Um virgem fan de Zelda, montou um mosaico feito com lego do personagem Link do jogo Zelda The Wind Waker.

O fato ocorreu na Brickon, evento onde as pessoas virgens se encontram para exibir hobbies de lego para adultos.

Fato, hobbies de lego para adultos soa beeeem estranho…

There’s one aspect of games today that I forget about almost completely until I sit down to play them. Even then, it’s not every time I sit down that I’m reminded of this travesty, although when it does happen, headaches naturally ensue. I’m sure many of those reading this blog will know the feeling, having plopped down on the couch with a television remote in one hand, controller in the other. You switch the television on, then the game system. The LED light on your controller blinks three times, then fades. Batteries are dead. You need another set again.

Swear these little bastards used to last longer

Up you get, off the couch to scavenge around the house for some more. You try another controller – oops! Looks like the reason you weren’t using this one in the first place was because its batteries had died too. No use switching in the ones from the television remote – they were previously used for a controller anyway and are too low on life to power your games now.

Rechargeable batteries are something I thought I’d be able to give up after the release of the Gameboy Advance SP, but apparently the way of the future is to go wireless with everything else. Wireless, of course, meaning batteries. You just can’t solve one problem without introducing another in its place, can you?

Right now I own a couple of Xbox 360 controllers, a couple of Wii Remotes, some wireless Gamecube controllers, a camera, wireless mice and a Gameboy Color I still use from time to time, all of which use up AA batteries. Usually I wouldn’t mind buying rechargeables for the lot and then some, but having to cycle the batteries through so that I always have some in the controllers and some being recharged is just a little bit too much of a hassle for an unorganized git like me, especially with the Wii since Nintendo has had recharge cables packaged with their handhelds for over five years now. It seems ludicrous that they would release the Wii Remote with none of the same recharge functionality, leaving third parties to come up with their own recharge devices which can’t even work properly.

It doesn’t help that those devices which do have an AC adapter included can’t agree on one standard recharge device either. Why is it that I have to keep an entire drawer dedicated to AC adapters for various family mobile phones and Nintendo handhelds? Why can’t Nintendo themselves keep one adapter for all of their handhelds instead of introducing a new one with each new DS model and adding to my entanglement of wires and transformers? It just doesn’t make any sense.

Transformers and battery chargers themselves are a royal pain in the backside for me due to the amount of space they like to take up. I’ve always had this hope in the back of my mind that the reason they parked their arses across two power sockets at once was due to them requiring more power than other appliances and to prevent some sort of electrical overload hazard or something. But if a game console or television or computer or whatever can keep its cables confined to one socket, you would think they’d be able to design the bricks on the end of your recharge cables to do the same. The sockets in my room are limited in supply, so if the time comes where I need to recharge my DS, it’s a real annoyance having to go through the cables and checking which ones I really need plugged in at the time.

I digress. Batteries aren’t my largest complaint with gaming today by any means, but these are still problems I’d like to see fixed sometime in the future. A lot of games today aren’t just there as basic entertainment or timewasters – they’re developed to deliver a certain experience to the player. If my experiences with the top titles each year have to keep being interrupted and set back because of a pair batteries though, I won’t be a happy lad.

In other news for today:

I finished up my Ocarina of Time file the other day with most sidequests complete aside from the skultulas. Decided I’d move onto Twilight Princess and try to complete some things there since I needed a reminder of why that game was good, and because riding around a vast and empty field was marginally more interesting to me than sailing around a vast and empty sea. I’ll get back to Wind Waker eventually though, I promise.

I also started a file on Resident Evil 4 for halloween and boy, that game is fucking good as ever. I’ve reached Chapter 2 once more and the point where Ashley is introduced, but it’s weird now how, after games like this, today’s titles can’t seem to handle AI sidekicks or escorts quite as well. I admit, I’ve amusingly killed Ashley in the past by accident when she got in the way of my shotgun blast, but this was a one off occasion and otherwise she works really well at not getting in your way and hiding in dumpsters when you need her to. Better her than a so-called sidekick who steals your ammuntion and health drops then proceeds to waste them by shooting in the wrong direction for the next few minutes, I’d say.

Finally, as promised, I picked up Grabbed by the Ghoulies again as a bit of Halloween morning fun. It still holds up for me though, for the simplistic sort of fun it offers, and I still adore the classic Rare charm which has been poured into it. Not sure if I’ll take the time to finish it up again but I’ll just say that my love for Ghoulies has not diminished.

Underappreciated Game Tune of the Week:

Damn, this song brings back memories. One of the only RTS games I really enjoyed and committed to, although that’s partially because of my love of Warhammer in general before this was released.

May I quote a rare, intelligent youtube comment to sum up my thoughts on this piece:

“This is much better than the Halo music, it has no hope or certainty of good over evil, only the determined battle march of every race towards each others destruction. Halo gives hope with high notes and a fast base, this shows determination in the face of death through a steady beat. In halo there is hope in warhammer only an eternity of slaughter and the laughter of thirsting Gods”

That’s all I’ve got for now, though. Exams are almost upon me but I’ll try to keep posting small updates when possible. Catch you next time.

~Kowz

Before I start, please note this is my opinion. Don’t start flaming if you don’t agree please, everyone has different opinions.

I was thinking about my favourite games from a lot of popular games series the other day, and I realised that a lot of them do not actually follow the normal opinions of an average gamer. Here they are:

Final Fantasy – IX

Always has been my favourite… well since it was released. The story, characters and world I found incredible. No doubt VII was awesome, but it really didn’t entertain me as much as IX! The soundtrack I loved, the cinematics were great… in fact its hard to find anything bad with the game at all. The character progression, especially that of Vivi’s, was nothing short of brilliant.

The Legend Of Zelda – Wind Waker

I don’t know why, but as soon as I picked this game up, I knew it was epic. The boat, the islands, the amount of secrets, and the general size of the game was incredible for its time. I enjoyed the new graphics.. so what if they were cartoony?? I had a lot of fun on the N64 with Ocarina of Time, but not on the scale of Wind Waker

. To be honest, I think I preferred Majora’s Mask to Ocarina of Time. It offered a new style of gameplay. Wind Waker was one of the only things Nintendo managed to do right on the Gamecube!

Pokemon – Silver

Not too controversial. Many people usually say Red/Blue. I liked Silver. I’m not afraid to say it. The map was bigger, the number of creatures and bigger, and it was in colour. How can people say it wasn’t a better game, when it pretty much had the old game on it anyway!

Halo – 1 (Combat Evolved)

Forget the Multiplayer… it bores me. Story, you could not beat Halo: Combat Evolved. It had something Halo 2 and 3 didn’t, and I just don’t know what it was. It was something new. Exciting, and hadn’t been done before. The expectations for 2 and 3 were just so high that it was ruined for me. I would easily put Halo Wars, and ODST before 2 and 3. There are very few games that can call themselves system sellers, but Halo: Combat Evolved was one of them.

Grand Theft Auto – Vice City

If I’m being honest, I’m not a huge fan of GTA at all. I think the series is overhyped completely, as proven by GTA4. Vice City entertained me the longest out of all in the series, but it was by no means “epic”.

Super Mario – Sunshine

Call me crazy, but I loved Sunshine. Mario 64 was a great game, no doubt, but there was something about Sunshine. They new FLUDD machine fitted into the game great, as did the characters and enemies. I like the “Summery” feel to it… too many games these days are dark. If I’m being honest, I hated Mario Galaxy. I completed it, and did not feel compelled at all to go around and get all the stars after. The story didn’t deliver, neither did the new style of game play.

Mario Kart – Double Dash

Most people will say Wii, SNES or N64, I say Double Dash. It added a new element, a co-op experience to the game, which I liked. It never lost its single player appeal either though.

Call of Duty – 4: Modern Warfare

Surely this one is not controversial!! First, let me say that I have pretty much loved all games in the CoD series… even WaW. A lot of people criticise WaW for it’s slacky campaign, but I loved it. The problem was, it was never going to beat CoD4. Put it against the likes of other WW2 games, and it easily beats them. CoD4 was not over-hyped, so when it arrived, it was a huge surprise of just how good it was. The multiplayer offered a lot. The single player story was mint.

Tony Hawks – Pro Skater 3

One of my first PS2 games. Everything about this game kept me playing until the release of the 360. The soundtrack. The maps. And the different tasks. I loved it!

Splinter Cell – The Original

All Splinter Cells, after the original one were a let down. I’m hoping that Conviction will change this.

Mario Party – 2

This game entertained me for hours, and was the first true game that I could simultaneously have fun with 3 other friends. The mini-games were entertaining, and even with better graphics, newer Mario Party’s just have not appealed to me like 2 did.

Super Smash Bros. – 64

This game was so good, that I still play it even today. I own Super Smash Bros on the Gamecube and Wii, but there is one thing that makes this game better than them. Hyrule Castle! I loved that level, just not the remakes of it. The game is also a lot less complicated that it is today. The amount of characters on the Wii and Gamecube versions just simply clutter the screen. Simple is better!

Resident Evil – 4

This game truly showed the meaning of horror. Resident Evil 5 might be a good game, but there is no real fear in it. It’s predecessors were good games as well.

FIFA – 10

Before 09, I would have said 2003. But in the past couple of years, FIFA has upped its game (excuse the pun). The realism now is amazing. Online play is great, and there is nothing better than getting a load of mates around to have a tournament.

Star Wars – Rogue Squadron

I used to love this. I thought I was an X-Wing fighter pilot!! Not really, but it was that good. The missions were meaningful. The graphics were good. It took you into major battles in the Star Wars series. One of the best games of the N64.

Need for Speed – Underground 2

One of the best ever PS2 games, Underground 2 brought a new, fantastic free-roam to the NFS franchise. Recent Need for Speed games, in my opinion, just have not lived up to the experience I got from this game.

Guitar Hero – 3

This game has the best soundtrack out of all of them. There was nothing much new added to the game really. Guitar Hero is Guitar Hero after all.

It’s not uncommon for me, especially knowing how rarely I’m actually able to purchase new games, to go back to old titles and play them through again. If the game is a favourite, I might play it over a dozen times and get half decent at it, like with Banjo-Kazooie or with Donkey Kong Country. Other times I just try to see whether a great game holds up after my initial hype for it has settled. I hope to play through games like Bioshock and Resident Evil 4 again in this manner later to see whether they have held up for me, but this particular time I wanted to go back to another critically acclaimed game that many may see as the best of all time.

It's hard not to sit and pause on this screen when I play today

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time holds quite a few memories for me. I myself didn’t get an N64 for a long time after it was released, but I did get to see OoT at the time it was released. It was one of my first game experiences, and was really mesmerising and yet at the time I did not feel worthy of playing it myself – it was enough to sit back in awe watching someone else grasp the controls and explore its vast lands.

One of these situations would be in a shopping centre kiosk behind an older boy who seemed reluctant to give up the controller to anyone. I didn’t mind, even if he had lost himself in the Deku Tree and didn’t seem very good at games at all. The other occasion I got to see a bit more of the game, and was at a local holiday care centre since both my parents worked full time. I remember watching older kids of about eleven or twelve riding around Hyrule on Epona; I remember a really awesome looking boss fight with Twinrova in the Spirit Temple, and I remember the older kids sighing after the caretakers forced the controller on me during the Ganondorf fight since nobody was getting a fair turn. I didn’t want to play, watching was fine. It was just one of those games that had that sort of effect on you.

I didn’t play through the game myself until the rerelease on the Gamecube in 2003 packaged alongside Windwaker. Despite the graphics and some of the controls and gameplay mechanics being a little dated, it still played brilliantly and hooked me from beginning to end. There was a tonne of stuff to do in sidequests too, and while I completed a few of these, a lot of them went unfinished as I got distracted with playing newer titles from that year. I could never really conceive any true feelings for the game after giving it up prematurely – while it remained a favourite I never thought of it as highly as some of my other top games. It was a fantastic game, yes, but when others brought it up as the best game ever there was this strange sense of doubt in the back of my mind that I couldn’t shake. I needed to play it again with a fresh mind to know exactly what I thought of it.

Let’s jump back to the present again now, enough of this remeniscing bullshit. I’ve just beaten the Spirit Temple again and I’m trying to go back and collect the heart pieces and skultulas that I missed before, finish the sidequests I neglected. Truth be told, I’m having a blast, and while I’m shamed to admit I haven’t played enough of the Zelda games as I should have, this is my favourite by far. But then, if I take away my perception of favourite games and try and look at this objectively, it’s easy to see now why so many would consider this a contender for best game of all time. Ocarina of Time has been crafted really well, and if you’re able to look past a crude exterior in terms of appearance and controls today, if you take a chance to not be so shallow, you’ll see that everything here has held up brilliantly. Not only that, but it’s shaped a lot of the other titles developed today with its puzzles and mechanics, which at the time were a real leap.

While it’s not a top favourite for everyone, I think it’s really hard to hate Ocarina of Time completely unless you’re unable to appreciate classics in general or can’t appreciate multiple genres. I have talked to a couple who seem to have liked Majora’s Mask and despised OoT due to the lack of sidequests and things to do outside of the main story, which is a bit confusing. The game had a really powerful and gripping storyline, and the sidequests were really just afterthoughts which added to the overall experience, so if you’re looking for sidequests alone then this probably isn’t the right genre for you at all. But hey, I guess every game has to have a few haters, you can never please everyone.

I guess, in the end, it’s games and experiences like these that make you realise how influential Shigeru Miyamoto has been on the industry over the past three decades, and perhaps wonder what things are going to be like when he finally stops making them, whether that be from retirement (yeah, right) or finally passing on. Sure, there’s a lot of good designers out there able to make some top quality games, but I doubt we’ll ever uncover another personality that comes close to Mr Miyamoto, at least, not any time soon.

Impressive.

Magical.

I love it.

Queimei a fonte do meu videogame simplesmente esquecendo que ela é (era) 110. Sabe aquela vontade louca de jogar e pá? Sim, queimou e não acho outra pra comprar. Inferno. Se você, leitos amigo, tem pra vender, me avisa! Logo. Antes que eu morra de abstinência de Zelda, ok?

Well, I’m at home, lying in bed with nothing much to do but curl up in pain with my cramping belly. Niiiice, aint it?

Of course, being sick means a few things. First of all there’s the fact that I’ll have a pile of work waiting for me when I go back to school again – not to mention tests; so much for a recovery period. Anyway, the other thing I’ve been able to do is a bit of gaming. Not too much, but enough to cure the boredom.

My sister’s playing Wind Waker after school now, since she can’t wait until she finishes it. It’s a real shock to me, seeing this, but I won’t go out and stop her. Good on her on actually sticking with a game.

Me? I’ve been playing a few things, and writing some stuff up. Last year I went through a period of time where I would pick up any current-gen game and review it on GameFAQs. After about a month I actually got offered a job at an emerging games site to post periodical feature articles, but I declined. Partially because of study, and partially because I didn’t have the money to buy any new games. Oh, and the fact that said site was trying to be the next Gamespot/IGN, which it just wasn’t going to do. Anyway, I started reviewing games again for something to do in my spare time. It might be something I’ll try to do for a bit of cash once I get out of school; who knows? Either way, you can find a recent review of mine for Luigi’s Mansion here: http://www.gamefaqs.com/console/gamecube/review/R129125.html
Constructive criticism would be appreciated. There isn’t many other ways I can improve, unless I hand it in to my Lit. teacher. And no, I’m not doing that.

In other news, I’ve started playing Phantom Hourglass again on the DS. Just to beat it. I reserve what I previously thought about the game, in that it certainly isn’t the best Zelda game around, and I’ve been reminded about a lot its flaws by picking it up again. The concept was great, but just like so many other games this one just fell in its execution. Sad. I’ll keep playing though.

I’ve also started playing Final Fantasy III (VI) on the SNES. And it’s surprisingly good so far, especially the music. I’m not usually a big fan of RPGs, but this one is pretty darn good. I’m just wondering just how far I am into it – no doubt I probably have several dozen hours of gameplay ahead of me. Hmm.

Sheesh, I really have to take some of this load off my plate; I just keep picking up new games and not finishing others. I should probably step to it and finish Grabbed by the Ghoulies this weekend. Else I’ll soon be juggling two dozen games within the same day…

~Kowz

I finally started this game again on Friday. So far, I’ll say it has its ups and downs, but I’m not sure where it sits against the other Zelda adventures for me. On one hand, the game has implemented quite a nice variety of new puzzles which weren’t present in Ocarina of Time or Majora’s Mask to my knowledge, and it doesn’t even have to introduce new items to do so in most cases. At the same time, there are a few elements which won’t satisfy everybody’s tastes. Prime example is the sailing aspect, and in this case it doesn’t cater for ANYBODY’S interests. What were the developers thinking when they decided to pad out the game simply by making the distance between Temple X and TempleY six minutes of bland, uneventful sailing?

I digress. Everyone and their mum has ragged on this aspect of the game, so I don’t think I need to do much more of that. However, I will complain about the game’s difficulty for one. So far I’ve beaten two temples in the space of a couple of hours’ play time, and nothing has really made me scratch my head for longer than a couple of seconds just yet. Sure, there have been a few puzzles which were designed imaginatively, but you’ll have figured out the answer to them far too quickly to actually appreciate their ingenious designs.

Even my younger sister, probably defined as a semi-casual gamer, has been able to cruise through most of the game without so much breaking a sweat. The Zelda games are probably the only franchise she has been able to thoroughly enjoy without me nudging her into it, ever since she beat Zelda: Phantom Hourglass earlier this year – a game I had put down just prior because of a long dungeon you had to return to several times in the game. Anyway, she’s up to the fourth proper temple (out of five I believe) and her only death was back in the first dungeon when she didn’t realise what to do against the boss.

But yes, the game is very easy to get through. I’m expecting to beat it some time in the upcoming weeks, but I’m not exactly sure when since my gaming time will probably be a little reduced.

The visuals are fantastic, I’ll say that. Many smaller developers are using cel shading today to make work easier for those doing visuals, but you can see the difference between this game and others. While cel shading may just be the easy way out, the developers of Wind Waker used it to give the game a certain personality, a certain style. It’s not just objects and characters which have been perfected with this design choice, though. For me, it was really easy to notice the little touches like the way flames had been created using the new cel-shaded visuals. Now, while I may prefer the more-realistic look of 3D Zelda games like that used in Ocarina of Time and Twilight Princess, I feel that it’s going to be a few years before Nintendo perfects this graphical style. A large portion of Twilight Princess’s visuals were quite muddy and blurred, something which was overshadowed only by the fact that comparisons could only be made to the blocky look of Ocarina of Time. Wind Waker, on the other hand, has developed its own character and style, and has almost perfected upon that – something I believe deserves a bit more praise.

The music of the game is good, but definitely not the best. There are a select few pieces which I’ll find catchy and may hum to myself from time to time including the Dragon Roost Island theme, Molgera theme, the miniboss music and the Earth God’s Lyric (or the title screen music). However, it’s disappointing to see that a lot of the other tunes are rather lacking. Instead of trying to create a handful of melodies which would stick into players’ heads, a lot of the background music is focussed around low beats or just a few notes strung together and repeated over and over. This is especially disappointing during boss fights. You may listen to some of Grant Kirkhope’s music for the bosses in Banjo-Tooie for example, and notice how he has focussed on centering a large, upbeat boss fight around a catchy melody. The music may be dramatised to suit the feeling of the battle, but there’s still an underlying melody which gives the fight that little bit of extra impact. In Windwaker, a lot of this is lacking.

The game is still great, sure. Don’t get me wrong, I still love the game so far, but at the same time it does have its faults.

Grabbed by the Ghoulies… I haven’t beaten it yet, either. Although I did make it to the final boss, he’s still giving me a pain in the neck. The humour’s all there, though, and I have to say that he’s one of the best villain characters in any game I’ve played. No spoilers, though – pick up the game for yourself!

I’m thinking of preordering Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts soon, but at the same time I’m unsure what to do because no stores around here have confirmed the game’s preorder deal (i.e. get Banjo-Kazooie on the XBLA for free with the preorder) so I’m stumped. We’ll see how this pans out.

No formal sign-offs today, thank-you!

~Kowz

It never really struck me as something I had to do before. Making a blog, that is. I suppose I just never grasped the concept of ‘blogging’ your happenings to the rest of the internet – it never made a whole lot of sense. I had used blog features on other sites occasionally to post certain things, like opinions on current events or perhaps a few of the traditional ‘here is a load of crap that happened to me recently’ blogs, but I was never really religious about it.

So here’s a start. I’m not really expecting many people to ‘follow’ this thing, I guess; certainly not in the same way subscribers may work on youtube or anything like that. I think my main reason for this right now is just so I have something I can look back on in however-many-months’ time. We’ll see if that changes as this goes on.

So, what to actually write about, then? Well, I suppose there’s a few things I can write up now, then I may update next week. Or tomorrow. Or an hour after I post this. Who knows?

I’ve been playing quite a few games recently. Just finished my third school break of the year, Spring Break as all you yanks out there may call it. Being the Rareware fanatic I am, I bought Kameo for the Xbox 360, as well as Grabbed by the Ghoulies. Now, Kameo is a pretty damn cool game, but I haven’t been able to get into it that much yet because of the sheer awesomeness that is Ghoulies. There’s a huge number of references to previous Rare titles within the game, as well as a hearty amount of traditional Rare humour, if you know what I mean. Little details that the little ones may not catch onto, like the character Fiddlesworth. Halfway through one of the chapters I find that the bloke has taken his nephew (named ‘Little Willy’, funnily enough) to the hospital for an ‘eye infection’. It’s stuff like this that makes me love Rare.

What else? I went on a shopping spree for a couple of old gamecube games. That’s one thing about me and games, that it’s very rare for me to actually get a game the year it is released. I often end up renting games and thinking highly of them, but never buying them. Or, buying them several years down the track. Anyway, this time, the two games on my list were Luigi’s Mansion and Zelda: Wind Waker. Luigi’s Mansion was a game, despite its extremely short length, which I have always wanted to finish but haven’t gotten around to doing. It’s finally in my collection, though… so I’m glad about that. Wind Waker was more or less something for my sister, who is a much larger Zelda fan than myself by the looks of it. I haven’t played it through too much yet, but she’s gotten roughly halfway in a couple of days, motivated to complete it since she had beaten Zelda: Phantom Hourglass beforehand. Funnily enough, Phantom Hourglass was actually a birthday present I received but I got bored of one particular temple you have to visit several times in the game. So I never finished it, but my sister did. And that’s saying something since the only other game she’s ever beaten was something with Hamtaro in the title.

Last thing I’ve been playing is the original Megaman. At the moment I’m playing on my PC since I don’t have a NES, but I’m trying to only use savestates on the menu screen to keep the authenticity of it all, I suppose. Don’t want to have to resort to cheating, no matter how tough it may get. And believe me, it’s getting tough. I got into games in the SNES era, so NES platformer difficulty is all something quite new to me. Megaman is one of the very few games I’ve actually enjoyed on the NES, aside from Super Mario Bros. Metroid and Zelda are just overshadowed by the way they’ve been perfected on the SNES. Anyway, I only got into Megaman after watching some videos of Megaman 9 on youtube. I loved the concept of going back to NES style design, but at the same time I had to wonder what I was missing out on. How can a game be at the top of everyone’s charts, and yet I haven’t even played it (let alone, beaten it) before? So I began. So far I’ve defeated three of the six bosses, and I haven’t spoiled Dr Wily’s hideout for myself yet so I’m not sure what to expect. But I’ll be sure to update when I finish, that’s for sure.

Oops, I believe I’ve posted a novel. Take this cookie if you’ve managed to read all of that – I know that future-me will definitely be struggling.

~Kowz

[Read original article here]

Now that Super Smash Bros. Brawl and Mario Kart have been released on the ravening masses of Nintendo fanboys we’re (yes I include myself in that frothing mass) facing something of a drought for the rest of 2008. Unless Nintendo breaks out something spectacular at E3 ‘08 the outlook is a bleak one of cheap ports and shovelware.

There is, however, some ray of hope… while Nintendo has been perfectly content to give us the dubious “privilege” of downloading old games that we’ve already played countless times before we’re finally getting some original downloadable content via WiiWare and one game in particular has caught the public eye — Lostwinds.

Reminiscent of the Wind Waker in style and somewhat in theme Lostwinds follows the characters Toku, a young boy with an exceptionally large head, and Enril, a wind spirit. In a sort of single player co-op you use Enril’s control over the wind (controlled by pointing the Wiimote) to aid Toku in traversing the cursed land with strategic gusts.The game looks great on the system which can be partially attributed to the art style. Games with a more stylized look definitely work better on the relatively underpowered Wii hardware (just take a look Okami).

The game is scheduled for a tentative co-release with the launch of Nintendo’s WiiWare service on May 12th but suffice to say whenever it comes out I’ll be there gleefully downloading what looks to be one of the better titles for the Wii this year (note: hype subject to change pending possible announcement of a new Zelda game by Shigeru Miyamoto at E3 08. In such a case all endorsement of upcoming Wii games will be forgotten as the fanboy masses collectively squeal like so many Japanese schoolgirls).

[The history of the Lostwinds world]

So relating back to my good friend’s post, I will give a second look into Zelda:PH- I wont really go into the game mechanics since he and every other game review site out there has covered it. Let me just start out by saying that I loved- LOVED the style and cell shaded look of Windwaker. Much so that much of the time I consider it to overshadow the ever loved Ocarina of Time. I just thing that the cartoon look really gives the overall game personality and style. So back to the game, my over all opinion of it is that it is awesome. There can be no question that it is truly a must have for adventure/puzzle fanatics- not to mention fans of Zelda:WW. The trademark dungeon puzzles are great! Especially since the whole game is played with the touch screen, its really interactive and clever.

I would agree that the world in the game isn’t HUGE or anything, but considering how many hours I’ve put into it; I haven’t even revealed half the map. I like how they kept that feeling of exploration. That to me is what made Windwaker so great, was because there were tons of islands all around the world ready to be explored, and I think they really kept that feeling as best they could when they scaled it down to the handheld.

When I learned that the game was going to be released with a online multiplayer function, I was curious as to what they were going to do with it. Nothing too crazy- as it turns out- but its not bad either. The multiplayer function they put into Zelda:PH is actually pretty addicting and competitive. To sum up how it works- I will quote Skoh-Fley because I think he did a pretty good job of summing it up.

“There’re no tools to use from single-player; it’s actually more of a game of cat-and-mouse. One player controls Link, and the other controls three Phantoms. Phantoms cannot be killed, and a single blow from them will kill Link, but they are somewhat slow and more sluggish to control — instead of a standard go-to-where-the-stylus-is-pointing movement system, they rely on the player to draw them paths on the map (which is on the lower screen for this player) to travel along. The player of Link must carry force gems (kinda like Triforce shards) to their designated zone to earn points. The bigger the force gem, the more points it’s worth, but the slower you walk while carrying it. Players switch off roles every round.”

After playing about 6 rounds of it, I can safely say that the multiplayer is REALLY fun. Not only is it super competitive, but its actually got a lot of strategy behind it. You really have to think on your toes and move quickly, because you have 120 seconds to score as many points against your opponent. There are also items- that balance out both sides- link and the phantoms. Link can pick up items that boost his time 30 seconds- phantoms can get an item that takes away 30 seconds from Link’s time. Link can pick up items that make him run faster and vice versa. So both sides can benefit from the items. If this game had voice chat, there would be so much trash talk, it would make Xbox live seem like a pristine haven for children.

Overall, I am very pleased in how the game turned out. I liked the fact that the stylus only system works, I like that the view is a top down 3D look, I like just about every aspect of this game- except for one thing. At multiple points in the game, one must have to go through the very same dungeon 3 times. Its extremely repetitive and it makes me wonder why they even decided to do that in the first place. But looking through that- this game gets an A in my book, and I don’t give out A’s willy-nilly. Its a must have for DS.

-Neverhitboxes