They did a fantastic job on ExciteTruck and ExciteBots. Reminded me a lot of my arcade racing days. I've been patiently waiting for a Pilot Wings and this news really excites me.
Next Level Games was brought up at the panel as an example of an outside studio that works very well with NCL, so I bet we haven't seen the last of quality titles from them. The stuff they do with third parties is atrocious (Ghost Recon and Transformers rail shooters, yay!) so I hope they work exclusively with Nintendo soon. And by "soon" I mean "release a Punch-Out!! 3DS sequel ASAP"
I think they'll be busy with that Captain America game, though. Don't know about that one.
I think Nintendo's second-party collaborations have worked pretty well this gen, for the most part, aside from the odd hiccup like Wario Land: Master of Disguise (which wasn't horrible). Probably stronger than last-gen, but I was never the biggest fan of Silicon Knights or Rare's recent stuff. And Wario World was pretty disappointing, coming from Treasure. Last-gen's collaborations were pretty hit-and-miss. F-Zero GX was great, though.
I was certain that Pilotwings was an internally developed game...
Although I remember from a while ago, an employee of Factor 5 said he had seen Pilotwings up and running, and that it was great. I also remember another story about a journo going to Monster Games' building, and they were very careful to hide what they were developing. Everyone thought they were hiding what turned out to be Excitebots, but now it seems it was Pilotwings. It must have started as a Wii game that got quite far into development, then switched platforms quite late.
Yup, their take on Punch-Out was handled so well that I'd love to see Next Level follow it up with more crazy boxers and ideas. I was so impressed with what they accomplished.
I haven't been following Pilotwings Resort at all, but It's good to see a talented bunch like Monster Games still working closely with Nintendo. Hopefully Resort will be a winner and work out well for them.
As much as I like Monster Games as a developer, it does seem a bit odd that they're the developers for Pilotwings. I'm sure they did a great job, though.
