As you saw in our video, the line to enter the Nintendo Wii booth was brutally long - over 3 hours just to get in. It wasn't an unpleasant wait though - the room was, um, well ventilated at least! And a delicious bakery near the tail end of the line. But what really made it cool was the fact that you were surrounded by gamers reading material from the show, working on their saved DS games, and readily willing to pass the time with you by talking about video games while we inched our way down the hall. That and all kinds of people were whizzing down the hall. We were all in disbelief of the size of the line and just like us, people were walking the entire line video taping it. We were tempted to get out of line to tape the people taping the line for the fun of it, but there was too much at stake!
While standing in line we were approached by a few curious souls. Among them were animators and exhibitors, and most notably Joystiq editor Ludwig Kietzmann whom in
his blog described the encounter as "cautiously approaching a frightening man-machine hybrid". We got along great, he's this super nice guy whom telecommutes from his home in South Africa! We were floored and he just smiled and offered "that's the beauty of the internet". He tried on the Destructoid Helmet and we took some photos, then after a little bit he came back and gave us totally SWEET Joystiq company shirts! Look closely at the photo - it's a Katamari made of classic video game controllers being pushed by the prince. I can only identify 11/14 controllers on this shirt - I need to post a close up for some help with this. I'm privilidged to add this to my ever-growing collection of gamer fashion.
There was a "line fairy" floating around though, and by that I don't mean a cocaine dealer. Some of us were being rescued by a strange bearded Nintendo employee whom had a glossy-eyed essense of Apple fanaticism about him. This man would bring you to the front of the line if you had a random item he wanted. He asked if anyone was dressed wearing a Seattle Mariner's jersey, if anyone had PicoMail, and some other weird ones that escape me. A guy standing right in front of us wearing a Nintendo Rehabilitation T-Shirt was among the lucky ones whom was pulled. He was also carrying two original Zelda Cartridges (when we met up with him later he was able to get autographed by the original score composer within the booth!) as well as a Totally Rad cart, which he gave us a retro review we will post shortly. I met the bearded man briefly and I asked him if he by chance had a fresh head of cabbage. He didn't think it was funny. We had no such merchandise on us, and thought we were surely to wait another 90 minutes to finally put our hands on the wii wii, but then fate interviened. And by fate, I specifically mean some dude named Adam Gonzalez.
After standing in line for about one and a half hours, a Nintendo employee walking past the line spotted us and really loved the helmet. We took some photos together and were whisked away into the VIP area immediately! It was a lucky break which bought us enough time to try a ton of the games with the super long lines within, including Mario Galaxy. Being an amateur Autobot can be hard sometimes (especially in press conferences - tough crowds) but as you can see, the positives greatly outweigh the negatives. Once inside we immediately felt like we had left E3 and travelled to another world.
There were walls of light, people dressed in futuristic jumpsuits, and ambient music. A gigantic rotating stage was before us with three sofas facing televisions and people were moving in front of their televisions in peculiar ways. One man was conducting an opera. Another was making a weaving pattern in the air with both hands. A couple were gesturing as if a real tennis match was going in their living room, and they all had big genuine smiles on their faces with a shiny white remote in their palms. We were so not ready for the Wii. Our mouths were open, our eyes widened, and we all slowly leaned into the rail.
The eccentric man dressed in head to toe leopard is Nintendo Legend Ashura Benimaru Itoh (
more info on Kotaku) whom has played a key role in Metroid, Starfox, Smash Brothers, Pokemon, among others. At his side was another legend
Koji Kondo (wikipedia) whom is best known for composing the music of most of the Super Mario Brothers and Zelda games. They spoke, they played, and we dashed off the stage for a chance to try it ourselves.
The first thing you see when exiting the stage was a wall of the peripherals and the console. I was shocked by the size of it - it is at least 1/3 of the size of the playstation and very aesthetically pleasing. There was a shiny iPod simplicity to all of the products, with perhaps the exception of the light gun which looks super futuristic and cool. We later discovered that light-gun like functionality was already possible with the normal joystick, so we believe this is just a completely optional peripheral if you really want a gun grip. But you could otherwise play the duck hunt demo with the normal remote. There's a ton of better photos like this on the bigger-faster-harder sites, so I thought I'd bring you some ugly angles shot from the back and top instead. It looks fantastic from every angle.
The Nintendo Wii controller feels nice and heavy in your hands, it has a perfect weight and the plastic is very solid and smooth. You can't squeeze it and feel the thin plastic walls caving in like the SNES controller; it has that fourth-generation iPods quality to it. The buttons are named 1 and 2, and you have a trigger on both hands. The majority of the demos and games we played don't require the left handed attachment. There was a certain nostalgia to the titles offered, as if Nintendo was reliving 1986 again when the store shelves graced simple titles like Nintendo Golf.
