unrelated to changing NSMB.U itself.
• The Game has to be recognizable as a NSMB game. I can't simply say "Make it 3D" which would change it completely

THE CHANGES

First and foremost in any game is the gameplay. 2D Mario gameplay is also great, so why mess with the formula...? Well, I'm not going to. The Gameplay in the game is pretty solid, but the problem with it is just that... It's the same. It's the same as NSMB. NSMB.Wii and NSMB.2 - it offers absolutely nothing new. If you were to show me the front covers and Standard Def stills of NSMB. Wii and NSMB. U; without any of the power-ups of specifically defining characteristics of either game. I wouldn't be able to tell you which was which. Except for Wii is a red game case, and U is a blue one. So how am I changing the gameplay without changing the gameplay? Well, I'm not changing the core of the gameplay, I'm adding to it. How to do this? New Characters!

Characters

Perhaps it's just me and my friends but if you get stuck as Toad or worse, Toad-Clone, you're the butt-monkey of the group. Really? Does anyone actually like Toad... well some people do I guess... but in the entirety of nearly thirty years of Mario games are there not a few more characters you can play as. And to make matters worse, all the characters play exactly the same. Now Nintendo's rationale behind this is so that everyone gets the same experience... Well what you call "same experience" I call "dull and lazy". Why shouldn't Luigi get to jump higher like in Super Mario Bros. 2, for that matter, why isn't Princess Peach a character, make her able to glide. The ability to choose your character will get people to stop being Mario and play around a little, make the game a varied experience, as there were no power-ups in Mario 2, maybe now is the time to experiment with them a little, what if Luigi can jump EVEN higher with the Flying Squirrel power-up, or Peach's descent is longer than the rest now. What if Toad can fire up to three fireball/iceballs at once? Why stop at the Mario 2 characters, why not bring Wario into the mix with his unique dash ability only he has from the Wario Land games. What kind of unique power-up enhancements might he receive?

Power Ups

On the matter of Power-Ups, is it just me or are Nintendo running out of new ideas... Ice Mario, that's nice in a 2D game but isn't that great and we've seen it a few times now, a Flying Squirrell? Really? Well, if there are no new ideas, what about old ones. We've got the item menu right? Let's put it to good use like Mario 3. Where's my P-Wing, the Hammer Bros Suit, Frog Suit, all those rare interesting power-ups that made the game so much fun. I mean let's face it, wouldn't you want to see a badass Princess Peach hurling hammers at Goombas?

World Map

Onto the world map. It was a nice change to return to the continuous world map of Mario World's style... however I think it can be made better. There's a few times you can go different routes, but what if there were multiple routes through many levels that took you to different routes on the world map like in Mario World itself, routes that allowed you to access special levels and maybe find warp zones. It played with this idea a little but I'd really like to see it some more. Why stop at eight worlds, defy the norm create, ten, or twelve. In the handheld Mario Games it seems like many of the worlds are skippable easily and you only do half, the same in this game, you seem to choose the path of the worlds you want to do, so why not add more worlds to choose from, give us secret worlds like Star Road, the more content that ships with the game the more it'll feel like this is a brand new game and not yet another NSMB game.

Technology - Level Editor

Last but by no means least, we've just been given this brand new piece of tech in the Wii U GamePad and all you can think of is Off-TV play and creating blocks for people to jump on? Surely there should be more uses of the GamePad than that. What about a level-creator, how many times have you wanted to create your own Super Mario Bros. level but the technology of a normal controller was just all kinds of awkward for designing stuff, but with the GamePad, it becomes nice and smooth, like doing it on a PC or a Tablet. For that matter, this is the first Nintendo Console with solid online gameplay. While it's awesome to play this game in the same room as people, they needed to get consoles out the door, and no way is there better than "Hey, play this round mine... did you know we don't have to socially interact to play this awesome game!? Fuck yeah! Online Play!" Combine this with level-creation and Miiverse and you've got a vibrant community that would shit all over Little Big Planet and make NSMB.U, THE hot product to buy and play for the next generation. It would actually become a system seller. There's still time for a Level Editor, make a DLC to download and watch the money roll in... or dare it say it... watch it... Print in?

This is certainly something we're not likely to see any time soon...

So there you have it, the Mario series in general has always been pretty simplistic and I would never want to deviate from that, just to bring something new and interesting to it. This is not to say that the current game isn't great, it's a whole lot of fun and has a decent difficulty level, especially in the challenges that'll really put you to the test. But for now, this these are the changes I would have made to New Super Mario Bros. U