For whatever reason, Nintendo skipped out on E3 and choose October 2nd to unleash their most exciting news of the year.

The orgy of new info began with the announcement of a new version of the Nintendo DS, called the Nintendo DSI.

Though in some pictures it highly resembles the DS Lite, the new product is not so much a purely asthetic change as it is an upgrade to the core functionality of the product - perhaps similar to Gameboy Color compared to the original. It includes internal storage, so you can play AAC music files and Virtual Console and other games downloaded from Wii Ware. The screens are also larger and both can are touch compatable, plus the device includes a crappy camera - it seems like any software that uses the DSI is going to not be fully backwards compatble with the original DS or DS Lite.

The only downside is there's no GBA slot, but the seeing that I already have four GBA compatable devices that doesn't phase me much.

Here's a pretty good article that answers some questions about the new device.

The DSi (or DSI, or iDS, or whatever) is neat, but seeing as how I almost never turn on my DS I'm a lot more excited about the games Nintendo recently announced, almost all of which sound more interesting than anything mentioned during E3.

Allow me to enumerate them:

That's right, after over a decade of waiting before I began to give up and not really care anymore Nintendo has unexpectedly revived one of its greatest franchises ever!

If there's something I think Nintendo hasn't quite done right for the past five years or more, it's the styles and personalities of their games - nothing seems quite as endearing as it did back when I was in Middle School (I admit this may simply be a function of my age). That said, they seemed to have hit the nail on the head when it comes to the visuals for this new Punch-Out!!- which is probably because they farming it out to an external developer who knew one of the easiest wins they could obtain was to mimic the look of the original. What I like are the new touches they've added, which are in keeping with the spirit of the original games despite being something we've not seen before. For example, when Glass Joe goes down, for whatever reason a sea of bagets and other French pastries rain down on him. Take that Frenchie!

It seems like there are often franchise revivals that contain characters, plots, events and gameplay that look nothing like the original (the new Bionic Commando protaganist, for instance, looks nothing remotely like the old one), so I'm glad that if nothing else, we can at least speculate that the endearing personality of Punch-Out!! has survived.

Like every other idiot, I'm really hoping this one uses the Wii Motion Plus controller add-on.

Second up...

It's the sequel to the classic game I realized I liked only half a week ago!

The first thing I thought when I played Sin & Punishment was that A. the controls kind of sucked on the Wii (see last post) and B. the game would be incredible if it were remade to actually use the Wii's pointing functionality for the gun. It looks like the sequel can fulfill that promise!

Potential pitfalls- Treasure's recent output hasn't quite been at the same level it was during the 32 / 64-bit era, so I'm bracing for slight dissapointment that this game might be mediocre and have reached the foregone conclusion that it won't be as great as the original. I also have the feeling it'll use just enough buttons on the Wii Remote to be incompatable with the my sacred Nyko Perfect Shot.

Finally...

That's right, the best freeware game of all time, the one that raised the status of indie gaming itself from "always crap" to "thereotically possible to be good" is coming to the Wii!

The only possible downside would be if Pixel, the game's enigmatic author (he's kind of like "L" from Death Note, I'd imagine) did not get reimbursed from this, in which case I wouldn't support buying it.

Otherwise, I may be more excited about this announcement than anything else that occured during Nintendo's recent explosion of awesomeness. The Border-Town 2005 game of year is finally available via legit means on a mainstream videogame system!

This news is so exciting it made me write a post that was the polar opposite in tone from the last one. Hurray for epic hypocrisy! NINTENDO RULES!

I've been playing a lot of Megaman 9 lately. I bought it for the Wii the moment it came out and have enjoyed it, but one large flaw with the game is that it won't work with the Gamecube controller which prevents me from using my Gameboy Player control pad. Using the Wiimote on its side for extended periods kind of sucks so I eventually bought the Wii Classic Controller in order to play the game more effectively.

I'd held off on buying on of these things because I knew the Wii's Virtual Console controls couldn't be changed by the user, thus forcing you to use the crappy ass, lay-your-thumb-in-between-B-and-A-and-roll-it technique one should never be forced to employ on any controller designed after the Super NES era.

