• 9Jun 08

  Is Activision the best 3rd party dev on the wii?

  A few days ago I went on a rant about how poor Ubisoft had turned out to be as a wii developer. Today I want to take a look at a company in a completely different situation.

  Ive never been to crazy about activision as a publisher, in the past they have released many mediocre games. However they have become one of the success stories on the wii since it launched and have proven that 3rd parties will be rewarded for releasing games that arent shovelware (just compare console sales for guitar hero 3 for proof) dont get me wrong their games have not all been great and will not touch Nintendo quality software for awhile. However, unlike Ubisoft, they dont promise the Earth and give us shovelware and with the news that not only will the wii version of Guitar Hero 4 have dlc, but also the claim that the wii version of COD 5 will actually run off the same engine as its more powerful rivals http://gonintendo.com/?p=45617 we get the impression that this is one third party willing to put in the effort for the wii. Lets hope it pays off

  As always let me know if you disagree and tell me who you think is the best wii developer and publisher.

  • Posted Jun 9, 2008 12:41 pm GMT
  • 1 Comment
  • Tag
  • Print
  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Digg
• 2Jun 08

  Psychonauts is mine!!!

  At last I finally found this gem of a game in a bargain bin in my local game shop. Ive been searching for this for months now after a friend recommended it to me but it has not been for sale anywhere. So far Ive done the basic braining and, even at this early stage, the quality and humour of Tim Schafer shine through.

  Heres hoping it keeps up.

  Anyone else own this game and want to share their experience? (no spoilers please)

  • Posted Jun 2, 2008 11:36 am GMT
  • 8 Comments
  • Tag
  • Print
  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Digg
• 29May 08

  The next Zelda. What do you want from it? (if too long skip to story section)

  After my rant blowout on Ubisoft yesterday I was really stuck for what topic to discuss this evening. As I was going through old topics I had made contributions to in the vain hope of finding a subject still ripe for dissection I came across an older topic on the possibility of Zelda making an appearance at E3. While that is not a possibility I want to discuss in this post in the aforementioned topic myself and several others (most notably Zassmick) began to speculate on changes that could be made to the Zelda formula. As good as Twighlight Princess was it had become clear that the series was perhaps starting to look a little rough around the edges. TP refined everything that the Zelda team had created since OOT and as a result had to be great but this also became its largest failing with LOZ starting to become ,dare I say, a little formulaic. I would now like to expand upon thediscussion in this topic and talk about what I feel needs to be changed.

  I have basically divided the issues into three main areas and will go through each one describing how it could be improved.

  Structure- This may be considered heresy to many hardcore Zelda fans but I really do feel that the dungeon structure needs to be radically overhauled and perhaps replaced. I expected an epic overworld in TP and while it was large enough in terms of size it did occasionally feel constricted and always underused IMO. When the trailers for TP initially released a great amount of focus was placed on the supposedly epic horse battles and travelling around Hyrule. While there is a lot of travelling the horseback battles were criminally neglected and only used about 3 times throughout the 60 hour adventure. In the next Zelda game I think they should try to make the overworld feel more alive, maybe more villages and farms in Hyrule so that it dosent just feel like a series of corridors connecting a few larger areas. I want more significant events occuring in the overworld and I dont want it to merely feel like a placeholder to tide gamers over for a little longer. Having said that I still beleive there is room for dungeons but again their structure should be changed from merely "find all the keys and defeat the boss" to perhaps something more relevant to each environment.

  Gameplay- It is probably worth mentioning at this point that I feel that these areas are all connected and improvements in one may well lead to improvements in another (although each does need specific work to improve them) I feel gameplay will, at least psycholigally, seem improved if structure is overhauled as it will require a rethink in how the game is played. In terms of how the game is played on the wii TP was definitely not capitalising fully on the potential of the remote. In fairness this was clearly due to it spending most of its time in development for gamecube. Ill admit that, due to the fact that I am not a developer at nintendo, I cant really think how they will mix up the gameplay for a wii sequel control wise but I would like to see a change to the weapon structures with maybe a greater focus on using the environment to aid you in combat (though this may be gibberish). I will say that I completely trust nintendo in this regard and I dont really feel that a fundamental change is necessary in gameplay.

  Story/Presentation- for me this is the most important point and was the main focus in the original discussion I mentioned earlier. TP seemed unsure of whether it wanted to be a dark cinematic experience (any scene with the Eldin spirit or with Zant before he removed his mask, and let us not forget Ganondorfs execution) or a frankly disturbing one (the mailman anyone?) the clash of styles felt quite awkward and the game seemed to have no direction in terms of presentation. More significantly the storyline in the main Zelda series has never changed. I know you could argue that neither has marios story but that game is nowhere near as dialogue heavy as Zelda. There are flashes of brilliance in the stories that shows potential for expansion into a more mature direction (Ganons speech in Windwaker when he finds the triforce and when he blames the gods for the detruction of Hyrule) and I beleive that the goog guy/bad guy dynamic needs to change. In the original thread I mentioned the idea of revolution against the Hyrule monarchy which may have been led by Ganon who persuaded the people that he was the champion of their cause and that the kings of Hyrule were evil and repressive. Zassmick made the excellent suggestion of setting it in the period mentioned in the winwaker intro where the hero did not save Hyrule, using the ambiguity of the statement to portray the people rejecting Link as they have fallen under the influence of Ganon.

  However I would like to further expand on this potential stroyline. I think it would be possible to legitimise the countless versions of links, gamons and Zeldas as perhaps a lengend concocted by the Hylian royal family to maintain their grip on power. What if, prior to this there had only been one link and one Ganondorf, the originals, who had fought over the fate of Hyrule an whose story had been spun out as a way of uniting Hyrule against Ganondorf and the Gerudo people. What Id like to mention here is that the game could intertwine with the Ocarina of Time story (which is the original) but perhaps change our perceptions of the events in this game. An idea I had was that perhaps Ganondorf (original) could have been a member of the Hylian royal family who was disgraced and exiled, determined for revenge. The motives for this exile could either be that he was plain evil or that he wanted to open up the country politically and the royals were too determined to maintain a grip on power to allow this so sent him to the desert with his followers. The Ganondorf in the game would be a descendent of this one although different and may lead the people against the royal family and Zelda (who,incidentally, could be named after the original)

  Link does not necessarily have to come from a simple background and build up over time but could in fact be a soldier in the Hylian army defending the land against Gerudo raids. This would bring him into contact with Ganon who may try to persuade him to go against the royal family and fight for the people. This would create an interesting dynamic as Link chooses whose side he is on. I dont think this should become a Bioware style choose your path though, I think not giving us the choice will create a sense of helplesness and connect us with Link who is being manipulated by both sides. Additionally bringing back the time travelling aspect of OOT will create an interesting dynamic. In TP a lot of structures were in ruins which gave the impression of a nation long past its peak. If you could travel between the present and the past when hyrule was at its strongest (OOT date probably) it would allow you to see the events of this period perhaps showing the true picture of Ganon's relationship with the royal family.

  Conclusion- I realise that I have gone into too much depth in this blog post but tbh I feel like I have not explained my ideas in enough detail and would love the oppurtunity to expand upon them. I also admit that I will buy the next Zelda game regardless of how different or similar it is because the games are still excellent. Yet I feel there is so much untapped potential in the series that Nintendo has to take a bolder step and prove what a valid medium games are and also that the Zelda series has so much life yet.

  Comments will be appreciated and all views listened to.

  • Posted May 29, 2008 4:19 pm GMT
  • 0 Comments
  • Tag
  • Print
  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Digg

See Previous Blog Posts »