Nintendo’s been a company built on paradigm shifts. They popularized gamepads when other consoles where still using joysticks, the Wii made motion control viable for gameplay input, and the 3DS aims to make 3D gaming a portable experience for anyone to enjoy.
The newest hardware from Nintendo harbors another paradigm shift, but one that’s not so easy to pin down. I got a chance to play with the innovative Wii U controller yesterday in a sneak peek courtesy of Nintendo. They had four experiences–which they stressed weren’t games in development–to share and they all showcase the way that the company’s looking to change the home gaming experience all over again.
Garden View
First up was the Garden View demo, which was a simple real-time demo of the graphical capabilities of the Wii U console. Watching a few bird species fly through a Kyoto Buddhist temple as the seasons changed showed off dynamic lighting, water simulation, and specularity (the way that different surfaces reflect light) that rival the power of the PS3 and Xbox. The image on an HDTV is output in full 1080p HD and while the screen on the controller isn’t HD, it looked at least as good as the iPad 2. Looking from controller to TV, there seemed to close to no latency, so if someone were watching a game on either the big screen or the small one, there’d be close to no lag.
Chase Mii
The next demo–a hide-and-seek, 1-vs-4 hunt called Chase Mii–used the backwards compatibility of the Wii U to pit four Wii remotes against the new touchscreen controller. I took the new controller to play as a Mario-style Mii who simply had to run and avoid being tackled by four other players using the Wii remotes. I could see the entire map on the touchscreen and the locations of my pursuers while they looked at the TV, which was divided into four quadrants. They had to co-operate and talk with each other to spot me and track me down, so if I was moving from the yellow part of the game world, one hunter would yell out that they saw me and everyone would converge at the supposed location. Despite the simplicity of its concept and design, Chase Mii was extremely tense and fun. And for the record, the Nintendo rep on hand said that after a day of meetings I was the first one to elude capture.
Yay me.
Battle Mii
We then moved on to Battle Mii, where the touchscreen was used to steer a spaceship that competed against two players on foot. This experience had a Metroid theme with the on-foot Mii warriors wearing power armor like Metroid heroine Samus Aran. My ship was steered via a combo of stick and motion control with guns fired from the triggers. I played at first on foot and it was nerve-wracking how you never knew just where the ship was hovering ahead until it shot at you. The two warriors could duck in and out of nooks and crannies and pop out to shoot at the ship. Matches ended when the ship’s health count of six, or each soldiers’ health counts of three, were depleted by being hit. The design was of shared yet competitive resources, with health that could be grabbed or destroyed by anyone. This experience had the hardest learning curve at first but, again, showed depth through simplicity.
Shield Pose
Weirdest of all was Shield Pose, a rhythm game that combined defensive gameplay with movement. The touchscreen became a portable window where I could see three cartoon pirate ships in the distance. By turning my whole body around or lifting the screen, I could see a ship directly ahead of me, one to my right, one to my left or the moon overhead. Each ship would launch arrows at me but the lead pirate would call out the order of attack. So, if I lifted the screen to chest level in time with the beat, I would get arrows from the left, right or center ships lodged on the screen. Things got faster and more complex as the demo progressed but Shield Pose illustrated yet another gameplay idea borne of the TV screen and portable screen combo.
Panorama View
Following Shield Pose was Panorama View, which ran a real-time video capture of busy Japanese streets on both the TV and touchscreen. But moving the touchscreen around would shift the angle a full 360 degrees, letting me look skyward, at the ground or around each side.
The Legend of Zelda
The last thing I saw was a Legend of Zelda teaser done in HD. Series hero Link walked into an amazingly detailed cathedral and the touchscreen could be used to view inventory, change the lighting from day to night, or switch between different camera angles. There wasn’t live control of the Zelda slice; rather it was used to show what would be possible for a Wii U Zelda game.
It seems like the one theme tying all of these experiences together is the idea of changed perspective. You could get a sharper look than previously available through a Nintendo console, take a piece of the game world with you, or look at the same game world through different points of view. Yet you’ll still have the controller layout that traditional game experiences use for player input, with two analog sticks, face buttons and a pair of triggers on either side. Even at this early stage, Wii U already seems poised to offer new game design opportunities that point to the future of the video game medium.
More on TIME.com:
E3 2011: Nintendo Outs New ‘Wii U’ Console, 6-inch Touchscreen Controller
E3 2011: Sony’s New 3D Monitor, $249 ‘Vita’ Handheld, ‘Uncharted 3’ Gameplay