Code of Princess
A beautiful little side-scrolling brawler, Code of Princess plays like Guardian Heroes, but with hand-drawn art, many more characters at your disposal, and levels short enough to be digestible in a portable format. Throw in an inventory system that lets you customize each character and you have a solid little game with lots of replayability.
Dead or Alive 5
It’s Dead or Alive. Oh, but they’ve improved the boob physics. So, you know. There is that.
Dragon Ball Z Kinect
DBZ Kinect is a prime example of how NOT to do a Kinect game: poor control response. The concept is cool enough, placing you behind the eyes of DBZ’s greatest heroes as you duke it out fighting-game style with other historic opponents. Unfortunately, the game doesn’t know the difference between a Kamehameha and… well, anything else. That is to say, it thinks you’re doing ANYTHING BUT a Kamehameha. Special moves just don’t register well at all, and when they do register, the game’s system necessitates that you hold that exact pose without so much as an exhale for a few seconds, because, you know, it’s Dragon Ball… so you gotta charge it. Right.
Avengers: Battle for Earth
Avengers succeeds where DBZ Kinect fails, but at the end of the day, it’s still a Kinect fighting game. Gestures are quick and responsive, and landing a Hulk Smash is quite satisfying. But, it’s still a Kinect fighting game. As Kinect games go, it’s one of top ones I’ve ever seen… but it’s still a Kinect fighting game. Seeing a pattern?
Transformers: Fall of Cybertron
It’s another High Moon Transformers game. I really hate to say this, because the original was so good, but it’s more of the same. Throwing in a rage-driven Grimlock was an amazing move, but our demo seemed to indicate he comes in late in the game, and the fact that he’s melee-only makes controlling him slightly awkward in such a pewpew-driven game. It looks to be an amazing continuation of the story and more of the solid gameplay from before, but don’t expect a reinvention of the Allspark here.
Skylanders: Giants
Having never played Skylanders, I was pleasantly surprised by this solid game. Some of the controls are overly simplistic, but the concepts of an overarching adventure with characters’ progress stored on figures that can go from house to house effortlessly is genius, and Giants builds well upon that. It’s more of the same, but as family and kid games go, it’s a solid entry.
Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch
This game is everything you think it’ll be. A gorgeous, solid RPG with humor, cleverness, and an epic story. If you’ve seen the trailer and thought you would like to play this game, you’re right.
Scribblenauts Unlimited
Easily one of the top games of E3. An amazing step up from previous entries, you can create your own objects by combining, editing, and scripting any existing object. Combine this with the crystal-clear graphics on the WiiU, along with the touchpad for typing in, and you have one of the Games of Show.
Playstation All Stars Battle Royale
Yes, it’s Smash Bros. But it’s Smash Bros minus one layer of depth, being knocked off the screen, and replaced with a slightly shittier layer, that of only being able to score because you landed an attack that you charge with a special meter. Even our own Sony fan Mecha left feeling ‘meh’ with the lack of depth.
ZombiU
A surprisingly well-done Ubisoft launch title for the Wii U. I went into this thinking it would be the next Red Steel, and I was wrong. A Capture-The-Flag mode with me on the Pro Controller and an opponent on the Wii U Pad worked surprisingly well; the player with the Controller blasts his way to various points on the map, capturing them while trying to survive, while the player with the Wii U Pad instead had a view of the whole map and deployed/redeployed zombies in an effort to kill me and capture points as well. It was a well-done example of the Wii U’s asymmetric gameplay, and one that got me truly excited for the system and its possibilities.
