Two versions of Twilight Princess
One for Wii and one for Cube!
Speaking at Nintendo's pre-E3 press conference, Nintendo's Reggie Fils-Aime has confirmed that two versions of long awaited Zelda game Twilight Princess are in development - one for GameCube and one for Wii, which will of course make use of the remote controller.
Fils-Aimes described it as "by far the best Zelda game we've ever made," before handing over the controls for a real-time demonstration of exactly why that is.
The game uses the analogue 'nunchuck' attachment to control Link's movement, with items assigned to the wand's d-pad. Targeting is achieved by holding the Z button, and there's a fairy on the screen to keep constant track of your movements with the wand, making sure you don't end up pointing at the ceiling when something's biting your legs, for example.
Attacking is a matter of pressing the B button or moving the wand in a circular motion to perform the spin attack, and jabbing or flicking the wand makes Link perform a shield strike, knocking enemies off guard and leaving them prone to a more serious kicking.
Putting the sword aside and moving onto the bow, you can point the wand where you want to aim, and a targeting reticule appears. If you move the wand outside of that reticule, the camera circles your target.
When you draw back the bow to fire, the speaker in the wand - yes, there's a speaker - lets you hear the sting pulling taught, and when you fire the arrow, you'll hear it and feel it fly from the wand towards your target on screen. The whole thing played out beautifully and looks like a really impressive use of the new technology.
The remainder of the demo, brief as it was, was filled with more examples of sword and bow battles, and how the wand can also be used for fishing - in exactly the way you'd expect, except with fewer maggots, probably.
Visually, the game looks pretty stunning, but as Nintendo kept repeating after almost every game they showed, Wii is not about what you see, but what you feel. Expect more updates once we've had a feel of some Zelda Wii on the show floor.