• Hey Guest. Check out your NeoGAF Wrapped 2025 results here!

Nintendo Land: Balloon Trip Breeze trailer

Looks fun, but watching the video I'm not 'getting' why it's controlled with touch. Is there some hook here that I'm just missing? What I saw looked like a cool Balloon Fight sequel, but also like it's trapped behind controls that are a downgrade from the NES original.
 
As a stand alone title it would be disappointing if it weren't a cheap eShop release but as part of a 12 game collection I don't mind it.
 
Why are you moving from right to left?! Aaagggh!

And aren't all the Nintendo Land games supposed to be 5 player viable?

They have said, iirc, all the games will have a single player version and multiplayer version. Some of the games this may be more different for single vs multi than others. I am guessing the multiplayer in this one will be balloon fight-esque.
 
Using the screens looks strategic and rather simple; I don't see the problem.

When you want to see more broadly where you're going, you look at the big screen and just flick the stylus in the general direction. When you need close precision around spikes and obstacles, you look down and use the stylus directly on the field of play.
 
The TV is important so that other players see your run, and that's something you can't replicate on a smartphone or tablet.

I think that's a pretty thin USP and carves out a very very small niche. The Nintendo Direct video and Iwata's subsequent statements introducing the Wii U controller made a pretty bold and audacious case for a new paradigm in using both the personal screen and the home screen. "Let other people see what you're doing" is a pretty unambitious way of executing it.

I'd also note that smartphones and tablets can in fact replicate this.

And the price argument makes even less sense. No this game wouldn't be $0.99 or free on smart devices - because it doesn't exist. Could you do a similar game and sell it at that price, with less content and polish? Sure, just like you can develop a cheap Halo or Modern Warfare clone in Bulgaria and sell it for $2.99 on App Store. But what exactly does that prove?

I don't think this portion of the post approaches my point in good faith.

I am quite certain that high end mobile phone developers can produce and release an endless runner / arcade survival type game similar or identical to Balloon Trip that is as polished and has more content for $0.99. I base this on the fact that this particular genre of game has literally hundreds of entries on iOS, many as polished as this and many with as much content, particularly after free updates.

I am not going to engage in list wars--but ask yourself seriously; do you really not believe that smartphone puzzle and/or arcade games (whether specifically "endless runners", or more generally just survival / score attack / distance attack type arcade games) approach this level of polish and content? I'd invite you to survey any of the, say, top 100 entries in the genre.


That's not to say that Nintendo doesn't make good games or that this might not be a good entry in that genre. Hell, I think Nintendo should do more of this stuff. The entirety of my point is that if Nintendoland is this kind of thing, putting it forward as an introduction to the Wii U is likely going to dilute the system's strengths thanks to competition that exists from mobile/tablet devices. If Nintendo says "Buy Wii U because it can do games like this", I think a great many prospective consumers will say "I already have something better suited to do games like this". The crux of my argument is not about this game, it's about Nintendoland's position as a piece of software intended to act as an ambassador for the Wii U. Even if I concede that mobile/tablet platforms are not capable of this game, and again I disagree, do you think that putting a game like this as the selling face of the console during the important launch season makes sense based on what we've seen so far?

The comparison to Call or Duty or Halo is foolish because the same thing is not true for entries in those genres. It would not be true for many franchises Nintendo makes either. I am not confident developers could or would make, for example, a Zelda-style game with a similar level of polish and content to Zelda itself at the low price-point. Games that are heavily narrative driven, with complex movement schemes and lots of individual art assets, particularly 3d games, are a much higher barrier to entry in terms of skill and man-hours needed to create and polish than these types of games. The two simply cannot be compared.
 
I would imagine a Balloon Fight game making waay more interesting use of the second screen than this is. Can't wait to see it!
 
I read some posts before watching the video. I assumed "looks like an iOS game" was a trollish-poke-fun comment at nintendo. Then I watched the video....it really does look like one!

Anyway I'd say more but I probably wouldn't articulate it as well as Stump anyway, so I'll just say I agree with him.
 
Looks to be somewhat enjoyable but something like this should be bundled in. Gameplay wise most of what I've seen of Nintendo land looks like phone games that are either free or $0.99. I'm not referring to graphics but rather gameplay mechanics of the various titles. Just small little time wasters you play in spurts. Hopefully it's bundled, can't see myself spending money on this.
 
Calling it now. Balloon Fighter will get a 3DS eShop revival after this releases and the Balloon Fighter and a Ballon Trip level will be in the next Smash. I will put money on this.
 
As a stand alone title it would be disappointing if it weren't a cheap eShop release but as part of a 12 game collection I don't mind it.

I think Nintendo Land may just about work as a pack-in. A show off all the features of your new console, even if some of them are very limited, and helped by a ton of fan-service. All the collectibles/unlockables will help it a lot.

