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This morning's Nintendo Direct may have been an incredibly choppy broadcast, but all the debut videos are now online for your viewing pleasure (note you can also view the whole thing now at your leisure, although you might have better luck watching it on YouTube rather than the official site...

First up is Super Smash Bros., the game we've all been excited about! And boy, does this one looks ready to impress! New challengers include the Villager from Animal Crossing, and most spectacularly, Mega Man! That's right, the Blue Bomber is back in town, and he's going to be taking Mario & Co. head-on! Oh yeah, there's also the Wii Fit Trainer, the woman from the Wii Fit games. I wonder if she will have a Zero Suit Samus skin. Hmm... Be sure to check out the official Smash Bros. site for more information! The Masahiro Sakurai video on Nintendo's E3 page is pretty cool, too.

Samus has also been redesigned, with a sleeker, rounder (perhaps slightly feminine?) suit. Previous Smash Bros. models were based off Super Metroid's design, but this time around, they used Other M as the model, although Sakurai says she is "more powered-up visual-wise". The 3DS version has a graphical change, with flatter colors and thick black cartoony lines to make characters easier to see. No word yet if Samus can fight in her Zero Suit, but she can fire a helluva massive Hyper Beam at her foes! Watch out though, as the Villager can grab her Super Missiles and fling them back Golden Torizo-style! Check out Samus's character page for more information.

The only downside is the 2014 release. And actually, most of the games shown in the Nintendo Direct video are either coming out in late 2013 or sometime in 2014. That's right - Wii U owners can expect a famine of new titles of Nintendo 64 proportions. And that's a little worrisome because it means Nintendo will be going head-to-head with the PS4 and Xbox One with very little to show for its one-year head-start.

Next, we finally found out what Retro Studios has been working on and it's... Well, you really shouldn't have that big of a drum roll since it's a sequel to Donkey Kong Country Returns. While I can always go with more Donkey Kong, I'd have rather seen something completely new from Retro... (And apparently, so would Retro's Michael Kellbaugh, who says there was a struggle over whether to go with more Metroid or Donkey Kong...)

Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze puts the Kongs in contest with a band of invading Vikings made of penguins and walruses! As a Viking fan, I think this is pretty awesome and a fresh change from the Kremlings and Tikis of past games. This time, Retro is focusing on rotating camera angles to provide a 2.5D perspective (although according to Nintendo World Report, these don't add much to the gameplay, just add to the emotional experience and let players see more of the level layout). We also see the triumphant return of Dixie Kong (and an as-yet unannounced [new?] member of the Kong family). They also give a lot of hoopla over Donkey Kong's fur textures, made possible thanks to the Wii U's new hardware. I guess this is the project's American side at work - Retro's famous focus on details.

We will also see the ability to pick up objects from the ground and chuck stunned enemies (this mechanic is brought back from Super Mario Bros. 2 by Kensuke Tanabe. You might not know this, but SMB2 was Tanabe's first directorial project at Nintendo, although it was originally Doki Doki Panic before it became a Mario title. I can't stress the fact enough that although Tanabe-san's game was his first role as a director, the fact it was chosen to become a Mario title is huge. I asked him about this awhile back, and he was very proud of the work:

Originally it was not created as one of the Mario series, so it has a different system and controls compared to a standard Mario title. But I made it with the best ideas I could come up with then, trying to make it an entertaining game... The game was released as Super Mario Bros. 2 in the US, and I will be glad if users regard it as a proper Mario title.

We certainly do, Tanabe-san! There's a cool video (no pun intended) on DKC: Tropical Freeze courtesy of Kensuke Tanabe on the official E3 Nintendo site. Be sure to check it out! DKC: Tropical Freeze should be out by the end of this year. Nintendo World Report has some impressions.

Until next time...
Captain Commando