Nintendo Land for Wii U brings mini-games based on Zelda, Donkey Kong to showcase GamePad

Nintendo Land for Wii U is a theme park game that teaches players how to use the Wii U GamePad.

Nintendo will release Nintendo Land for Wii U, a game designed to showcase the Wii U's unique features, much in the way that Wii Sports for the original Wii showcased the Wii Remote and Nunchuk controls.

Katsuya Eguchi, producer of Wii Sports, Wii Sports Resort and Animal Crossing games, is directing Nintendo Land.

Nintendo Land will feature 12 theme park-like attractions based on established Nintendo franchises, including The Legend of Zelda, Donkey Kong and Animal Crossing. Titles include Donkey Kong: Crash Course, Animal Crossing: Sweet Day, Luigi's Ghost Mansion, and Takamaru's Ninja Castle.

On stage, Eguchi showed off Luigi's Ghost Mansion, an asymmetric multiplayer game that uses the Wii U GamePad and four Wii Remotes in a top-down five player multiplayer game.

In a post-briefing video stream, Nintendo showed of Animal Crossing: Sweet Day, a multiplayer game that puts players in the world of Animal Crossing. Using the Wii Remote, players must run around a field to gather pieces of candy. A player using the Wii U GamePad makes chase, attempting to grab the other players who slow down when full of candy. The mini-game appears similar to a demo that Nintendo showed at E3 2011 called Chase Mii.

Nintendo then showed Donkey Kong: Crash Course, a single-player game that showcases the Wii U GamePad's gyroscope controls. Players tilt the GamePad left and right to control a trolley and collect bananas, navigating an obstacle course with a Donkey Kong aesthetic. Levers and switches must be pressed to progress, with the player having some control over those switches with the GamePad's dual analog thumbsticks.

Nintendo Land will launch alongside the Wii U this holiday.

For Polygon's hands-on impressions of Nintendo Land, read our story about the gameplay of the upcoming Wii U collection.