Today Nintendo announced a new game called Nintendo Land for the upcoming Wii U console. Like Wii Sports did for the Wii, this game is designed to show consumers exactly what the new Wii U GamePad can do for gaming. Styled after a Nintendo theme park, Nintendo Land is a mini-game collection featuring a number of Nintendo franchises. Your Mii will be able to roam around the theme park and change costumes each time they visit a new attraction. Online play via the Miiverse will also be available.
The game contains both single-player and multiplayer games. Though only five games were mentioned during the presentation, a total of 12 will be available in the final product. Of those mentioned were experiences based on Donkey Kong, the Legend of Zelda, Animal Crossing, Luigi’s Mansion, a Japan-only game Famicom game. A fly through in a demo video shown also revealed icons that appeared to show an Airwing (StarFox), a Yoshi egg, a Samus mask, and Birdo. So expect games based on those franchises/characters to be announced in the future.
The game was created by the man behind Wii Sports, so you can bet it will be fun to play in groups just the same. While no specific launch date was mentioned, I can’t imagine how this is not out right at launch. I would even make the (not-so) bold prediction that this will be a pack-in game, either via disk or a free download from the eShop.
So what do you think? Is this a worthy successor to Wii Sports in terms of introducing a new way to play games? It looks fun to me with a large group, but might not be as good for only two players the way Wii Sports is. Let us know your impressions in the comments!
