robio said:

I'd say that having all these big games drop in the first half of the year is a pretty big announcement, and it does open up the question of "what will we see in Q3 and Q4?"  Zelda is the obvious answer, but there's got to be more than just one game.  

Not really. What big games did they have in the holiday period for Wii the last few years?

In previous generations, Nintendo would release almost ALL their major games during the holidays, unless an untimely delay happened to pop up. Since the Wii came out there, the holiday period has been nothing special at all for major games.

phantom_leo said:

edgecrusher said:

robio said:

I'd say that having all these big games drop in the first half of the year is a pretty big announcement, and it does open up the question of "what will we see in Q3 and Q4?"  Zelda is the obvious answer, but there's got to be more than just one game.  

Not really. What big games did they have in the holiday period for Wii the last few years?

In previous generations, Nintendo would release almost ALL their major games during the holidays, unless an untimely delay happened to pop up. Since the Wii came out there, the holiday period has been nothing special at all for major games.

And while it may not have been a big traditional gamer kind of game, they also released Wii Fit Plus last winter which in Nintendo's eyes was a mega seller.

Dvader said:

Foolz said:

Gotta admit those PoP screens do loook great!

You what screens would look better, the 360/PS3 ones.

Unfortunately the gameplay would still be pretty medicore, though.

• Controls with wiimote only, sideways for 2D, point at screen to enter 3D.
  
• While in 2D, d-pad moves Samus around a 2.5D like world, I guess think Streets of Rage or something, you can move in and out of the screen. Sometimes you switch to where you are running into or out of the screen. In some small rooms it goes into a RE4 like over the camera view.
• 1 button fires lasers, hold to charge. In 2D you auto-aim at anything in front of you. Just face your enemy and you will fire at it.     
  
• 2 button is jump, they say it feels very Super Metroid like. She moves very quickly. You can wall jump by simply jumping at a wall and then hitting jump over and over, no need to point at the other wall.
• In 2D A button is morph ball, 1 becomes bombs (which are like Super Metroid, you may lay a ton of bombs at once as quickly as you like), hold 1 to use a super bomb, 2 jumps.
  
• When you point at the screen you enter first person mode, you may move your guns reticule anywhere on the screen in a fixed postion. If you hold the B button then you can move your head around by moving the wiimote at the edges of the screen. You cannot move in first person.
  
• In 1st person A is laser and B locks on to stuff, if its an enemy or door you fire a missile. If its an object you can scan it using B much like Metroid Prime
• There is a new mode called concentration mode, hold the wiimote up toward the roof and press A. When you do this you refill your missles and gain some health if you were at critical, you gain a full tank.
  
• Samus can dodge attacks by tapping the d-pad in any direction right as an attack is about to hit.
• Samus can do up close attacks by getting up close and hitting A, this results in a cinematic kill.
  

• Very fast paced, moves like Super Metroid not slow like Prime.
  
• There were missile upgrades and energy tanks hidden in the demo. Missile upgrades only give you 1 more missile.
  
• Use first person to "explore", look around the areas for hidden paths and items. If you scan a room and it has a hidden item an icon will show up in your mini map that states an upgrade is in the room.
  
• Enemies are more aggressive, usually coming in groups.
• From the demo it seems like upgrades to Samus weapons come from orders from the commander, Adam, the same Adam that the computer was based on in Fusion. In the demo Adam authorizes the use of certain weapons in certain areas like the ice beam for a boss fight.
• You can only fire missiles in 1st person view. There did seem to be slots for chosing different missiles or beams in 1st person view.
  
• If you charge your beam and then enter ball mode you will drop 5 bombs in circle
  
• There was a boss fight where Samus and some marines take on this purple thing with tentacles. You had to freeze the tentacles in 1st person then switch to 3rd person to run in and hit the eye of the monster
• The area they played felt very old school Metroid like, lots of paths, platforms.
• Doors dont need to be shot to open, the open doors open automatically.
• Seems to be story driven, Samus talks to herself.
• You can jump on enemies head to either shoot at them at close range or jump behind them.
• After boss fight some areas that were previously locked were now opened.
• The demo started with CG movie showing the final battle of Super Metroid.

• Seems to me that most impressions were positive
  
• They all say it feels unlike anything they have played
• It is awkward to go from 3rd to 1st person in the middle of battle, too much time to flip wiimote in your hand. Also not being able to move in 1st person was an issue.
• Feels very Super Metroid like in 3rd person
• Auto aim is not as bad as it sounds, seems like they upped the action to make it work
• Voice acting could use some work
• Jeff G. found that if he just tapped the d-pad during a boss fight rather than holding it down to move, Samus would dodge every attack.
  
• All optimistic but want to see more.
  

^Thanks for the summary Vader.  I'd say that people are keeping positive because last gen when Retro took over Metroid no one was expecting anything to come of it and that worked out pretty well.

The only Metroid I ever beat was Metroid 2 (GB), so I'll keep my mouth shut.