While waiting in line to get our hands on Wii Sports Resort, a gentleman approached us, proposing a question that, when issued in the fine city of Los Angeles, would normally be cause for concern: "Wanna see something cool?" Our interest was piqued, and his Nintendo exhibitor badge assured us that we wouldn't be shivved, so we answered with an apprehensive "yes." The reward for our bravery was a quick look at the coolest app we've yet to see from the DSiWare service -- the Six-in-One Translator (tentatively titled, natch).Translator is a neat little application. It's got a huge dictionary of words from six languages: English, Japanese, Spanish, French, Italian and German. You can enter in a word from one of those languages and find its definition in the other five -- but the impressive thing about it is the input method. Aside from the keyboard and handwriting methods you've seen before on Nintendo's handheld, you can use the DSi camera to take a picture of text you wish to translate, crop the image around the word using the stylus, then see it in five other languages.In the brief demo we checked out, the user took a picture of a few characters in a Japanese menu. He highlighted the characters by dragging the stylus across them. The software quickly recognized the characters in a matter of moments, and provided their definition in the other five languages -- "consume," etc. If the full product works as well as the brief demo we saw, the Six-in-One Translator could end up being the software that justifies the very existence of the DSiWare platform.Permalink | Email this | Comments

Vanillaware's Muramasa: The Demon Blade was one of the flashier games being demonstrated on the show floor. Positioned right in front of the door at E3's West Hall, every attendee is greeted by the game's signature woodblock-esque look, with vividly colorful, swirling forest scenery. Our demo took place inside Ignition's booth, guided by new director of business development Shane Bettenhausen.We know Vanillaware from its RPG titles like Odin Sphere, but while Muramasa shares the same lavish 2D look, it differs sharply in gameplay style -- this is a pure action game similar to something like Legend of Kage. First you choose one of two characters, princess Momohime or ninja Kisuke (each have their own divergent story), and then a difficulty level, "Muso" (easier) or "Shura" (hard). Then you run, jump, and slash monsters. It's pretty simple!

Continue reading Hands-on: Muramasa: The Demon Blade

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While trying to stump 5TH Cell's Scribblenauts, it was suggested to us that we should try typing some Internet memes into the game's interface and see if they'd materialize. Our first experiment: Longcat. As it turns out, Longcat is in the game ... and he's looooooong. Equally long, but not pictured, is Longcat's nemesis Tacgnol. Seriously.Get ready to declare your game of the show after the break. You'll forget all about Splinter Creed or whatever once you see the player character, sitting in a mech, next to a mecha, watching 5TH Cell's creative director breakdance to the musical stylings of ... Keyboard Cat.

Continue reading Play Scribblenauts off, keyboard cat

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Last year, Nintendo only had three playable games from Wii Sports Resort: Disc Dog, Power Cruising, and Swordplay, all of which were used to show the precision of the Wii MotionPlus device. This time, twelve games are available for play, and we were able to get our hands on two of those, which we think do an even better job of displaying the difference between a MotionPlus-enabled Wiimote and a stock controller.First, we tried the canoe game, in a two-player race. The goal in this game variant is to cross five checkpoints before the other player. In this game, the Wiimote is a surrogate for the canoe's oar, held vertically with both hands as if it were an actual oar.

Continue reading Hands-on: Wii Sports Resort's archery and canoeing

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