The Triforce Grants Gaming Greatness

For Generation X the name Zelda is synonymous with teatime television hit Supermacromation series The Terrahawks and Nintendo!

Like Mario, Zelda is the brainchild of Shigeru Miyamoto thus sharing the high production values of its sibling. Zelda has, inevitably, spawned its own lifestyle merchandising. From action figures to cereals. And lest I forget to mention the animated series too, which is now available on DVD!

The Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) introduced me to the wonders of Hyrule in The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past.

A Link to the Past follows the adventures of Princess Zelda's and Link's ancestors, referring to the characters from the two Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) games The Legend of Zelda and Zelda II: The Adventure of Link. Thus, A Link to the Past takes place before the events of the first two Zelda games. The game's endurance was typified by its inclusion on the Game Boy Advance (GBA) title The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords.

With the imminent arrival of the Zelda franchise on both the Nintendo DS (Phantom Hourglass) and Wii (The Twilight Princess). The continuation of Link's award-winning adventures is assured and I, for one, don't intend to miss out.

Another World

Beautifully cinematic, impressively coherent, challenging and elegant; Another World (known as Out of this World in the States) is a stellar example of nineties game design and was the brainchild of one Eric Chahi and his team at Delphine Software.

"You play Lester, the young physics professor, who suddenly finds himself in a strange alien world after lightning striked his particle experiment."

In 1991 Another World became the poster child of Gallic gaming and adoring magazine editorials in C&VG and the official Nintendo magazine elevated it to blockbuster status.

I first played this on the superlative Super Nintendo, which was, somewhat astonishingly, eclipsed by Sega's Mega Drive console port. Too late, I'd already sold the latter to a College friend who was trying to kick the console habit to no avail.

Its stylistic cousin, Flashback, arrived in 1992 but never distilled the mood of its predecessor nor its downbeat ending. The Macintosh version was ported by Mac Play and requires Classic to run or there's the Windows version that runs in DOSBox.

The look and feel of Another World is unique to this day. Oddworld's developers clearly derived inspiration from Delphine. The game's creator, Eric Chahi, has made the Game Boy Advance (GBA) ROM legally available here.

Virgin Isles

This afternoon I was surprised to notice Nintendo DS in abundance in Virgin Megastore's games section! The Easter bank holiday may see a surge in sales unless consumers are awaiting SCEE PSP launch details (as I am). Tellingly Nintendo is rumoured to be releasing the GBA 2 later this year! There's a real possability of brand dilution. PlayStation is going to dominate both home and portable console gaming.

Touched by the Hand of God

The innovative Nintendo DS is garnering press acclaim and Konami's Castlevania DS (working title), the sequel to Aria of Sorrow, has closed the deal for me! My GBA was bought primarily to play Circle of the Moon, Aria of Sorrow and Harmony of Dissonance. The DS iteration promises a (stylus-driven) rich gameplay experience.



Further PSP musings. Japanese consumers are complaining of 'stuck button syndrome' and are returning machines. Could this be a quality control issue or inherent design flaw?

All I Want For Christmas

In keeping with the spirit of the upcoming holidays. The following list features all my computer and video game hardware owned to date. Most of which were received as gifts at this time of year!

*Atari VCS 2600
*Binatone Mk6 Game System
*ZX Spectrum 48K
*ZX Spectrum+ (same as above, but with 'improved' keyboard)
*Commodore 64 and 1541 Floppy Disk Drive
*Nintendo Game & Watch (various Mario titles)
*Sega Megadrive (Genesis)
*Atari Lynx II
*Super NES
*Apple Macintosh Performa 5200
*N64
*PSOne
*iMac DV SE
*Sega Dreamcast
*PlayStation 2
*XBOX
*GameCube
*LCD iMac G4
*GBA SP

Over the years I purchased innumerable video games from The Fuse Box. During my teens the store, an independent brick-and-mortar retailer located in Exeter's Sidwell Street, was a treasure trove - Rescue on Fractalus!* and Koronis Rift, displayed on the in-store monitors, held me spellbound - before its untimely closure and the advent of etailing. Somewhere in the attic of our house is a dusty old cardboard box that contains Atari, Commodore and Spectrum games (cartridge, cassette and diskette formats) in their original packaging! I've no idea whether or not my Commodore 64 still works (1992 being the last time it was used) and the first ZX Spectrum was passed on to a younger relative only to meet an untimely demise.

