The opening 10 minutes of Nintendo's E3 keynote were easily the best on the day, but even if the rest of the show had featured Zelda, Metroid and StarFox this would've been the one that won it for me. It was the long-awaited unveiling of everyone's favourite flower-powered franchise.
If you were wondering what Nintendo franchises in high-definition were going to look like, Pikmin 3 is a great launch title to find out. Gloriously realistic fruits you would gladly reach in and eat and every Pikmin animated in such beautiful detail you could give each one a personality and name and a tiny tombstone in your back garden when they meet a sticky end....
*ahem*
Rock Pikmin are the newest species to be revealed. These kamikaze-like creatures will throw themselves at anything and are thought by many to be replacing Purple 'Min. White Pikmin are also curiously absent, but we may get more details as we approach the "launch window" whenever that may be.
Storywise, details are sketchy but there's a lack of Captain Olimar and instead you take control of four different Pikmin leaders. Has Olimar been kidnapped? Is he lost in space? Did he get too big in Smash Bros to render him unable to return to the Pikmin world? Such questions, few answers!
And I'm still convinced that the weird pink flying thing when the logo appears near the end is a winged Pikmin they'll confirm at a later date. Launch it, control it with the tilt functions of the GamePad with a Min's-eye-view on the controller screen? Go on...
