New Kirby’s Epic Yarn Commercial

It shows a handful of new abilities Kirby will be adding to his collection in his new adventure, such as a firetruck and a swimming dolphin; he even closes a volcano with his magical yarn! The trailer also provides a bit of background on how Kirby entered the world of yarn, though not much is known yet about the mysterious poncho-wearing figure.

Kirby’s Epic Yarn is due for release in Q3 2010.

Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective hands-on

In the Capcom press room at Gamescom we got to try out Ghost Trick Phantom Detective. The basic premise of the game is that you start out with a dead character that lost all his memories and your goal is to regain all of your memories and really find out who you are. The game had some very nice stylized pixel art, awesome animations, good use of color and great sounds. The trial introduced us to the concept of controlling your soul. The game has 2 modes: the real world and the ghost world. In the real world you are dead from the start of the game, but when you switch to the ghost world you will see a blue glowing ball that represents your soul. Your soul still has the thoughts and ideas of the character and there is a lot of conversation going on during the demo.

When you are in the ghost world you can see your own soul of course, but it also shows the places where your soul can go. To travel from place to place you have to drag your soul to the other container with the DS touchscreen. When your soul is an object and you switch back to the real world, an interact button pops up, when you press, the object will start moving. Let’s take the bike for example; in the demo, the bike had 2 containers you could move to, one on the handlebars and one on the pedals. The handlebars were intersecting with junk so the bike was hanging in mid air. First you had to move your soul to the handlebars, when you went back to the real world and interacted with the object the handlebars was detached from the junk and the bike fell down, then you go back to the ghost world and move the soul to the pedals, then go back again and when you use the pedals the bike will start to move.

The concept of you controlling your soul and not actually a character felt really nice. It’s like you’re viewing the story that’s going on from a second dimension because the characters that play in the game don’t know of your presence, or at least some don’t because in the demo you were also able to enter other people’s body/souls and you could talk through their thoughts.
The demo was very short but it showed some nice potential for puzzles. It’s definitely a title to look forward to if you own a DS and the quality showed in the demo was amazing.
Here is the trailer they showed at E3 to give you a better impression:

Nintendo’s Post E3 Event in Zaandam

On the 29th of July, NiSuTe reporter and columnist Chi Wong and myself had the opportunity to travel to Zaandam in the Netherlands to visit the Nintendo Post E3 Event. This was the first time that Nintendo’s E3 demos and hardware had been shown in all of Europe, so we were quite lucky to have had the chance to check it out.

The obvious focus of the event was showing off Nintendo’s recently unveiled 3DS handheld which has the ability to provide a 3D effect similar to that seen in recent films, but without the use of any 3D glasses. Though it may sound farfetched, I can guarantee you that it works, and it looks amazing.

The event was held in a beautiful building, and looked as professional as ever. There were staff members to guide the groups around to all the different rooms, and there was coffee, brownies, muffins and other assorted goodies to enjoy while taking a look at all the awesome demos. The staff was friendly, the atmosphere was lovely and all in all the event was an awesome experience.

A lot of games were played, and the Nindendo 3DS was thoroughly investigated and enjoyed.

Below you will find a list of all the hands-on articles that have been written about everything seen at the event.

. . . . .

The Nindendo 3DS

Metroid: Other M

The Legend of Zelda Skyward Sword

Kirby’s Epic Yarn

Donkey Kong Country Returns

Wii Party

GoldenEye

Golden Sun Dark Dawn

Assorted DS and DSi titles

. . . . .

Nintendo 3DS: Hands on

NiSuTe Europe was invited to the Nintendo Post E3 Event in Zaandam and we were lucky enough to have a hands on experience with Nintendo’s still-in-development technology: the Nintendo 3DS. Whether or not the results were popping out of the screen, continue reading to get to know what our experiences were with the handheld.

