E3’s little cousin from France: the Micromania Game Show 2006

French video game store Micromania recently held its annual Micromania Game Show in Paris. This year, the ticket sellers were undoubtedly the Playstation 3 and the Wii. I had never played with either before going to the MGS so I had a lot of catching up to do. You’ll get my impressions about some of the Wii and PS3 games shown there after the jump.

–Wario Ware Smooth Moves (Wii): After playing Wario Ware Touched on the DS for the first time, I had to buy the console. The Wii version makes great use of the Wiimote and is a lot of fun. Unfortunately, it won’t be released until 2007.

–Virtua Fighter 5 (Playstation 3): Even though I suck at VF games, Virtua Fighter 5 was the PS3 game that impressed me the most.  The animation is impressive and the graphics are gorgeous.

–Excite Truck (Wii): I didn’t get to try it but I was surprised by the fact that it didn’t look too bad. I was also told that it’s pretty fun. But will the replay value make it a worthwhile purchase?

–Gran Turismo HD (Playstation 3): While it’s probably a great driving simulator, I didn’t really like GT HD. Then again, I’ve never been a big fan of the Gran Turismo franchise. I wasn’t impressed by the graphics either. The Xbox 360 could probably handle a game like that. I also want to say that the Playstation 3 booth had the most annoying announcer of all the MGS. He was talking about GT HD like it was the second coming of the Christ: “he… is… playing… G… T… H… D… on… the… Playstation… 3…”

–Sonic and The Secret Rings (Wii): Here is another game that surprised me. While it doesn’t look as good as Sonic the Hedgehog on the Xbox 360, Sonic and The Secret Rings is probably the better game of the two. The Wiimote makes Sonic easier to control; he doesn’t go all over the place like in the 360 game.

–Marvel: Ultimate Alliance (Wii): At first I thought that it was a pretty easy game but I quickly got stuck because I couldn’t find how to jump. Even the hostess couldn’t help me. Then again some of them didn’t even know the names of the games they were supposed to talk about. I probably won’t buy this game when it comes out.

–Virtua Tennis 3 (Playstation 3): What can be said about the Virtua Tennis franchise that hasn’t already been said? VT3 probably won’t revolutionize the genre but from what I saw, it does look good. Let’s just hope that the new controls won’t be a pain to master. I also want to point out that the Sega booth was the only one where you could play both the Wii and the Playstation 3 without having to wait for more than half an hour.

I didn’t write about the Xbox 360 games I tried there because most of them are already in stores. I must say that I had a pretty good time at the Micromania Game Show. I hope that it’ll get even bigger next year.