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I leave for E3 this weekend, which is going to put omg Nintendo into rapid-update write-till-we-drop E3 Mode. There are going to be a lot of games to play on the show floor and a lot of stuff to see behind closed doors, and we're going to take a stab at covering all of it with two people, two laptops, and probably enough junk food to make my Wii Fit very, very unhappy with me.

This year's show is going to be special for me. It'll be the first time I got to set my own schedule and spend all of my time focusing on the DS and Wii stuff I like best anyway. For this week's list I decided to try and vent a little of the internal hype that's building up, 'cause I won't be in L.A. until Monday and may explode or something in the meantime.

So here's the seven games I want to see and/or play and/or learn more about at this year's E3. Note that these aren't the only seven games I'm hyped for, but if I listed everything I'd be here until it was time for my plane to leave. These are just the seven I'm most hyped for, myself. If you're hyped for something else, drop a comment about it-- I may be able to go out of my way to try and have a look at it at the show.

7. More Balance Board Games

I like Wii Fit quite a bit; it's even helping me lose weight in spite of my crappy genes. Still, most of the Wii Fit content doesn't feel very game-like, aside from the Aerobics activities and the Balance Games. What I desperately want to see at E3 is a bunch of games revealed that feature Balance Board support as part of active play. I'm keeping an eye on Skate It since the Balance Board trick system is interesting, but most of the other stuff announced has the faint taste of shovelware about it.

Wii Yoga? All Star Cheer Squad? Just not what I want. I want to see more stuff in the vein of Raving Rabbids 3 and its fantastic Balance Board butt-controlled gaming. I want racing games, action games, maybe even an RPG or two! Basically, I want to try to play every possible thing I can with my feet.

(Yes, I was the kid who tried to play Guilty Gear with a DDR pad back in the day, just to see if it could be done.)

6. Kid Icarus

Gaming site Kombo has been flooding the internet with mouth-watering Kid Icarus rumors for the better part of a year now, including some tantalizing concept art. Even if the Kombo rumors turn out to be nothing and Factor 5 isn't involved, I desperately want to see some sort of new Kid Icarus title on the Wii come out of E3. Getting to use him in Brawl helped me remember why I love Kid Icarus, even if his NES game is an unremitting, unforgiving helltrudge through eggplant nightmares.

I don't care if it's Kid Icarus in an action game, a flight sim, a platformer, or some sort of weird action RPG. Hell, it can be the Kid Icarus rhythm game for all I care, or More Brain Age with Kid Icarus. I just want me a Wii game starring an angel with a bow who's not afraid to use it, and who possibly flees from jars that drop infinite snakes on him. That's not so much to ask, is it?

5. Fire Emblem DS

I'm kind of bummed out that the only Fire Emblem games to hit the US, besides the okay GBA titles, have been the GameCube and Wii games. Something about Fire Enblem on a console feels a little off to me, like looking at a kid wearing clothes two sizes too big. What I really want to play is Fire Emblem DS, which takes the graphical style that originally made Fire Emblem a cult hit with RPG fans in Japan and enhances it up to modern sprite animation standards. Yes, a lot of people are complaining that Fire Emblem DS is somehow "ugly", but personally I think it looks exactly the way it should.

Fire Emblem DS would also give us all a chance to finally play one of the games Smash Bros. Brawl's Marth starred in, and everything I've read about that game's plot has me all kinds of psyched to play it with the benefit of some modern interface and minor visual enhancements. Come on, Nintendo, don't have one of the random fits of spite that kept Mother 3 out of the US. Announce English language Fire Emblem DS at E3 so we all know that we can finally get to know Marth.

4. Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia

I've already marked out pretty hard over Order of Ecclesia's original announcement, but I desperately want to say I got to go hands-on with a demo level for this one before E3 is over. I got to play a demo of Portrait of Ruin at an E3 years ago before that game was released, and it completely sold me on every little feature of the game that sounded pretty weird back then. Order of Ecclesia already sounds and looks about five times better than Portrait, so I'm really jonesing hard for Shanoa and her magic weapon undead killifying powers. Even fifteen minutes of playing it with probably no sound on at the show floor would make it easier to wait for the US release, and make me feel almost as gleeful as I did the first time I powered up Dawn of Sorrow in my DS. Don't disappoint me, Konami (not that I think you will).

3. Mega Man 9

It says either very sad things about the modern gaming industry or my own personal susceptibility to nostalgia that I'm more interested in playing Mega Man 9 than just about anything else Capcom could possibly have at E3. There is nothing that would make me happier to sit down with this game for about ten minutes or so at a kiosk, most of which would be sent falling into pits or crashing into spikes thanks to how Mega Man never feels quite as springy as Mario and I can never quite wrap my mind around it.

Now, it's true that playing MM9 on the show floor would probably mean not getting to hear the music, which would be tragic, but I'd finally have some idea of how the game felt to play, how close to "right" Capcom had really gotten it. Mega Man 9 has shown up on Capcom's list of confirmed titles for the show, but I haven't quite been able to confirm that it'll be playable on the floor. Anyway, here's to hoping. Getting owned hard by a new NES-style Mega Man would be one of the most satisfying things I could do at this year's show.

2. Rhythm Tengoku Gold

If you read this blog regularly, then you know that I'm not too much of a fangirl for Nintendo, for all that I think the DS and Wii are the best pieces of hardware on the gaming market. Nintendo makes mistakes, they do bad things, they sometimes screw people. They're a corporation, and being nice isn't necessarily their business. As far as I'm concerned, one of the biggest mistakes Nintendo made toward the end of the GBA's lifespan, one of the most unforgivably short-sighted things they've ever done, was not releasing the awesome Rhythm Tengoku in the US.

The internet is littered with praise for Rhythm Tengoku's amazing weirdness and great gameplay, so I won't throw too much  more on the pile. What I will say is that Nintendo has announced a DS sequel called Rhythm Tengoku Gold, and it had better get confirmed for US release before the end of E3 or I'm gonna be grouchy. If it's not in my DS and being played by this time next year, I'm going to be an exceptionally unhappy camper. Rhythm Tengoku is awesome and there's absolutely no reason to deny the DS version to American gamers.

1. Wario Land: Shake It!

You read it here first, folks: Super Mario Sluggers can go to hell. Nothing against Mario, or wacky sports games featuring Mario, but anything he's up to now is absolutely sad and pale next to the shining glory that is Wario Land: Shake It! For the Wii. If you've read lists Ive written here before then you probably remember that I'm really fond of the sidecrolling platform adventures Wario used to go on back before he got trapped in the fun-but-not-the-same WarioWare titles.

Wario Land Wii is not only bringing back Wario as a fantabulous 2D sidescrolling platforming jerk, it's going to let him face off with his old nemesis Captain Syrup and star in some very slick-looking anime cutscenes worked on by the same studio that gave us the great anime bits of Professor Layton. Nevermind that using a Wii to generate 2D graphics results in a game that has some of the best brightly-colored eye candy I've seen this side of Mario Galaxy. I'm really excited about Wario Land: Shake It!, and my E3 just won't be complete unless I get to play a demo or at least get more info on a US version before the show is over.

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