The Nintendo 3DS was the main attraction of the day, launching the event with showing how the handheld looks like now, and get this: the design is still not decided, it can look much different from the endresult. The handheld looks very sleek and has the shiny surface like the Nintendo DSi’s. But the handheld wasn’t the only thing that shined, the showroom was decorated in a very stylized manner that complimented Nintendo’s presence, with blue ambient lighting that changed into red when the show started.
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The Legend of Zelda – Skyward Sword: Hands on

Who hasn’t seen the Nintendo kick-off with the announcement of a new Legend of Zelda game during E3? Who hasn’t seen the furious Shigeru Miyamoto wondering why the Wiimote failed to response to his actions in-game? The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword should’ve been the top game of Nintendo at E3, and you know that by heart, but because of the small incident people had some concerns whether or not the game is a winner, or a big letdown. Chris and I had a chance to playtest the game during the Nintendo Post E3 event, and we can assure you that Skyward Sword is a fun game. I even played the game for a second time!
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Metroid Other M: Hands on

When Other M was first shown during E3 2009, I totally fell in love with the Metroid series. Before seeing Other M, I had only played the newer games such as Metroid Prime Hunters for the Nintendo DS and Metroid Prime on the Gamecube, but Other M grasped me on a different level… the game is more story driven now, and there is a history going on about the main character Samus Aran. The story will be about who she was, and how she ended up as a bounty hunter. I immediately played older games for the SNES and Gameboy Advance. I noticed the 2D platformer type of gameplay and I really liked that, it’s fast-paced and very different from the 3D shooters.
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Donkey Kong Country Returns: Hands on

Back when we were covering E3 2010, we gave you our first impressions of the new Donkey Kong Country game coming to the Nintendo Wii later this year. Now, at the post E3 event in Zandaam, Chi and I had a chance to play the game and give you a more informed impression of the game.

We were allowed to play co-op – as the game should be played. There were four levels for us to test out: two standard levels, one rollercoaster minecart level, and one boss battle. The two characters, Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong have different strengths and abilities, which do take a bit of time to figure out and understand. In comparison to Kirby’s Epic Yarn, this game isn’t necessarily the easiest to get the hang of straight from the get-go, but, also in comparison to Kirby, Donkey Kong Country Returns actually does pose a challenge; a pretty heavy challenge at that.
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Kirby’s Epic Yarn: Hands on

A month ago I reported about my first impressions of Kirby after seeing the footage from E3. At the Nintendo post E3 event in Zandaam, NiSuTe journalist Chi and I had the pleasure to give Kirby Epic Yarn a test drive.

The game itself is quite fun; straight off the bat, you know what you’re doing and how to do it, and anyone can pick it up and have a great time. When you jump you turn into a spring, when you fall hard you turn into an anvil, and when you run quickly you turn into a car (easily one of my personal favorites). All of these quick changes in Kirby’s state are fluent, smooth and give a really great effect and feel when playing the game. These are the replacements for Kirby’s old power to suck in enemies and absorb their powers.
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Expanding the gray matter

As a 35 year old gamer, you can expect that I have a reasonably active brain. Thanks to Big Brain Academy on the Nintendo Wii, it seems that I have only been training a small portion of my brain. Thanks to the same game, I am now training the parts that I have been unknowingly neglecting for years. And yeah, it even hurts when you push you brain into new territory. I never expected a game would ever give me such a fresh feeling in my head, but it really does. Thanks to it, I think and react faster, and it feels incredibly good!

But it gets even stranger! Not only do I feel this way, but now my wife, my mother, sister and even the my in-laws feel the same! And they totally love it! What’s going on here? People that never used to play games suddenly love them? As long as I have been in and around the games industry, I have never seen this happen; at least… not to this degree, and in my own backyard! Read more

2010 Club Nintendo Awards Announced!

For those of you who have been collecting coins for Club Nintendo all year long, and reached elite status, you can now claim ether of these awards depending on if you’ve reached Gold or Platinum status.

For those who reached Platinum, Nintendo is giving out a statue of Super Mario Characters:And for those who’ve reached

Gold Status, Nintendo is giving out a Calender for 2011:

So, if you’ve reached any of these statuses, cash in fast at Club Nintendo.

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