Nintendo has a habit of being especially uptight about the press’ use of imagery from E3. Nintendo sent a message along with the screenshots they distributed at the show, stating that the enclosed images were “prioritised”, and that magazines and blogs like ourselves should try to use the higher rated images if you had to choose.
One problem, now that they’ve rated them, I have a compulsive need to know; “what makes the low-rated images so bad?” Looking at them, there doesn’t seem to be anything wrong with these screenshots, per se. Though the higher rated ones are often more action-packed or well timed.
Starting with Kid Icarus: Uprising up there, here are the best and worst of Nintendo’s E3 2011 screenshots. Do you think that one is really that much better than the other?
Fortune Street
Kirby Mass Attack
Kirby Wii
Luigi’s Mansion 2
Super Mario 3DS
Mario Kart 3DS
Paper Mario 3DS
Animal Crossing 3DS
Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword
Star Fox 64: 3D
AdrianT
Thursday, June 16, 2011 at 7:30 AMLol i think it was far from thier intention to have you try and disect thier policy.
I like that you have though :P
Dark_Templar
Thursday, June 16, 2011 at 8:15 AMThe ones that imply the graphics are better than they really are.
Esposch
Thursday, June 16, 2011 at 9:04 AMWell, the Star Fox one is obvious. One screen contains the classic one-liner and one doesn’t.
With Zelda, Paper Mario and Mario Kart, the best screenshots show off the new features.
The Animal Crossing and Luigi’s Mansion best screenshots better show off the gameplay, and the best screenshot for Kirby Wii has more of the classic, happy Kirby atmosphere than the second pic.
Fortune Street’s best pic shows off some graphical superiority over the worst one.
And Kirby Mass Attack… I don’t know… Maybe Nintendo really like that tree.
Alex effing Diamond
Thursday, June 16, 2011 at 9:49 AMIt seems to be that they like the colour blue! (I probably used the wrong way of spelling color).
Lone Wolf
Thursday, June 16, 2011 at 9:51 AMNot sure about Kirby Mass Attack, but the rest seem to be fairly obvious, feature more than one character, characters from the front rather than the back, equal weighting to characters, don’t leave the main character in the back.
They’re fairly standard rules, but it’s interesting to see them compared to each other.
Lord Bob
Friday, June 17, 2011 at 12:07 AMFairly sure why the Zelda ones are prioritised that way.
Flying through the sky on huge birds
vs
Grey skinned emo-girl/man/thing staring at you while zombie Link
hangs in the background waiting for it to violate him.
twiryn
Friday, June 17, 2011 at 12:35 PMThey seem to prioritised based on the diversity of the gameplay shown, and to promote bright and colourful pictures over dull or too dark ones. For promotion, this makes complete sense, particularly for magasines, where dark screenshots can print even darker, and look pretty terrible.