With less than seven weeks to go until the game announcement frenzy that is the Electronic Entertainment Expo opens its doors in Los Angeles, it's already looking as though this year's event's going to be a huge one - at least on the Nintendo front, anyway. With Nintendo's new console, currently called the Wii U expected to be making its presence felt at the show, we're expecting a massive blow-out, where we'll finally get to know the features (beyond the funky tablet controller), launch games, and hopefully a launch date and price - as well where in the world Luigi's Mansion 2, Animal Crossing 3DS and Paper Mario 3DS have got to. To get our anticipatory juices flowing, however, Nintendo have decided to kick things off a little bit earlier this year, by announcing two of the games they'll be unveiling for the Wii U at E3 - the long rumoured Pikmin 3, and a brand new Mario game, based on last year's New Super Mario Bros Mii demo.
No news on the inventively named 'Find Mii' game yet though...
So what do we know about the two new games? First debuted at the Electronic Entertainment Expo last year alongside the announcement of the Wii U, New Super Mario Bros. Mii seemed pretty similar to it's predecessor, New Super Mario Bros Wii, albeit with the inclusion of the lovable Mii characters instead of the Toad mushroom men. With up to four people playing as Mario, his brother Luigi and yellow and blue versions of the Toad people that inhabit the Mushroom Kingdom, New Super Mario Bros Wii was a traditional Mario platformer, which saw you jumping on enemies' heads, collecting coins and avoiding a bunch of traps on your journey to save your girlfriend - and the Wii U sequel appeared to be much the same - which is no bad thing. New Super Mario Bros Wii. has gone down a storm at Everybody Plays, and remains a firm staple in the office - especially when I start haemorrhaging continues at a rate of at least one per level through loads of stupid mistakes...
The new Mario game that's set to be unveiled at E3 is said to be based around New Super Mario Bros Mii, but how much has changed since last year remains to be seen. Interestingly, Nintendo recently registered the domain SuperMario4.com, which may point to the game taking a slightly different direction to what we saw last year. Any specific Wii U tablet controller functions are also yet to be unveiled - the presentation at last year's E3 mostly seemed to be limited to the fact that you can switch the action to play on the tablet when someone desperately wants to watch Deal or No Deal on the TV, turning it into a giant, single-screened DS game.
Mario sells consoles - so his appearance on the WiiU was pretty much inevitable...
Potentially more exciting is the news that we'll finally be seeing something of the long rumoured (and last year confirmed) Pikmin 3. A three-quel to the Gamecube favourites Pikmin and Pikmin 2 has been a long while coming - with the most recent instalment in the franchise dating back to 2004 (bar re-releases of both games as part of the 'New Play Control' series for the Wii back in 2009). Following the adventures of the hopeless Captain Olimar, who ends up crashing his spaceship on a planet (seriously, that guy's worse at parking than my Gran), it's up to you to enlist the help of the little flower people that inhabit said planet, and set off to retrieve all the bits of your spaceship, so you can head home again. With their big eyes and tiny bodies, it's easy to grow attached to the Pikmin, especially with the way they follow you around the levels in a giant, googly eyed army - and it's up to you to keep them safe. The land is littered with dangers, from hungry enemies to electric fences and pools of water, and the Pikmin are relying on you to help keep them out of harm's way while they help you repair your spaceship. Adding an extra element of strategy to the game, each different colour of Pikmin in your army has a different talent. Red Pikmin are immune to fire, the blue flavour can swim underwater and yellow beasties are immune to electricity - while the purple and white Pikmin added in the second game are strong and immune to poison, respectively.
Our awesome powers of deduction suggest that Pikmin 3 will be fairly similar to the previous games - a fact which Miyamoto reiterated in a recent interview, saying that anyone who has played Pikmin games in the past will enjoy playing Pikmin 3.
But now comes the fun part - speculation! What could Nintendo, perhaps the most innovative of the current games companies, do with these games and their brand new tablet controller? Perhaps the most obvious for Pikmin would be giving you a little virtual Pikmin garden to care for, and once each one has bloomed, you can flick it off the tablet and into the game. And you can bet that every down-a-pipe room would feature Mario and crew heading down onto your tablet - although that would require more than one of the beasts, which the Wii U isn't supposed to be able to do (yet, anyway) so maybe not...
Whatever they come up with, we'll be excited to see what they unveil at E3. We're counting down the hours.
