In my GameFile column at MTVNews.com today, Slash talks “Guitar Hero“:

“I’m not great at it,” he said. “And a lot of that has to do with the fact that it’s hard for me to get rid of 30 years — whatever it is — 20-some-odd years of playing in a certain way and then all of the sudden become accustomed to pressing some buttons and stuff. I have these little things that I’m so used to doing that when I’m playing ‘Guitar Hero’ it sort of screws me up.”

In my GameFile column at MTVNews.com today, Harmonix associate producer Helen McWilliams talks about writing text for “Rock Band“:

“A lot of it is making sure the voice is pretty true to the spirit of rock and roll,” she said. “You realize as you start looking at it that there are words that are acceptable in the rock universe and words that are totally unacceptable. It tends to be a lot of me going through and saying we are not saying ‘groove’ and we are not saying ‘jam.’ ”

For more of that and other news about the two biggest rhythm games still to be released this year, check out GameFile, linked (twice!) above.

The set-up: I was not satisfied with the E3 demo Nintendo prepared for the press to demonstrate “Wii Fit.” It appeared to hide a damaging flaw.

The mini-games Nintendo showed for the exercise program mainly involved standing on the board and doing activities that seemed to require a bit of the honors system. How would the board know, for example, that a “Fit” player was moving his or her arms in the proper aerobic swings demonstrated on screen? One of the primary habits of the gamer is to find shortcuts: skip the instruction manual; use the same guaranteed-touchdown plays in “Madden,” not really read out loud in the reading-out-loud part of “Brain Age,” run “Sim City” overnight to build up tax revenue, etc. So I started to wonder how short-cut-proof “Wii Fit” is.

Could someone buy “Wii Fit” with all the best intentions but be seduced into using easier methods to cheat the system? I asked my E3 Nintendo rep if I could conduct an experiment:

When I told N’Gai Croal at Newsweek about my experiment, he said it’s proof that Nintendo could make a good luge game. He had some other comments too, but, really, make your own jokes.

And with this, my three-part interview with Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime concludes. (For reference: Part One; Part Two)Three questions are answered:

• Do you regret courting Rockstar to to get “Manhunt 2” on your system?
• Do you still believe in Nintendo friend codes? (Yes, I should have pushed him on this more. I know)
• What kind of people answered a recent ad to be your assistant?

I believe these three unrelated questions qualify this a “smorgasboard” of an interview post.

I’ll have a bonus bit of Nintendo E3 video Monday. But Reggie won’t be in it. And you will laugh at it — or be horrified. Stay tuned.

Over at MTVNews.com I recount the E3 demo I was given of EA’s promising “The Simpsons Game.” I’d love to tell you more about the story, but I’ve got some other posts to blog to you folks about. So here’s a link.

And here’s an excerpt:

“The game’s creators let MTV News run a caped Bart through the “Shadow of the Colossal Donut” level, while a developer rolled a powered-up, spherical Homer with a second controller. Lard Lad stomped through a construction site, but Bart, with his trusty slingshot, was able to stop Lard Lad in his tracks. A hatch opened on the giant lad’s back and started flashing.

“Suddenly, the game paused. Comic Book Guy appeared on-screen along with a line of text congratulating the player on finding one of 31 video game clichés tucked in the “Simpsons” adventure: the obvious weak point on the boss character. “It’s the only game that can call out its own clichés,” [creative director Jonathan] Knight said proudly.”

Note that they will neither confirm nor deny Jack Thompson references in the game. But they will confirm that even EA itself is in for a serious skewering.

On Monday we presented part one of my interview with Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime. In that interview, Reggie and I talked about stuff I’m sure he expected to discuss.

Today I’ve got part two, in which I threw some curveballs.

There’s video after the jump, but first I need to set this up:

Read more…

My co-winner for most hypnotic game of E3 was Jon Mak’s one-man-show, “Everyday Shooter.” The game will be the first on PS3 to be created by a single developer. But that’s not the best reason to pay attention to the project. The hook, I submit, is the music, the sound effects … everything you hear from this game. It’s all the product of Jon Mak strumming his guitar.

