In 2008, Nintendo completely ignored the “hardcore” gamers by announcing a bunch of crap, which then went on to sell a shitload to casual gamers (i.e. old folks).  Mini games and fitness peripherals were Nintendo’s big thing in 2008, which seemed to pigeonhole them into a specific market of low production “shovelware” and a handful of titles that made you waggle til you sweat. 

So this would be the perfect year to redeem themselves, right?  Now is the time to announce new games from their huge IPs that the hardcore gamer in us all would absolutely die for.  And they didn’t exactly hit the nail on the head, but at least it’s a step in the right direction.  The two big announcements (IMO) were Super Mario Galaxy 2 and Metroid: Other M. 

SMG2 (or U R MR GAY) is the first direct sequel to a 3D Mario game on a single console in Nintendo’s history, so they say.  And it looks like a lot more of the same; in fact, it’s 90% of the same, with 10% of the levels being copied from the first game.  Yeah, it doesn’t make sense to me either.  There are a couple of new additions to this one, the first of which is Yoshi.  They showed him off a good bit in the trailer, and he uses his tongue as a sort of grapple to pull the player from platform to platform, and he can also fly with Mario when shooting yourself from the launch stars.  The other new thing is a drill you can use to maneuver through levels, and even entire mini planets for certain boss fights.  It looks identical to the first from the trailer, with new planets and puzzles to work through.  Maybe they’re going for a 10 year life cycle on the Wii?

Metroid: Other M, which is oddly named, is being developed by Team Ninja of Ninja Gaiden fame.  That tells me it should have some style as well as very bouncy boobs on Samus.  It looks to have both third person and first person aspects to it, which doesn’t seem too bad.  I enjoyed the Metroid Prime trilogy, and I think Metroid is my favorite IP from Nintendo, mostly due to the sci-fi angle.

Nintendo later released a few tiny pieces of info, most notably the absense of a Wii-specific Zelda title, but it was admitted that it’s being worked on for next year’s E3.  They also dropped some photos of a slick, black Wii that will be available in Japan this summer. 

And in the “WTF is this?!” news category, Nintendo also unveiled the Wii Vitality Sensor, which monitors things like heart rate and . . . well, heart rate I guess.  Not many details have been spilled about it, but supposedly it can be used to help stress levels while playing games, and if your heart rate goes up too much the game will change difficulty and dispatch a nurse to your couch immediately.  Supposedly Suda 51, developing No More Heroes 2, plans on tapping into the Vitality Sensor somehow in the game.  Since that game is awesome and has practically demolished the 4th wall, I can only imagine the kick ass stuff they could dream up with it.  Nontheless, the livebloggers at Kotaku were as confused as I was when the new peripheral was announced, which made me chuckle.

So Nintendo did get somewhat on track with the core audience.  I mean, Mario games are fun and all that, but his yippee yelling gets old pretty quick.  Galaxy was a good time even though I never finished it.  I’m psyched about Team Ninja helming the new Metroid game, because Ninja Gaiden was both fun and challenging.  I can’t wait to see what they have in store for Samus’s blaster. 

Some things that Nintendo got wrong, however, were the complete lack of online play in their New Super Mario Bros for Wii and the huge focus on fitness games.  New SMB Wii is a 4-player co-op game, local only.  It’s like NES days, back when I was playing Contra at my neighbor’s house — we had no idea online play would ever exist.  But to release a co-op game in 2009 with no online play?  That’s like giving me a cell phone that only works in my own house.  Makes no sense, and their excuse is even worse; they said the game uses almost all of the Wii’s processing power, which sounds like a complete crock.  Whatever.  And fitness games?  Please give it a rest.  I’m sure there’s a sliver of the gaming population that still uses Wii Fit — they use the balance board as a cutting board at the least — but I’d be willing to bet that most gamers who actually “game” aren’t wanting to sweat while doing it.  I play games to relax and be lazy and not pay attention to anything else.  It’s escape, pure and simple.  Throwing physical motion in for exercise purposes does not jive with me.  Motion controlling a game?  That’s different, if we’re talking about slicing someone up or shooting a weapon, using your hands to zoom in on a battlefield and order troops, etc.  This makes sense to me, but using a game console to lose weight is a gimmick that I hope dies soon.