My E3 Impressions of these 3 games:
Metroid Prime: Hunters
Eh, whatever. I'm not too pumped about 3D Metroid games, even on GCN. They're OK, and I'm sure if you like MP/MP2, you'll like Hunters. It controls nice and is smooth. Everything you could want in a 3D Metroid.
Mario Kart DS
Ah, yes. This game rules. You've all played it before, and it was called Super Mario Kart. The jumping is back (begone blue-sparks!) and the map screen, while at first seems useless, scored me a free r/c-car when I blocked a green turtle shell I saw coming at me right before the finish. It feels good to play this game, really.
New Super Mario Bros.
Well, what can I say here? It's Mario Bros...and it's 2D. While I felt some of the levels felt a bit "empty" or shallow, I was re-assured by a Nintendo rep. that they were just concept levels to show where the game was so far, and that I could expect much richer environments in the final version. Control is nice, and yes, I believe 'Y' does allow Mario/Luigi to run. Using the touch screen for the power-ups is also cool. Another example of how the lower-screen on the DS can clear the main screen for the game and not information (no more annoying box with power-up in the top of the screen ala SMW).
And finally, as to actualy GAMEPLAY FOOTAGE instead of the shitty things handed out on press CDs...
Olimario is right. The excuse that "there are too many games to cover" and "not enough time" is bullshit. Anyone in the press who's anybody can walk up to a booth rep and ask for 5 minutes with a game...they will bump you immediately to the front of the line or even kick off whoever is playing so you can get footage of the game and/or play it.
There really is no good excuse for gaming sites not getting footage themselves that shows more than the 30 second splice-jobs put together on press CDs. I'd rather see footage of games from 3 different sites all showing unique aspects of gameplay than 3 interviews with Miyamoto where he says the same damn thing in each one. In my opinion, the press focuses too much on interviews at E3 and not enough on the games. Yes, it looks impressive when you get to post an exclusive interview with some famous dev, but I'd rather see the game they're working on, not hear them talk about it instead. I love to hear devs talk about their work, but not in place of it -- only to supplement it.
(P.S. I'm not re-reading this, so hopefully everything above is proper english.)