As a separate thing I think it's pretty dire though. Only the Donkey Kong one has raised even the slightest bit of interest for me.

There might be some unexpected gems in there, as happened with Monkey Ball and its mini games, but as a project Nintendo Land is plain lazy and doesn't install confidence in the system. All it says is you're going to be waiting a long time before they find how to make it all work best.
 
Blowing wind to speed up seems like the cool thing .
And glass or transparent plastic clouds, the element unexpected in this kind of known artstyle.
 
How do you hold a stylus? Where's your hand? Which side of the screen does it obscure?

It makes perfect sense! When Nintendo made Balloon Trip in 1984 they made it scroll right to left because they predicted that 28 years later they would remake it for a touch screen and wanted right handers to have a better view! :P
 
I'd be amazed if there wasn't an option to "flip" the game for lefties (like me).
 
It doesn't look fun to me. Not really the type of game I want from a "next gen" system.

Looks pretty boring to me, and already over-familiar because of how basic the use of the touchscreen is.

Hopefully there will be a poor man's Joust mode in there to get something more out of it.
 
I think Nintendo Land may just about work as a pack-in. A show off all the features of your new console, even if some of them are very limited, and helped by a ton of fan-service. All the collectibles/unlockables will help it a lot.

As a separate thing I think it's pretty dire though. Only the Donkey Kong one has raised even the slightest bit of interest for me.

There might be some unexpected gems in there, as happened with Monkey Ball and its mini games, but as a project Nintendo Land is plain lazy and doesn't install confidence in the system. All it says is you're going to be waiting a long time before they find how to make it all work best.

Your drastic pessimism of the game aside. Why do you think in a world where Wii Sports Resort, Wii Play, and Mario Party 9 sold millions world wide as stand alone titles. Not too mention the cheap cash ins like Game Party that also sold millions. How would something like Nintendo Land which is basically drastically bigger in content than Wii Sports Resort doomed?
 
I think that's a pretty thin USP and carves out a very very small niche. The Nintendo Direct video and Iwata's subsequent statements introducing the Wii U controller made a pretty bold and audacious case for a new paradigm in using both the personal screen and the home screen. "Let other people see what you're doing" is a pretty unambitious way of executing it.

I'd also note that smartphones and tablets can in fact replicate this.

'zactly. Dog Smartglass all you want, it's at least got a greater (albeit largely panned) OS behind it.


Microsoft does what NintendU'esnt?



Your drastic pessimism of the game aside. Why do you think in a world where Wii Sports Resort, Wii Play, and Mario Party 9 sold millions world wide as stand alone titles. Not too mention the cheap cash ins like Game Party that also sold millions. How would something like Nintendo Land which is basically drastically bigger in content than Wii Sports Resort doomed?


Flagship new console game isn't even 2.0, just HD+ stylus interface. Win?
 
The Mario Galaxy thing was controlled by activating stars to pull Mario in their direction, right? This seems different since you can push the character in any direction at any time. I assume there's also gravity constantly pulling the balloon fighter down which you didn't have to deal with in Mario Galaxy.

er, i was thinking of the ones where the wiimote was a fan that blew in 1 direction, but yeah I don't think they accounted for gravity.
 
Your drastic pessimism of the game aside. Why do you think in a world where Wii Sports Resort, Wii Play, and Mario Party 9 sold millions world wide as stand alone titles. Not too mention the cheap cash ins like Game Party that also sold millions. How would something like Nintendo Land which is basically drastically bigger in content than Wii Sports Resort doomed?

Who was talking sales?

I really don't care how much it sells, I think the whole thing is laziness polished up with a load of fan-service and the result of Nintendo rushing ahead with a concept for a system before having the ideas and direction in place to justify its existence.

The complete opposite of how the Wii and Wii Sports was born in fact. The potential is there with the system, but Nintendo Land isn't demonstrating it. It's a band-aid till the real things appear somewhere down the line. A pack-in would at least give Nintendo Land some purpose though.

Not Nintendo's finest hour for me really.
 
I just want Amazon to let me pre-order the Wii U. I do not want Nintendoland though, and that video did nothing to change my mind. Blech.
 
Yeah... i'm not seeing the 2 screen angle. Sure the view is limited on the tablet... but it's not like it has to be. Artificial limitations...

This is kind of my feeling as well. It's like the view is a little too tight on the Gamepad, but I'm not sure how effectively you could direct the wind (especially when you're still getting used to the game) without looking at the pad. Just watching the trailer it got a bit annoying for me to switch between looking at the two as often as I wanted to.

I'm not saying all Pad + TV games will be annoying, just this particular implementation, because it's like each view is missing an important piece to play, without that really being necessary.
 
