There are two sides to Nintendo’s Wii U, as I discovered after spending nearly an hour with the upcoming home gaming system at E3 last week. On one hand, it’s another platform for gimmicky, silly fun, just like the original Wii. On the other, it’s a practical hardware upgrade that wants to be more capable than its console competitors.
My time with the Wii U included five “experiences” — that is, short tech demos that won’t necessarily become actual games — all of which showcased the Wii U’s controller, with its 6.2-inch touch screen. You can see each one on Nintendo’s website.
Picking up a Wii U controller was a lot like handling a Wii remote for the first time — a bit of bewilderment and a bit of excitement, followed by a quick dose of simple entertainment. I was playing a virtual game of tag with three pals from PCWorld, them using Wii remotes to chase my avatar, me using the Wii U controller to escape. The trick was that only I could see where everyone was positioned, thanks to a map on my controller’s screen. We yelled. We laughed. We cheered. It was Wii Sports Tennis all over again — a cheap thrill without much substance.
Tucked into a corner of the Los Angeles Convention Center was a retro gamer’s paradise.
When Microsoft launched Kinect for Xbox 360 last November, it came with
Sony’s Playstation Vita is a gesture of defiance toward smartphones and iPod Touches. It has a bigger touch screen and more raw power than nearly any phone on the market. It includes dual analog thumb sticks and a full rack of buttons and triggers. And just to make things interesting, the rear panel is touch-sensitive.
So there I was, playing a demo of Silent Hill: Downpour in Konami’s E3 booth, and all I could think about was how I’d rather be at a different kiosk.
If you watched Sony’s E3 press conference, you might’ve dismissed Dust 514 as just another Playstation 3 shooter among countless others. And that’d be too bad, because Dust 514′s
OnLive made
The crowd laughed at the silly name when Nintendo announced the
Hand it to Sony for knowing its audience.
Good thing Microsoft had a packed line-up of Kinect games to show at its E3 press conference, because last week’s
At a pre-E3 press event Thursday night, Konami announced a couple of game compilations that will be playable on both the Sony PSP and the Playstation 3, with the ability to transfer your progress between both systems. And unfortunately, Konami is calling this gimmick “Transfarring.”
Contests aren’t something I’d normally report on, but T-Mobile’s “
The
Well, this might explain this week’s 












By Jared Newman | Posted at 7:50 am on Monday, June 13, 2011
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