Archive
A Link to the Present: OOT Gets an Update
URA HAPPY ZELDA FAN
This is a ray of sunshine on this dreary, overcast, Saturday:
The Toki no Okarina URA Project aims to restore BETA elements to The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, as well as adding elements of the original URA Zelda to the game, in addition to a little bit of retexturing. Music changes are also a part of the project, and there have even been map ports. Now, there are select locations from Termina which can be found in Hyrule.
Hopefully this works out better than that Mario 64 ‘new’ version from a while back.
h/t: Unseen64
Zelda: An Auracle Assault
A SUBLIME SOUNDTRACK
Here’s an interesting tribute album of Zelda: Oracle of Ages tunes:
Essence of Lime is a remix album covering the soundtrack to The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages. The project was originally a one-man endeavor that evolved into a community project. Having been introduced to the Zelda series through Oracle of Ages, I noticed the lack of Oracle remixes and decided to take on a solo remix project in early 2008. I planned to remix Oracle of Ages’ entire soundtrack by myself, assuming there would not be enough interest to organize a full-fledged project. After receiving several unexpected offers to help out, I opened the project as an unofficial community album with headquarters at OverClocked ReMix. I am deeply grateful to everyone who helped me tackle the project despite its unofficial status; this would have never been finished without them.
With 42 tracks by 17 remixers, the album contains over two hours of music. Seasons fans, you’ll have to forgive the fact that tracks from Oracle of Seasons have only been included if they appeared in both Oracles. I hope you’ll be satisfied to hear that we haven’t forgotten Seasons, and we have some exciting things planned for it in the future. For now, I present a complete album for Oracle of Ages. Enjoy it, or else.
It’s pretty cool and you can pull them down via these links:
Full Soundtrack (MP3)
Full Soundtrack (FLAC)
Torrent
Thanks to Zero for the tip.
3PM Snapshot: A Tale of Two Links
3DS Images and Imaginings
EDIT: Just to clear this up, these are enlarged versions of much smaller images from Nintendo’s E3 press kit, so they look a little chunky/blown-out and are not representative of the actual display. (I’d have left them midget-sized, but then it’s really hard to see anything.)
This time of Nintendo-branded games:
PILOT WINGS
MARIO KART
PAPER MARIO
And the current, hot, rumor is Zelda: OOT for 3DS.
Zelda: Awkwardly Narrated
Technical glitches aside, I want this bad, not because it’s a new Zelda (which is fine) but because of the Motion Plus sword-fighting, which is one of those ‘where have you been all my life’-type givemegivemegiveme moments.1
1 For those that don’t know, a few games have hinted at how awesome this is going to be, but haven’t quite nailed it, e.g. Red Steel 2, Zangenki no Reginleiv, and the shockingly-fun WiiSports Resort sword fighting but I’m betting Zelda finally aces it.
Some Things About Twitter Drive Me Nuts
Taking the occasional good with the mostly harrowing
Like, for example, random people following me that I don’t know and/or don’t care about what I’m doing, that are only following in the hopes that I’ll be interested in whatever product or service1 they’re offering.
However, once in a while, someone will follow you because (of course) they want you to pay attention to whatever it is they’re doing, but, on occasion, it turns out that what they’re ‘selling’ is pretty cool.
Case in point:
Yep, this dude is playing various video game compositions on the ukulele and they actually sound pretty great! (Personally, I’d love to hear some of these done up Spanish guitar-style, but this is still pretty neat.)
1 Kind of like that kid in grade school that just had to be your friend only you don’t know this kid and he’s trying to sell you naked photos of himself.
You Got Your Castlevania, Megaman and Contra in My Super Mario Bros.
Play this now! Then someone port it to console or DS!
Normally I would never be so cruel as to subject the readers of this blog to the output of Newgrounds (there is a good game on there…every 1000 or so attempts), but in this case I think we can all agree that this is pretty bloody awesome:
This is my first game, and I have worked on it for over a year. It has been a long journey, but I think you will see that all of my effort has paid off. I have recreated the entire game of Super Mario Bros, but now you can play as different characters. Each character plays just like they do in their original games with a few modifications to make the experience better.
This is my tribute to classic NES games, and anyone who grew up playing Nintendo should enjoy it. Now please enjoy the hell out of this game and experience Super Mario Bros in a whole new way!
And yes, I know that controlling Simon Belmont in the air isn’t easy, but that’s what makes him special. And he can double jump to help you control it a bit more.
I highly recommend playing this with a gamepad if you have one, but you can still enjoy it with a keyboard.
I strongly suggest digging out a gamepad for this one since, playing it for a few minutes with a keyboard really just sucks the joy out of it, but play it you must! One way or another! That’s it! I have nothing cute or clever to add! Go! Now! Play!
h/t: FlyTrap Games
Japan Gets Something Cool That We Don’t
More Zelda art than you can shake a Deku Stick at
The February 2010 issue of the Japanese gaming magazine Nintendo Dream came packaged with a 100-page Zelda art book, featuring artwork from the original Legend of Zelda all the way through Spirit Tracks. I’m happy to announce that we at ZeldaPower have the full book scanned and uploaded for your viewing pleasure!
And there is a lot of it.
