Tweet
The biggest problem with Nintendo's E3 line-up this year wasn't what the platform holder chose to show off but, rather, what it didn't. I'm not purely talking about old bugbears, either, like the absence of beloved series such as Metroid or F-Zero, or even - whisper it - the arrival of new IP. I'm more concerned about the GamePad, the controller that the Wii U initially seemed to have been built around - and a component that, ever since the console's release, has been waiting for its moment to truly shine.
Watch the E3 Nintendo Direct broadcast and you could be forgiven for forgetting that the Wii U even comes with a second screen. Nintendo seems to have forgotten, anyway. It's entirely possible that all the Wii U games on display have glorious uses for the GamePad that just weren't covered properly - we already know that The Wonderful 101 has some neat second screen moments when you go indoors, for example, while Bayonetta 2 allows for full touchscreen control. That said, when features such as a main character's new haircut merit a proper mention, you can't help but suspect anything groundbreaking for the system's controller would be called out too. Aside from typically delightful use in the Wind Waker remake - you can now put messages in bottles and then drop them into the Great Sea for others to find - the whole half-hour pretty much passed in its entirety without so much as a GamePad cameo. Even then, with the Wind Waker, we're still talking about a lovely gimmick that's been bolted onto a ten-year-old game rather than something more fundamental to the design.
Read more…
More...