Tiny Diggers – An iPad Construction Truck Game for Kids Age 2-5

Nintendo did their best at this year’s E3 to pretend that there is no 2008. Aside from mentions of games on Wii Ware and Mario Kart Wii, we didn’t see anything for 2008 at all. So what was missing? Let’s have a look and see what’s around to find about Animal Crossing, Disaster: Day of Crisis, Project HAMMER, and more. Not much more, but more.

ANIMAL CROSSING

In an interview with IGN at E3, Shigeru Miyamoto said of Animal Crossing for Wii,

“The Animal Crossing team has been very busy working on a variety of different projects. Actually, the Mii Channel was put together by the director of the most recent Animal Crossing game. His name is Mr. Nogami. Recently he said he really wants to get back to work on Animal Crossing again, so hopefully we’ll be able to show something to people before too long.”

That would be Hisashi Nogami and Wild World. Nogami also worked on the Animal Crossing for Gamecube. My hopes for Animal Crossing are likely to be far from reality. I want them to go in a toon-shaded direction, like they did with Wind Waker and Phantom Hourglass. This is a franchise that just begs for that kind of visual treatment. Otherwise, they need to use textures with some resolution on them, please.

Aside from that, more of everything, from animals to hats. Persistent online towns when players are away, even if they’re read-only. Furniture customization. Voice chat, even if we need a friend code to do it. Thank you!

DISASTER: DAY OF CRISIS

Nintendo’s recent high-profile acquisition of Monolith Soft could mean we’ll see some more attention paid to this game. There’s been almost nothing on this game since its announcement, so unlike most Nintendo games, expectations are pretty low. There is some conjecture that Nintendo will try to use this game as a more serious kind of M-rated type game (which is unheard of from them as far as I know) and then turn it into a long term series of games. According to Beth Llewellyn, the game is “coming along nicely.”

PROJECT HAMMER

After reports last month that the game may have been cancelled, Nintendo’s Beth Llewellyn has clarified that the game is not cancelled, but instead, resources have been shifted away from it so the team can focus on something else Nintendo finds more important.

PIKMIN

It’s clear that the Wii, with its IR pointer functionality, could be ideal for a well-designed real-time strategy game. At Nintendo, as far as I’m concerned, there is only one RTS that I want to play, and that’s a new Pikmin game. To Shigeru Miyamoto’s credit, he seems to agree with me.

“I certainly don’t think we’ve seen the last of Pikmin,” he said. “I definitely would like to do something with them, and I think the Wii interface in particular is very well suited to that franchise.”

Pikmin Party get! No, no. I just want Pikmin 3 with online co-op and competitive play.

Sources: IGN, AdvancedMN