H/T: Pitch to Pixel
When Being a Contrarian Becomes a Shtick on the Ragged Edge of Mania
Fast Fact: Exposure to Metroids Can Induce Severe Dementia in Gaming Pundits
Listen: I like Malstrom–I think he makes a lot of good points about ‘disruption’ and the foolish direction that much of the gaming ‘biz’ seems hell-bent on pursuing without reason or forethought–Hell, I even agree with the, up until today, over-emphasis on meaningless, absolutely terrible, cinematics in Other M–but once you start believing your own hype and shtick it can, if you’re not careful, leap right over constructive and headlong into shark-jumping “batsh*t insane”:
You have to laugh at how many people don’t even know the difference between a teaser trailer and a gameplay trailer. A gameplay trailer is footage of someone playing the game. A teaser trailer is little more than cherry picked parts placed in a montage that doesn’t really show the game being played.
No, a gameplay trailer is anything that shows gameplay but, even if it weren’t, who thinks this is ‘funny’, even in a sardonic, petulant, sort of way??
But wait, the hair-splitting continues…
Where is the gameplay footage? There are only flashes of a montage strung together. Only at the end there is footage that is longer than two seconds and even that is nothing more than to show Samus bouncing around with auto-aiming doing the weapon work.
So, is he annoyed that they aren’t showing gameplay (they are) or is he annoyed at the auto-aim mechanic? And, uh, those “flashes of a montage” contain…gameplay footage.
Nintendo has had people play the game. Why not actually show them playing the game? What is the harm in just watching someone play it? Why is there so much darkness over the game?
Because the vast, vast, vast majority of us, not living in Malstrom-land, DO NOT WANT to see someone, in the frame, blocking/obscuring/diluting the video. We want to see the game not some fat/skinny/ugly/hot (OK, maybe hot) person flailing away at the controls–we want to see what the game, played by someone that knows what they’re doing, looks like.
(If you want to see raw ‘footage’ of people fucking up while they play, well, there’s always IGN.)
The marketing strategy for Other M appears to be selling the game on its style as opposed to its substance. With Mario games, they show gameplay footage. With Zelda games, they show gameplay footage. With the Metroid Prime games, they even showed gameplay footage.
They’re showing gameplay footage here. Again.
But, in addition, the game still isn’t out for several months and it’s pretty typical marketing practice (even on games like Mario and Zelda) to gradually ladle out the good stuff in measured doses to build hype.
What’s more is he surely knows this implicitly and pretending this isn’t how it’s normally done or that this is some bizarre departure from SOP is a little…disingenuous?
Also (and bear with me, as this might sound “batsh*t insane”), maybe the game wasn’t in complete enough shape, until very recently, to show off anything except cinemas? Is that a possibility? Maybe? I’m pretty certain Malstrom has never done any development work before1, but I (and anyone working in the biz reading this) can attest to how a lot of games don’t really ‘come together’ until the 11th hour. (And it even happens to the wunderkinds at NCL once in a while.)
(Even beyond that, it isn’t like people that haven’t worked in the ‘biz’ haven’t been regaled with all manner of horror stories about the monstrous ‘crunch culture’ that is part and parcel with this biz and, hell, even Hollywood these days where it’s pretty normal to work on a film up until days from its release.)
Other M’s teasers have been so cinematic heavy that people are confusing no cinematics to mean ‘gameplay footage’. Gameplay footage means showing the substance of the game. It means showing someone playing it as is. It does not mean cutting and pasting a montage of three to six second clips intermixed with yet more flashes from the cinematics (cinematics are still highlighted in this trailer). Gameplay footage means footage. Three to five second clips are not footage in any shape or way.
OK, maybe it’s just not getting through:
Footage: a motion-picture scene or scenes: newsreel footage; jungle footage.
Hmm, looks like footage, by definition, to me.
Anyway, this continues for another thousand or so, rambling, words as it gradually moves away from flogging the ‘what is footage/is it a trailer or teaser’ (‘you’re a moron for calling a teaser a trailer…moron’), foaming-at-the-mouth, near-mania (into other, foaming-at-the-mouth, near-mania), and then this kinda jumps out at you towards the end:
So what is going on here? Why all this Metroid batshit insanity? Why the hostility to people who hold disinterest?
I dunno, Malstrom: you seem to have most of the answers already, but might I suggest, just this once, that the answer you’re looking for might lie in the mirror?
Edit: I should also note that Malstrom holds anything but “disinterest” in this game as this post, ironically, drives home with the fury of a 20-ton hammer: he’s been going on and on and on (and on and on) about how this game is violating his childhood since it was announced (which has morphed into pedantry over what makes up “footage” and a “trailer”), so bemoaning that the lunatics on the other end of the spectrum are pissed off would seem to be Internet physics2 in action.
(No, I am not saying it’s OK to kick his ass, but, really, how lacking in self-awareness does one need to be to state that he is ‘disinterested’ when all the evidence–from his own pen!–points in the opposite direction, i.e. he’s ‘disinterested in Metroid like I’m ‘disinterested’ in Big Macs or video games or chicks with sizable, err, endowments. If he doesn’t want to be picked on–like everyone with a strong opinion in human history–he needs to either tone down his over-the-top rhetoric (I probably wouldn’t, but I’m thick-headed on such things) or he can just ignore the clowns giving him grief and, voila!, most of them will stop, but the surest way to egg them on is to feed the bloody fire–this is elementary and, again, he surely knows this.)
Here, by the way, is the offending (not) footage:
1 A commenter notes that Malstrom has been in development, which actually makes this worse.
2 Every reaction has an equal and opposite reaction–which is basically the law that keeps the seething pit of mental illness that is the Internet going.