Your drastic pessimism of the game aside. Why do you think in a world where Wii Sports Resort, Wii Play, and Mario Party 9 sold millions world wide as stand alone titles. Not too mention the cheap cash ins like Game Party that also sold millions. How would something like Nintendo Land which is basically drastically bigger in content than Wii Sports Resort doomed?

After all, what would DECK'ARD know about creating simple arcade-style titles that go on to sell millions of copies and become successful franchises through the ages? ;)
 
This is kind of my feeling as well. It's like the view is a little too tight on the Gamepad, but I'm not sure how effectively you could direct the wind (especially when you're still getting used to the game) without looking at the pad. Just watching the trailer it got a bit annoying for me to switch between looking at the two as often as I wanted to.

I'm not saying all Pad + TV games will be annoying, just this particular implementation, because it's like each view is missing an important piece to play, without that really being necessary.

Yeah, it does seem a bit of a half-arsed concept.

It's only one mini-game of many but things like this sort of undersell the features you are trying to demonstrate. One game that does it right is more persuasive than a load of little ones that may or may not.

That's why I think it would work better as a pack-in, as it would be given a lot more lee-way.
 

Not really. Existing implementations that use your local wifi for communication are far too lag-laden to replicate even this simple minigame with any precision. I own an iPad 3 + ATV and use Airplay for nearly all my media functions now, but it's just not there for gaming.

Note that you cited one of the first widely known examples of game Airplay support, and one that is sadly still the most often named, because the motion-based steering obscures the significant lag issues that plague the setup and keep it untenable for other genres. Airplay has been around for a long time, yet we still seem to be at proof-of-concept stage; it's worth inquiring as to the reasons.


'zactly. Dog Smartglass all you want, it's at least got a greater (albeit largely panned) OS behind it.

Perhaps you could explain this comment. I'm honestly not clear on the OS bit, nor have I seen evidence indicating that Smartglass is any less laggy than local wifi (and in fact most signs point to the contrary, particularly Microsoft's suggestion that LIVE will serve as the arbiter of this communication with the tablet).
 
Not really. Existing implementations that use your local wifi for communication are far too lag-laden to replicate even this simple minigame with any precision. I own an iPad 3 + ATV and use Airplay for nearly all my media functions now, but it's just not there for gaming.

I think it's there for gaming in the use case the user is mentioning; having a third-party non-player crowd watch your progress as you play. Note the context of the conversation. I don't think AirPlay replicates the Wii U, I think it replicates being able to show others a game that you're playing on a personal device. And that's what AirPlay is great at. Not live gaming, but being able to share media content (including games) with passive observers while still using your personal device as your primary device. Wii U's streaming tech is very impressive to me. The context here is that we have a game that apparently doesn't require the TV at all to play based on the gameplay shown, but the defence of why it does use the TV is this local observer phenomenon. Had the gameplay shown been local multiplayer or anything else that required the TV, I wouldn't have asked the initial question.
 
How freaking young is everyone here? this is pretty much Balloon fight with a re-skin, did anyone play the game? it even goes right to left as the original, the music etc. Seriously Yoshi touch and go comparisons? mario galaxy comparisons? wth?

Confession time, I never could finish that challenge, it was extremely difficult and honestly it didn't look like it had an end.

With that said, it looks like a pretty weak mini game, specially if you want to sell the controller's functions.
 
I think it's there for gaming in the use case the user is mentioning; having a third-party non-player crowd watch your progress as you play. Note the context of the conversation. I don't think AirPlay replicates the Wii U, I think it replicates being able to show others a game that you're playing on a personal device.

That makes sense, but I don't read the social component as the sole selling point they are after here. The idea seems to be a matter of showing how one can game on the larger scale of the TV but then immediately look down to interact directly with that same playfield on a touchscreen, with the latter allowing for a kind of tactile precision you can't otherwise attain in console controls. Not that it's a revolutionary concept or execution, but it involves a bit more than the social view.
 
Not sure if I like how they're playing. The Gamepad looks too zoomed in hiding the hazards. Seems like a lot of looking up and back at the TV.
 
After all, what would DECK'ARD know about creating simple arcade-style titles that go on to sell millions of copies and become successful franchises through the ages? ;)

Haha, you are too kind ;)

I do want to work with the Wii U actually, and I've been saying as much at T17. A few things to do popped up straight away, and there's more things to explore the more I've thought about it. Anything that opens up more things to do with a game, and more importantly just give people the expectation of wanting new things, is a good thing. And especially important right now.

I just wish Nintendo had more of a killer-app ready for launch to convey the message more powerfully. As I do think it's going to be a harder sell than the Wii. And it's lucky Ubisoft and Nintendo finally drawing on SMW again is there to pick up the slack.
 
Nostalgia factor aside, I honestly don't understand how someone can get excited for this.

I'm looking for the start of the next generation, man. I hope this is included with the system at the very least.
 
Top Bottom