Note: This page will be updated as E3 continued and further editor impressions are gathered.
Jesse Rifkin, The Wiire Chief Video Producer
There's no question that regardless of Perrin Kaplan's PR jargon, the Virtual Console is an integral part to the success of the Nintendo Wii. Without the ability to play the back-catalogue of classic games from Nintendo, SEGA, Hudson and potentially others, the Wii is basically just a cool new peripheral for the GameCube. Surprisingly though, the Virtual Console hasn't made a big appearance at this year's E3. Not a lot of info was released about it, and it only took up two kiosks way at the end of Nintendo's booth.
The appearance of the Virtual Console and the Classic Controller were both only mock-ups and there were only a couple games to choose from. The controller is a tough piece of hardware to pull off because it needs to be univeral to Nintendo and SEGA's classic consoles. The shell itself was small and comfortable, and there's no doubt it will work fine with NES or SNES games, but I played a few minutes of Super Mario 64 to get a feel for how 64 games would work. It pretty much went how I expected: clumsy and awkward. Unfortunately, there really is no perfectly effective way to accomodate the N64 controller as well as its predecessors on a single piece of hardware.
Of course, the controller I played with will be very different from the final product, I'm sure. Especially considering that it was wired directly into the system and not into the Wii Remote, which will most likely be the case when it is released. Well, I personally don't plan on purchasing any N64 games on the Virtual Console, so I'm happy with how the controller works, but I wish Nintendo good luck in appeasing their N64 fan base.
Retro Rob, Newly-Hired/Newly-Formed Rob Persona
In the instant Rob Galbreath, The Wiire's managing editor, played the first demonstration of the Virtual Console, his sleep deprivation and medically-prescribed codine kicked into high gear. The collective epileptic nightmare of sounds and thousands of flashing lights around him developed yet another voice in his head and a blurry vision of a being walking amongst the enemies in Super Mario Bros., fusing together everything that is gaming nostalgia. This was my birth, Retro Rob, which will soon become the latest feature at The Wiire.
Retro, as you may have guessed, is my level of expertise. When it comes to retro gaming, I know just about everything there is to old-school gameplay. Especially when it comes to the Mario, Sonic, and Bonk franchises.
Nintendo did not have the Virtual Console service finalized by any means. In fact, the interface shown at the show will be changed tremendously when the final product is in stores. Despite the very limited interface, there's a lot to say about the controller and the playable games.
The controller felt a bit compromised. This was to expected, as one controller needs to fill the shoes of every Nintendo console controller and work for both Sega and Hudson's lineups. Though this may sound negative at first, a single controller will definitely save on the peripheral costs.
The best way to understand the controller is by holding an old Super Nintendo controller, then holding a PlayStation Dual Shock controller, then taking a little more emphasis on the Super Nintendo controller again. Combining the two gives a general idea as to what this controller feels like. The B and A buttons feel a little different than the X and Y buttons, but not by much.
Surprisingly, the d-pad felt the most bizarre. The d-pad feels much harder and sponge-ish, rather than the old-school spring feeling in the old d-pads. I'd venture to say that it feels a lot more like a DS Lite d-pad than a retro pad. As a gamer of the old generations, I was hoping that it wouldn't feel much different than the originals.
My biggest complaint on the controller would definitely be the positioning of the Z button. The button is just too far up on the controller, placed somewhere in-between where the wire's usual location lies and the R button, but it's much too close to the wire than the R button. In fact, every person that stood in line for the Virtual Console service agreed with this notion. Heck, the Nintendo guy standing there at the time also felt the Z button felt way too out of place. I'm really expecting Nintendo to have the Z button move closer to the R button, especially for Nintendo 64 games that require the button's use.
Here's a breakdown of all the Virtual Console games available at E3 2006. I'd like to note that some of the older games were cropped on the screen because of the widescreens used at the show. On that particular television screen at the show, it felt more like an emulator than an official Nintendo game. With that out of the way, let's begin:
Super Mario Bros. had an interesting appeal to it. I'm not sure if it was the controller itself or the game, but I wasn't able to manipulate jump movement in the air, also known as post-jump movement, as well as I have on the NES controller. Even the colors on the screen seemed off, more pink-tinted, compared to the the original. These games are prototypes so I'm certain Miyamoto will want the game tweaked a bit before launching.
Super Mario World felt very close to the original. The controls were simple, the buttons responded nicely, and the graphics really looked like the Super Nintendo game. No real complaints there. I'd say the game is more or less ready.
Super Mario 64 not only looked the best on the Virtual Console service, but it also controlled extremely well on the controller. I was really surprised how well the game reacted to the controls and acted a lot like the Nintendo 64 setup. I had no problems at all performing all of Mario's moves and performing even the hardest of tricks. I would definitely place all complaints on Mario 64 games using this controller to rest, as I don't see any trouble beyond the very bizarre Z-button positioning. That still needs to change, no doubt about that. It still really concerns me that four buttons are now an analog, and I might venture to guess the game library for the Nintendo 64 may be limited from the third parties.
Sonic The Hedgehog played just like the original. The controls fit nicely, particularly with the controller. The problem with this game's demonstration is that the original Sonic didn't need all three buttons (A, B, C) so there wasn't too much to test out. When playing the game, however, I could feel the buttons were nicely placed together. Buttons Y, A, and B feel a lot like the Genesis A, B, and C buttons. Sure the A and C buttons are raised up a little higher than the Genesis setup, but I don't think it will affect any games at all.
Bonk's Adventure, in my opinion, felt to be the most outdated out of all the games on the demonstration. I suppose no game can really be the most outdated on a service that is intended to observe old-school gaming, but the graphics didn't seem to blend very nicely on the screen provided at E3. Perhaps the resolution of the television had a major factor in this, but something felt amiss. The controls still worked very nicely, responding just as they should have.
Overall, I'd say that the Virtual Console service is far from done. There's a good reason why they didn't display anything at the Pre-E3 media event: nothing was really worth showing. Placing gameplay at this point in time would have looked absolutely horrible on the big screen at the event, so Nintendo had done right not showing anything. It really does concern me that the service seemed so bland and unfinished, especially when games as impressive as Super Mario Galaxy were on the other wall. Let's hope the service is ready and prepared by launch.
Check back on my feature in the coming weeks.