I nominated his game for a “Special Commendation for Sound” award. Read on in my GameFile column at MTVNews.com and I think you’ll be able to understand why.

You might also want to check out Jon’s homepage. Do note that the “ES” trailer he has there plays part of the game’s soundtrack but does not demonstrate how the guitar-based sound effects actually work in the game.

Jon is wrapping the game up right now, but was able to chat with me about his goals for the project two weeks ago in Santa Monica. Look for the game on PS3’s download store later this summer.

I have my computer out in this picture, because I am about to take Reggie’s name.

This was shot two Fridays ago during E3. I sat down with Nintendo of America president, Reggie Fils-Aime for a good 15 minutes or so of interviewing.

You could read about our interview at MTVNews.com. But in a Multiplayer blog exclusive that I secured by negotiating with myself, I can present you here with part one of the interview in video form. Parts two and three will follow here this week.

In part one we talk “Mario Kart” Wii, “Endless Ocean,” whether “Super Smash Bros. Brawl” is online (expect a dodge!), why Nintendo showed so few games at the press conference, what happened to “Project HAMMER,” whether “Wii Fit” will send gamers crashing through their TV screens (and what to do about it). Reggie even proposes his ideal game for the Wii Balance Board. It’s chock full..

Check back tomorrow for Part 2, in which I badger him about why Nintendo seems to treat Japanese gamers and game-makers better than those in North America.

Some “Halo 3” questions to chew on:

How can Bungie expect people to find “Halo 3″ to be both harder and easier than expected?

What steps are they taking to improve the experience of those of us who were slaughtered in the multiplayer beta?

Why won’t they put bots in the game?

What does Bungie think of the complaints about graphics in the beta?

How does the size of the new game compare to that of the last two?

Which difficulty level do they want you to play the game on?

And what happened when I actually tried to play “Halo 3″ at that level last week at E3?

For all the answers, and more talk on what Bungie learned from the beta, check out my E3 interview with Bungie’s Frank O’Connor at MTVNews.com.

Here’s a preview: “In terms of the actual game length, it’s probably geometrically the biggest ‘Halo,’ ” O’Connor said. “We found in tests [that] it’s testing pretty similarly to ‘Halo 1‘ and ‘2‘ in terms of overall game length. But we’re trying to push people toward playing [the game on the] Heroic [difficulty setting], which is why we demoed that at E3. There’s much more going on, and that will certainly take longer than it did on ‘Halo 2.’ “

Oh, the plans I had for this blog for Thursday, July 19th. Said plans are out the window, or at least postponed until Monday, due to technical issues. I assure you the Reggie Fils-Aime interview posted then will be worth the wait.

For now, I’m left scrambling. How do I give you folks some solid E3 content? I’m moving my “Halo 3” coverage to the front burner (look for it tomorrow) and giving you something — anything! — for right now.

So….

I see that Joystiq is riled up over the idea that Mario is cheating on Princess Peach. The evidence is a scan of “Super Mario Galaxy” from the Japanese magazine Famitsu that shows the plumber chatting up a princess named Rosetta.

What is Mario doing?

Read more…

I saw Phil Harrison, president of worldwide studios for Sony Computer Entertainment, on the Tuesday of E3 week. It was at the “Killzone 2” event.

Gentleman that he is, he offered to buy me a drink. I told him I had to go. I had to write articles for you fine folk. “But, Phil,” I said, “We can talk tomorrow.” I reminded him we were scheduled to talk right after the big Sony press conference. He said he was up for it, but warned me he might be worn out at that point and might be monosyllabic. I said that’s be fine, as long as his mono-syllables were all curse words.

The next day, we chatted. We talked about why Sony didn’t change the look of the PSP even though they re-designed the size of the system. We talked about motion control, Microsoft copying Sony controllers, “Home,” and the mysterious “Afrika.” Time was tight, but we got a bit of stuff in. Check it out: