It sounds very much like a movie trailer - a group of media/fans/competition-winners taken by boat to a disused island to slay some mythical beasts. Well alright, maybe not, but holding a Monster Hunter Tri event in a dark and smoke-filled tunnel underground (really) on Cockatoo Island in the middle of Sydney Harbour is pretty cool. That’s exactly what happened to us, our lucky competition winners and a boat-load of media and Nintendo folk. There was also a guy, a ’Hunter’ who was encouraging us to partake in the hunting on the island. Here, take a look, it was all really quite amazing.

We got to go hands-on with two modes of Monster Hunter Tri, the split-screen area mode and a few different quests. The game was a new build that was networked between four Wii consoles to simulate what it’ll be like online (it won’t be in the final version) as we got to work slaying monsters. Having never played Monster Hunter before, it probably wasn’t the best idea to thrust us into a huge battle from the get-go, but you gotta learn somehow.

The game’s presentation and graphics stood out first and foremost with vast landscapes filling with monsters for the slaying. We got to play the game with either the Wii Remote and Nunchuk combination or the new Classic Controller Pro which is very comfortable and a great improvement over the standard Classic Controller.

The Arena mode is split-screen and pits two players against a monster that needs to be taken down, and there are seven different weapon classes to choose from. From the slower Hammer to the new Switch Axe or Sword. The various classes all play very differently; you’ll want find the one that matches your style of play. The other single-player mode we played emulated the online play (as already mentioned, the Wii consoles were networked) in a special build. One person chose a quest to go on and four people tackled the different monsters for each one. You could choose your class too in this mode and load out before you traverse to the area where the main monster is. It sounds pretty simple and it was all set up for us to have a shot. The game really isn’t something you can test out in a cave in 15 minutes, well, maybe for a cave, but the game looks to be huge.

Monster Hunter Tri is out in Australia on April 29th and you can buy it with a black Classic Controller Pro for $99.95 or by itself for a mere $79.95.

Thanks to Nintendo Australia for hosting us at the awesome event.