Of course, Nintendo - the very ones who popularized control schemes for 2D games that necissitated laying your thumb across one button constantly as you hit a second one (the first being the "B" button to run in Mario and the second being the "A" button to jump, in case you're really dense) have themselves morphed into the most evil, vile and sinister opponents to this rational in the time since then.

The origins of the issue occured when the Super NES named what should have been the B button the Y button and the natural A button became B. I'm not a hardware guy, but I've heard that the SNES used the same set of electronic signals to communicate with its controllers as the NES, except the signals used to acknowledge the NES's A and B button were mapped to the SNES's B and Y- proof in some way that the SNES B and Y buttons were intended to carry the mantle of the original red duo (it also may be why the Retro Duo plays NES games on its SNES like controllers as God intended- with Y for B and B for A).

Yet, despite the epic paradigm shift required to change from associating A and B to associating B and Y, the world continued to spin.

However, when implementing GBA compatability with the Nintendo DS, the big N had a dilema - they could have either named the DS's front buttons differently than the SNES, which would have limited the nostalgic appeal, or they could have boldly done what made sense for actual usage and mapped the GBA's B and A buttons to the DS's Y and B. If this confused people, they could have included an option to change it to this setting so only "advanced" players who cared would risk being confused by such a concept.

But the Nintendo of this century is not the same one I grew up with in the 90's- the one that seemed to get details like this right. The current Nintendo seems great when it comes to broad strokes of innovation - motion control, touch screens, etc. - but has started phoning in the details when it comes to important issues like making sure the software could be configured so people could effectively use these new pretty Apple White controllers to play games.

The Gameboy Player - perhaps one of my favorite devices ever - committed the same sin of forbiding customizable controls. Somehow, I got used to it, although perhaps it was simply because I had no other choice.

The Wii's Virtual Console follows suit with NES games, although in this case it appears somewhat more rational. The thinking must go that if you're a mouth breathing idiot (the key demographic targetted by Nintendo these days) and bought the classic controller, the idea that the button physically marked as "B" might not correspond to the NES's B button in the game you're playing may cause your head to explode, even the configuration only worked that way because you'd changed the control options yourself earlier (remember, in this scenario you are in fact a mouth breathing idiot).

Anyway, at least mapping buttons to the same buttons they were named on the original system makes sense.

Getting back to the subject, perhaps because Megaman 9 is not actually an NES Virtual Console game and Capcom had more control over it, it does allow you to configure the game so that SNES style thumb positioning can be used with the Wii Classic Controller.

I had such a good time playing Megaman 9 that I kind of got hungry for more downloadable Wii goodness, and thus bought Sin & Punishment, the late N64 era, import only Treasure game that was the second import game released for the US Virtual Console.

I like Sin & Punishment. A lot. I always figured when I actually played the game I'd find it to be overhyped and overrated, but it isn't. It's too soon to say yet, but it may be my favorite Treasure game after Radiant Silvergun and Guardian Heroes.

Here's the problem, though - this game could end up giving me carpel tunnel syndrome.

I'm kind of serious. Usually when I complain about controller configuration problems in the past, it was just because the schemes annoyed me. I didn't enjoy holding my hands in an unnaturual way, but the actual physical duress involved was pretty low.

However, I had to stop playing Sin & Punishment yesterday after about an hour and a half because my hands were hurting.

The issue is that the game requires you to press the top buttons a lot. These buttons are the worst part of the Wii Classic Contoller - they're kind of mushy and springy like the Gamecube's, but offer no groves for your fingers and sit in a position that necessitates a somewhat unnatural grip on the controller.

So tonight I dusted off my trusty Wave Bird Gamecube controller in hopes of using its bountiful, cushy shoulder buttons instead, and encountered another issue.

You see, Sin & Punishment involves moving two things - the aiming reticule for your gun and the protaganist itself, who can move left and right.

The original game used the N64 trident controller and assigned aiming to the analog stick and movement to both the d-pad or the C-buttons. The Z trigger fired, and the shoulder buttons jumped, which meant those actions were linked to the same hand that was manuevering whatever they corresponded to (the game character's body or the gun's bullets).