Watching Back to the Future II (1989) I noticed Nintendo's PlayChoice-10 in the Cafe 80's scene (a veritable advertising blitz). To reiterate comments made in a previous post. PlayChoice-10 provided Nintendo with a platform to profit from the lucrative arcade market, and uniquely showcased NES titles including Mega Man 3, Super Mario Bros II and III before their home cartridge launch. PlayChoice-10 existed for 5 to 6 years and was briefly superseded by Nintendo Super System. MAME emulation of PlayChoice-10 is not yet 100% accurate, but all known titles are available including The Goonies.

nVIDIA is to produce a bespoke GeForce GPU for Sony's PS3 after Microsoft allied itself with ATi. Combined with an IBM PowerPC G5 processor and possibly OpenGL, the PS3 shares APIs with Apple! Curious said Alice. In a contractual twist, that inspires literary allusions to the one ring, IBM will power all three next generation consoles from Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo. Can you say NDA?

*Rescue on Fractalus! was the first time I'd ever seen the Apple ][ logo. Little did I know that years later the Apple Macintosh would have a profound impact on my creative life.

Big in Japan

The holidays are coming and Panic are not averse to early gift giving! From today (and subject to availability) Mac Users can now download Audion 3 (3.0.2) sans cost. Audion's history affords a fascinating glimpse into the application's development and popularity in the Far East. Download the iTunes that never was here (complete with MP3 editor).

Whilst perusing the shelves of software speciality store Game (Electronics Boutique in the US) I took The Urbz (GBA) for a trial spin. Big mistake. The UI is joyfully intuitive and the game's highly addictive. Keep your eyes peeled for a G4 Cube and Apple Cinema Display in the tower offices.

March of the M-Pire and Gmail plays POP3

Next March witnesses the ultimate Star Wars prequel merchandising blitz and Mars M&M's are getting in on the act too! However, I'm in the mood for nostalgia. So, here's a photo depicting Hasbro's diecast spaceship series.



Remember these Kenner gems from the 70's and 80's? My parents bought me a Star Destroyer (with Blockade Runner), Darth Vader's TIE Fighter, Snowspeeder, Slave 1 and Millenium Falcon over successive gift giving seasons. Detailing was superb and I hope that the TIE Bomber is released too! The original is highly prized by collectors and memories of seeing it on the shelves of Exeter's Pram & Toy shop only compounds my frustration at never owning one.

Talking of consumables. This holiday's must have is, again, the iPod. And there's plenty of GBA content to keep everyone amused from the upper Manhattan chic of The Urbz: Sims In The City to The Legend of Zelda The Minish Cap, which looks great.

Google is upgrading Gmail accounts to include POP. The rollout has yet to reach my inbox.

Scream

With Halloween only a few weeks away, my pixel-pushing friends over at The Iconfactory have unleashed their ghoulish GUI goodness in the dark n' dank form of Web Attic!

Really looking forward to a late night screening of Michael Jackson's Ghosts and Thriller on the 31st.

In the meantime and in keeping with the Halloween theme. Whilst I'm still suffering post console sale withdrawal, here's the in-game logo taken from Super Castlevania IV (released on the Super NES, 1991).



Holiday season 1992 I hooked the newly unwrapped PAL Super NES to my home AV system (pre multi-channel) and was startled by the quality of the Castlevania IV soundtrack! Sonic detail was in abundance (a maximum of 8-channels were available to sound designers) with excellent 2-channel separation. A peerless platformer (it featured dancing specters Paula Abghoul and Fred Ascare), which still endures to this day. If you're so inclined, I'd recommend hunting down the original 'uncensored' Japanese Super Famicom cartridge entitled Akumajou Dracula (Demon Castle Dracula) - blood and nudity - all the trappings of the vampire genre.

Konami's Castlevania series, one of my favourite video game franchises, rarely disappoints and I've followed the Belmont family cross-platform (no pun intended) from MSX to Arcade and Genesis to GBA.

Elementary! My Dear Watson!

Hectic real world schedule aside. I've begun watching the bonus disc from the Star Wars Trilogy DVD set. Empire Of Dreams has left me yearning for the halcyon days of A-Level Media Studies and an almost limitless creative ambition.

The intervening years have created controversy for George Lucas and it is far too easy to overlook the production innovations that the Star Wars 'factory' spawned. From THX to PIXAR (now a production powerhouse) and Edit Droid to Photoshop (arguably the de facto DTP standard). This afternoon I pre-ordered Photoshop Elements 3 and will post a review in the near future.

Now that all my console gear has been sold, I'm spending far too much time in MacMAME! No regrets? OK, I miss playing the detailed dramas of Final Fantasy Tactics and Castlevania franchise on Nintendo's GBA.



Listened to the first single, Lose My Breath, from DC's forthcoming Destiny Fulfilled (foreshadowing the groups end?).



Darkchild's production references Michael and Janet Jackson. The tune pumps!