There were so many people inside - it made the xbox360 and Sony booths look abandoned by comparison. And it was an intimate area - small little decorated living rooms with an open mesh backdrop allowed you to see the entire floor and served as a heat-friendly divider. There were very few "sweat pockets" of people piled up on top of each other standing to play games, however the halls were a little narrow. People were sitting around, patiently biding their time with eyes transfixed on the screens.
On the screen, there was nothing technically impressive or visually breathtaking. The games were all cartoony, but that did not deter serious gamers from picking them up and waiting long lines to play them. In contrast, there were more next-gen looking games at the Sony and Xbox360 booth... and *nobody seemed to care that much*. There were some exceptions to the rule, but if you wanted to play Gran Turismo HD, Warhawk, Dark Messiah, any of the 2K7 games, any of the new FPS games, Dead Rising, Heavenly Sword, etc.... you could wait 10-30 minutes and get your chance. Like the artist from Spore said in the interview, we've all seen similar stuff before.
Ludwig from Joystiq mentioned that Assasin's Creed was an exception and offered phenomenal gameplay, but we didn't know enough to secure an appointment and didn't get to see the behing the scenes gameplay. But by and large, the Wii booth was the place to be -- and the people that waited 3 hours to get in were willing to wait 2 hours more for a five minute turn at the new Mario Galaxy, Zelda, and Metroid titles. Here's how it worked: You added your name to a paper-managed queue by a smoking hot booth babe, and she'd give you a time estimation as to when you should come back. So instead of standing like a totem pole sweating and arguing with people about who was next, you could go about your merry way and play the tech demos and games in less demand while your big ticket was on hold.
So what did we think of the games? Overall, Wii were blown away. Even the stupidest games were irresistable and fun to play. We have footage of many of the games and shots of the controller in action, including Mario Galaxy, which we will be posting in the coming days. It's 3:26 AM as I'm writing this, there aren't enough hours in the day!
After being forced to exit the booth (how about a Wii bathroom next year Miyamoto?!!) we had a chance to meet up with
the editor of Kotaku Brian Crecente (also of
Rocky Mountain News, that's going to be on the quiz) whom was not as starstruck about the Wii. He explained: "They need to tweak the controller a little bit, I have to spend some more time with it but it felt a little too sensitive." He's right. There were times when I felt the control didn't really feel capable of precise movement, or lacked calibration. In some games the required range of motion make the wireless feature a disadvantage, which is why all of the photos of the music conducing game all have the cable plugged in. You also have to train yourself to pause the game when you want to do something second nature like stretch or adjust your position on the couch, because Mario will frickin think you're trying to move him off the platform (grrr!).
Apparently some other people didn't find the natural gesture gameplay too relaxing. Here we have a candid photo of an unidentified woman exciting the Nintendo booth who looks like she's about to vomit at any moment. Note to self: You may not want to enjoy a delicious chicken panini or bacon-wrapped downtown hot-dog before launching into the gymnastics of the Ninendo Wii unless you have exceptional intestinal fortitude. Or moments earlier her boyfriend found out about the affair and punched her in the ovaries. It's LA, these things happen. I'm kidding, I have no idea how this photo got here. We really need an intern.
Having seen everything we wanted, we spent the last couple of hours watching G4 live and gawking at Howard Stern's woman. Morgan is way hotter in real life but Fraq and I agreed that the new chick is at least twice as hot, if that's even possible. We were in the Nintendo Wii booth when Kevin was doing his bit but he was busy and blew right past us. Two guys from his crew thought were were funny though, we have some photos with them. We were on our way out trying to film a little esoteric moment of depature when a gigantic bald man from the Attack of the Show crew chased Fraq down to be part of the background shot. When we watched the show from our hotel, Destructoid appeared in their Cosplay feature. It made me think... is that even accurate when you *are* the actual character?!! I think not!
We couldn't get the show's producers to break Morgan away for a little kiss on the robot helmet... but there's always next year. Anyway, all in all the expo was a blast, our flight got delayed (we should have gone to Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles) but are finally back home and with great stories to tell. Fraq and I were card-carrying PS3 Fanboys when we got into LA, and now we both can't wait to buy a Wii and will delay our PS3 purchases into the next year. I know, I know, I have a LOT of words to eat, and I will make good on that promise on video in the coming days. I have to figure out how to do this without poisoning myself, and more importantly what kind of wine best complements Hammermill 80 pound bright white.
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3:42 AM on 05.14.2006 | 