The way most people would interpret such a scheme on a modern day dual-analog control pad would be to map one analog stick to movement and another to aiming. The Gamecube's left analog stick is even called the C-stick. Given Nintendo's penchant of making sure old games use buttons on new controllers with the same names as the buttons on their original platform's counterparts, you'd think they'd map the C buttons to the C-stick.

But they didn't do that. Instead, they employed moon logic to create their own control scheme where both analog sticks control aiming the gun.

This is kind of nice in that you get to choose which hand will do what. Unfortunately, each choice is subpar.

If you control the character with your left hand using the d-pad, you'll have to actually use the Gamecube controller's d-pad, which was originally added to the controller as some kind of sick joke. Even if this works for you, firing the gun is assigned to the left shoulder button, which means you're firing with the hand that isn't controlling the cursor.

If you use your right hand to move the character, the shoulder button will be the same- except you're going to be using the Y and X buttons to move left and right, respectively. This is the kind of nonsense you can get used to but I can't imagine its easy to play the game at a high level using this scheme.

Even in its native form, the game's controls would have taken some getting used to. But thanks to Nintendo's nonsense, they somehow become even more of a problem.

Of course, none of this would even matter if I could just do what I friggin' wanted and didn't have someone's strange idea of a control scheme forced on me. Unless Nintendo is using a different N64 emulator for every Virtual Console game they release, its apparent that Nintendo knows how to change the controls for it's N64 emulator since they themselves change the button configurations from game to game. So why then in the name of everything sacred can't they let the user do change the config themselves?

What adds insult to injury is that the game itself references the N64's still unique and alien looking control pad, which regardless of what control setup you use on the Wii is still going to look different than what you're holding in your hand.

So Nintendo is already ok with the idea that the end user is going to have to understand that the buttons he or she is pressing are associated with a very different imaginary controller that the game wants to pretend they're using. So withholding the ability to change the controls doesn't even make sense as a pandering move to avoid confusing simple minded consumers.

Honestly, when I sat down to play the game for a second time a day later I immedietely felt a sense of dissapointment when I recalled how the controls operated. The fact that I still am enjoying the game so much is a testament to how great it is - I'm actually thinking of buying a real copy of the game and fixing my N64 so I can try it on its native platform.

For the time being, I've found the best option is to go into the game's control options (the screen within the game itself that assumes you're using an N64 controller) and set it to use Type 3. This type maps movement to the left and right to the left and right shoulder buttons, aiming the gun to the analog stick and firing and jumping to the B and A buttons. This configuration, while better than the ones previously mentioned, is good but not optimal. Its just a drag not to be able to use the trigger like shoulder buttons to fire the gun. Additionally, there's actually a worse seperation of concerns between each hand because both now handle movement and the right presses face buttons to fire and jump.

All things considered, I really can't see how Nintendo's continuing refusal to allow us to reconfigure the controls on its emulators or backwards compatabile hardware makes sense to anyone but them. I almost wonder if its part of a secret agenda they have to make any less than current game format seem crappy.

Continuing Border-Town's bold and stupid tradition of summarizing each year's E3 by swiping content from other sites, here is this year's summarizing of E3 featuring content swiped from other sites.

First off, the rumors of E3's death have been highly accurate. It seems like there's nothing really exciting this year compared to the past. Maybe it's because I don't own a 360 or PS3. So while parallel-universe-wasn't-under-employed-for-three-years-and-owns-all-three-systems Tim might be into stuff like Mirror's Edge or the new Portal game, I'm not even inspired enough to post a stolen screen shot.

      :O

The one thing that is pretty exciting is this new attachment for the Wii Remote called the MotionPlus, which finally allows the Wii to sense the position of the Wii Remote as accurately as everyone hoped it would when the concept was originally unveiled. I actually got a Wii about a month back, and while I am really enjoying it just the other day I was thinking about how Nintendo's next system (should it be similar) would probably have motion sensing technology that would wipe the floor with the current model. Nice to see we don't have to wait for that. The MotionPlus is going to be bundled with a new version of Wii Sports next Spring that let's you do things such as drive a jet ski or sword fight. Hopefully, cost won't prevent Nintendo from including this thing with all future sales of the Wii so they can make it somewhat of a new standard, similar to when Sony switched out the original PS1 controller for the Dual Shock 1 several years after the system launched.

