LOS ANGELES—Nintendo today showed off the upcoming Wii U system with the announcement of several new games, including Pikmin 3, New Super Mario Bros. U, and Nintendo Land.
Shigeru Miyamoto, the creator of the Mario, Zelda, and other famous Nintendo series, opened the company's E3 press conference here with the Wii U, which was announced at E3 last year. Many details about the Wii U were already released on Sunday, but today's presentation went into more detail.
Miyamoto announced Pikmin 3 for the Wii U, the third in the series of cult puzzle/management games involving colorful plants. The Wii U GamePad's screen will show a detailed map of the game as the action takes place on a TV. This time, there are four leaders of Pikmin who players can use at once, none of which are the series regular Captain Olimar. The reason for his absence is a secret.
New Super Mario Bros. U joined New Super Mario Bros. 2 in upcoming Mario games. Like New Super Mario Bros. 2 for the Nintendo 3DS, New Super Mario Bros. U will follow the same side-scrolling Mario action. In the gameplay video, Mario sported a new animal suit that let him glide, looking more like a flying squirrel or sugar glider than the series' signature tanuki/raccoon tail. The game will offer a new Boost Mode that lets a player with the Wii U GamePad control parts of the game's environment while other players use Wiimotes to control characters.
Martin Tremblay, president of Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, took the stage to introduce new Batman titles for the Wii U.
Batman: Arkham City will come to the Wii U with Batman: Arkham City Armored Edition. In the demonstration video, the Wii U GamePad was used as a control panel to manage Batman's gadgets, including motion controls for the remote-controlled batarang. The Wii U GamePad can activate a new superpowered B.A.T. mode when a meter fills through fighting. Besides new puzzles based on the Wii U GamePad controls, Batman: Arkham City Armored Edition seems to be a full-featured version of Batman: Arkham City.
A preview video for other third-party games showed that Mass Effect 3 will come to the Wii U, along with Tekken Tag Tournament 2, Trine 2, Aliens: Colonial Marines, and more.
Popular creative wordplay game Scribblenauts is getting its first high definition version with Scribblenauts Unlimited. The Wii U GamePad lets players create their own unique objects from parts and assign them to new words and phrases. A 3DS version of the game will also be released.
A new music game being developed under the working title of Sing will let players turn the Wii U GamePad into a karaoke machine, showing lyrics of songs. Multiplayer integration wasn't clear, but the demonstration video showed people gathered around a player with the Wii U GamePad, singing while an avatar on television danced.
Lego City: Undercover will turn the Wii U GamePad into a crime-fighting tool, using the touch screen to scan areas for criminals and navigate the city. The game will also have full voice acting, which is new for the series; it previously used a Simlish sort of nonsense speech and gesturing for characters to communicate.
Ubisoft president Yves Guillmot joined Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime to introduce several upcoming Ubisoft games for the Wii U.
Zombi U is a survival horror game about zombies with the premise that a single bite can kill you. TheWii U GamePad becomes a sniper scope, door keypad, and other useful tools. The Wii U camera can also turn players into zombies through augmented reality. Assassin's Creed 3 will also get its own Wii U version, but details about its scope and similarities to the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions of the game were not announced. Other Ubisoft games for the Wii U will include Just Dance 4, Rayman Legends, and Avengers: Battle for Earth.
Fils-Aime also introduced Nintendo Land, a virtual theme park to show off the Wii U GamePad. The game is being developed by Katsuya Eguchi, the man behind Wii Sports and Wii Sports Resort, and it brings together 12 different attractions based on Nintendo properties. The company showed off attractions based on The Legend of Zelda, Animal Crossing, Luigi's Mansion, and Donkey Kong, along with a throwing star game called Takamaru's Ninja Castle. The game will integrate into Miiverse to make the theme park a bustling hub for multiplayer and social networking. Eguchi demonstrated the Luigi's Mansion attraction, where a player with the Wii U GamePad controlled a ghost who stalked four other players who couldn't see the ghost's position and had to rely on the Wiimote rumbling to get a sense of the ghost's location. Nintendo Land will launch at the same time as the Wii U this holiday season.
Finally, Nintendo also showed off three new Nintendo 3DS first-party titles, but saved the majority of 3DS titles for an online presentation Wednesday evening. New Super Mario Bros. 2 finally got a release date of Aug. 19, and he will come to the 3DS again in the RPG Paper Mario: Sticker Star this holiday season. Luigi will also get his own game again with Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon, also this holiday season.