GameCentral gets to test drive Nintendos new set of Labo creations, including a fully working steering wheel and flightstick.
Its four months now since the first two Nintendo Labo kits were released and its hard to gauge how well theyve been received by the public. Theyre still in the Japanese Top 20, but while they lingered far more briefly in the UK charts toys to life games like Skylanders used to be no different – and thats probably the closest comparison you can get with Labo. Even, so its interesting to see that the first new kit since then is much closer to being a proper game than anything weve seen before.
As a quick recap for those that arent familiar with Nintendo Labo, the concept is a combination of video game and construction toy; a sort of mix between Meccano and origami where you build objects by folding sheets of pre-cut cardboard according to instructions displayed on the Switch. These objects are referred to as Toy-Cons and feature various physical buttons and controls that are operated by clever use of the infra-red and motion sensors in the Switchs Joy-Cons.
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In the original two Labo kits (which you can find reviewed here) most of the games, even the more complex Robo Kit ones, felt more like tech demos for the Toy-Cons than fully fleshed out gaming experiences. The whole thing was still a lot of fun to play around with, especially for kids, but nobody was ever going to keep coming back just for the games. But the Vehicle Kit does have some staying power, in terms of both the software and the hard(ish)ware.
We got to spend about 40 minutes with the Vehicle Kit at Gamescom and just as it seemed from the early videos, its easy to see it as a sort of reimagining of the Pilotwings series. The Nintendo rep guiding us through it all was happy to acknowledge this, as we explored a large open world environment as either a buggy, a submarine, or an aeroplane. Each one has their own carboard controller, which is activated by taking a cardboard key (containing a Joy-Con) out of the current one and inserting it in whatever other controller you want to use. This only takes a second and instantly transforms the vehicle on-screen.
Although the game is reminiscent of Pilotwings what we saw was considerably easier and less complex than the old SNES and N64 games. The open world is quite large though and split into a number of areas that have to be unlocked by finding and activating a petrol station within them. This reveals several simple quests for you to complete, which for the buggy included knocking an oversized golf ball into a hole, delivering plastic toy cows to their home, and blowing up boulders.
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The latter is achieved by activating one of the buggys many in-built gadgets by twiddling the levers on the side and turning on everything from windscreen wipers (which are necessary when you go in the mud) to a bomb catapult. Theres no gearstick as such but you do have to hold down a lever on the left to reverse and theres a big cord on the right you can yank to activate a turbo boost. On top of this is a separate cardboard gadget that works as an accelerator, if you have the other Joy-Con plugged into it.
All of the quests we tried were just as easy as they sound, although some of them – the cow ferrying and getting close enough to the petrol station to refuel – required a fair amount of precision driving, so its possible the game does get harder later on. But the most interesting thing at the moment is simply the cardboard controllers themselves, which are not only reliably precise but intrinsically fun to use.
Nintendo has already released a patch so that you can use the motorbike handlebars from Toy-Con 01 in Mario Kart 8 and have shown footage of the steering wheel and pedals working with the game as well. Clearly theyd be useful for any driving game, but what we, as flight sim fans, really enjoyed was the joystick you use when you transform into an aeroplane.
The old Wii remote has been used as a joystick before, by simply holding it vertically and pantomiming the movement, but sticking a Joy-Con into the cardboard joystick removes all the vagueness from the controls and its a real pleasure to use.
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The aeroplane is the fastest of the three vehicles and while it was more restrictive in its movement than something like Starfighter Assault from Star Wars: Battlefront II it seems like it could be easily adapted for a game of that complexity. Plus, you can already do a barrel roll with the joystick, which implies Nintendo are definitely thinking of using it with the rumoured new Star Fox game.
Were not sure what theyre going to do with the submarine controls though as they seem the least versatile, as you rotate the two wheels on either side of the device to raise and lower the submarines jets. Its essentially tank controls, which requires a lot of forethought before you move anything, but thats all part of the fun.
While the Vehicle Kit does seem to have been designed with at least one eye on other, more traditional, games there are still plenty of Nintendo Labo-focused features as well. Theres only enough cardboard to make one accelerator pedal but the Nintendo rep demonstrated how the same functionality could be achieved by taping a Joy-Con to the top of a slipper with a sponge underneath. So the idea that Labo is meant to stimulate young minds into DIY style experimentation is still there.
Theres also plenty of other smaller mini-games including a slot car game (once you get more than one pedal working) and what looked like a straight multiplayer race game – although we didnt get to play that one.
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Many people balk at the whole concept of Nintendo Labo as soon as theyre told theyre paying for cardboard, but this time you not only get a proper (or at least proper-ish) game with it but three new controllers you can use with other games.
Whether thats going to be enough to inspire core gamers to go out and buy the Vehicle Kit we dont know, but we definitely want to see the option to use the new controllers in as many new games as possible.
Formats: Nintendo Switch
Price: £59.99
Publisher: Nintendo
Developer: Nintendo EPD
Release Date: 14th September 2018
Age Rating: 7
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