The most interesting thing to come out of this year's E3 has been Square's decision to port Final Fantasy XIII to the X-Box 360 in non-Asian locations and the subsequent Internet drama from people who feel personally betrayed that Square would do such a thing to them as put the game on a system they probably wish they had bought instead.

Speaking of, the news has ignited a small hope that Konami will announce a port of MGS4 to the 360 either tomorrow or the day after. Even though I already blew $85 on a copy of the Limited Edition PS3 version, it's not like I'd really be losing money if I picked the game up again for the 360 – especially since Sony just announced that starting this September, the PS3 will retail for only $400. Wow, what a deal.

UPDATE – As I was just browsing for news, I came across the words of Tim Rogers. He said (and I'm censoring this so it won't sound gross) “'penatrate MGS4.” Though I feared spoilers, I read more of the forum thread to discover if other people were in general agreement with him. While not yet ready to suggest penetrating MGS4 myself, I can't help but feel that he's probably right.

First off, weeks before MGS4 launched I read an article on it somewhere that casually mentioned that the game used the X button for “accept” and the O button for “cancel”, which is so backwards and stupid that I can't find the words within me to write about it; the majority of PS1 & 2 games used such a button assignment, but the fact that MGS boldly spit in convention's face in favor of configuring them in such a way that made sense was a feature of the series I highly regarded. As meager as the news might sound, it was kind of shocking and hit me like a dump truck.

I read a bit more and discovered that the online game played less like the previous ones- the ones I had, you know, liked – and had more in common with a typical first person shooter, with the primary action buttons placed on the top of the controller, where God did not want them to be. Further reading revealed quite old interviews with some dude named Ryan Payton who had been hired by Kojima to make the game seem more cool to Western audiences who had not purchased enough copies of MGS3 to spar the world from such bullshit. It's ironic that Kojima kicked Jeremy Blaustein to the curb after he'd created the best localization ever in a videogame (I'm talking about MGS1, btw) because he was upset that so much of the dialog was changed from what he'd originally written – in JAPANESE – yet hired some nobody to second-guess him on core design choices concerning the game play for MGS4, the quality of which was generally never really in question to the same degree as the story line.

What made me truly believe the worst was that Tim Rogers called MGS4 “Kingdom Hearts 3 staring Solid Snake.” I'd never touch the Kingdom Hearts series with a ten foot pole, but have watched a video where the game's tween protagonist fights Sephiroth, which was kind of funny. The way the player moved reminded me of a lot of contemporary games I've tried to play but don't like, ones that feel like the core system is trying to be too many things at once and was maybe designed by committee. Well, I had a similar feeling that MGS4 would abandon the wonderful (if unintuitive to losers) play control that MGS3 perfected by trying to tack on first person shooter controls. Mr. Roger's comment played to those fears, and has made me wonder if it would be worth spending a grand confirming them.

Then again, he also said Mario Galaxy was terrible, so who knows.

Every kid who grew up playing Duck Hunt on the NES shared the common dream of shooting the dog that accomponied you on the field. Seemingly invunerable the blasts of the magic gun that could kill things inside the television, the wicked canine abused the player by laughing callously and sans fear of reprisal each time a fowl escaped the edges of the television without being perforated.

As I was searching for more info on a new homebrewed Wii version of Duck Hunt, I found a video of the old arcade version of the game. Not only does this version seem more asthetically interesting, it actually lets you shoot the dog!

The only bad part of is that you shoot him when he's frollicing playfully instead of when he's being an a-hole, which makes the player seem like the bad guy. What kind of perverse justice is that, Nintendo?

Hopefully Nintendo will start putting its VS series of games on the Wii, as I wouldn't mind playing this one.