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loonygames
goes to E3! By Jason "loonyboi" Bergman
Nintendo's Area: the Nintendo area was so similar to last year's version that it was kinda creepy. They reused the exact same Mario statue (hey, that can't be cheap…it's a working fountain!) and the layout was pretty much the same. They pretty much just changed the games around. Because there wasn't any major draw like Zelda, the booth was somewhat less exciting, but they did have a number of cool new titles to show, including Excitebike 64 (it took a looooong time, but we're finally getting that sequel to Excitebike), and of course, the real draw to the Nintendo area - Pokemon. Er, I mean, Perfect Dark.
Seriously, Pokemon was huge at the show. Aside from the freaky guy in the big happy yellow suit (which was just as ridiculous this year as it was last year) they were showing off Pokemon Stadium for the Nintendo 64, as well as Pokemon Pinball for the GameBoy Color. Pokemon Pinball was pretty cool, because it adds (get this) a rumble pak to the GameBoy Color system. It's a novelty, to be sure, but as they go, it's a fairly good one. Other fun GameBoy oddities were Resident Evil, which I actually got to play, and is downright bizarre, and of course, the NES re-releases. If you weren't aware, the GameBoy Color, apparently, is very similar to the original NES' hardware. So, taking advantage of this are Nintendo's Super Mario Brothers DX (out now), and possibly even cooler, Capcom's Bionic Commando. As a big fan of both of these games, I had to ask if the possibility existed for a true-NES adapter. When asked, the PR dude was taken aback somewhat…he acknowledged that the insides were similar, and that such a device may be possible…but that Nintendo has no plans to make one. Still, it's an exciting concept, if you ask me. Nintendo was also showing off some strong new N64 titles, including an N64 version of Starcraft, and Donkey Kong 64 (which looked like more of the same from Rare, if you ask me). The big surprise with Donkey Kong 64, is the news that it will require the N64 Expansion Pack. It'll be shipping with it, but this is a big shocker. Sort of makes you wonder if the title was originally planned for the 64DD, doesn't it? In somewhat less shocking news, Nintendo had a new version of Tetris to show off. Can you believe there hasn't been a real Tetris game yet for the N64? Wetrix was okay, but it sure as heck wasn't Tetris.
Sony's Area: Sony had an interesting booth. The continuing success of the PlayStation meant that there were plenty of games to show off, so they were pretty huge, as was to be expected, but there weren't any major surprises. A big draw was Capcom's Dino Crisis, the latest survival horror title from the creator of Resident Evil, which was not only looking fantastic, but downright scary. Look for that one to scare the bejesus out of you soon, along with the eagerly anticipated, Resident Evil: Nemesis, which looks fantastic. Another big winner at the show was Final Fantasy VIII, which could very well be one of my most eagerly anticipated games ever (even more so than Zork Zero, way back when). They were showing the intro movie to FF8 on multiple screens, and while the aspect ratio was a bit screwy (it sort of squished the image) it was moving, and downright gorgeous (look for Josh Vasquez's look at the intro elsewhere in this week's issue).
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