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Extensive Twilight Princess Previews
All this week, and last week, Nintendo has been inviting game journalists up to their manse to have some extensive hands-on time with Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. At 1up Jeremy Parish has an extensive look at the game, with screenshots, impressions of the Wii control scheme, and a detailed look at the title's first few hours. From the article: "The bulk of swordplay, however, is controlled by moving the entire Wii Remote. Contrary to common opinion, this doesn't entail making massive swiping motions. Although it's certainly possible to wield the remote like an actual sword, a simple flick of the wrist will cause Link to attack. How you move the controller also has no bearing on the kind of strike you make. By default, Link sweeps horizontally; for a vertical slice, you must first lock on to a target. And a swing executed while pressing forward on the analog stick results in a stabbing thrust." Other features on the game include pieces from GameDaily, Kotaku, Gamespot, IGN, Gamasutra, and Game|Life. If you've been wondering about whether or not the controller is going to be tiring, then Chris Kohler's assurances for the worried gamer will be especially appreciated..
.... sweet!
What could possibly hurt the security of the American people more than giving our own government the ability to hide its
The vast majority of the previews of Twilight Princess that just came out today have been overwhelmingly positive, some people thought the new control mechanic would be bad but so far everyone seems to like it. Some people are even saying this game is better than Ocarina of Time.
It looks like Link got himself a weird sort of Light Cycle!
Why bother.
This game looks fantastic! Its just too bad the Wii doesn't support defs above 480p like everyone was hoping. It's also a little disappointing (but not surprising) that the controller doesn't convert the type of motion you perform to the screen. Oh well.
Crack - Free with every butt and set of boobs
I can't remember a better launch. There are a lot of systems, a killer ap, a diverse set of titles... The only thing missing is the ad campaign, but looking at their current DS push, Nintendo's ad agency is much more savvy than they were at the start of the GameCube's life. They are spending money advertising games that were released last year. It was not so long ago that Nintendo would barely spend money for upcoming games.
A good start does not guarantee future success, but it sure as hell can't hurt.
i read the first few sentences of that article, and while i am pleased that he thinks the game is a good one, i'm quite annoyed that he starting talking about how many dungeons the game had, and stuff like that. i sure hope anyone else wanting to be surprised didn't read this article thinking it wasn't going to give anything away. i know i did.
yeah! it's gonna be the DS all over again! Nintendo and their fancy gimmick thinking they're going to beat sony and all their horsepower... wait a second...
TIAEAE!
Must...freeze self... thaw me ... when the Wii is out.
The first two pages covered the basics of the game. At the bottom of page two they warn you that the next few pages will reveal spoilers for the game. But you know what, the game averages 70 God damn hours of play time. If even if you've read every review and every spoiler for the game there is no way you could not be surprised given the sheer length of the game.
Next time skip the reviews and just buy the fucking game. You're going to buy it anyway.
Have a look at the Underworld in Ultima V, and you'll see something huge. Or medieval Germany from Darklands.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Too bad, they missed a good chance to innovate.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
You missed the point completely.
Most people treated the DS like a stupid gimmick before it came out ("I want a games console, not a PDA") and it's probably the best handheld since the original Gameboy.
Most people, like you, are treating Wii like a stupid gimmick. If you hate it that much, go play Twilight Princess on the Gamecube. I'll be hacking my way through Hyrule by hand, thank you very much.
How's the pay over there at Sony?
Clever signature text goes here.
"Five years from now console gamers are going to look back at the idiots trying to hype this silly gimmick Nintendo is trying to pull and laugh their asses off at the suckers dumb enough to waste 250 bucks on a GameCube turbo with a pointer bolted on."
Have fun playing Gears of War with your analog stick.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
"Yeah, Nintendo's handheld sales have always been a good predictor of their console sales!"
Um.. okay. Anyway, the DS is creaming the PSP despite being graphically inferior. It's cheaper, the games are better, and it has a stronger UI. PS3 vs. Wii? Same circumstances. Which would you rather play: Quake 3 but only with a Dual Shock controller, or Quake 1 with a KB and mouse?
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
"Which would you rather play: Quake 3 but only with a Dual Shock controller, or Quake 1 with a KB and mouse?"
:) (And, I'm boycotting Sony because of the lik-sang thing, but, that's a different matter entirely.)
Your comparision would be more apt if it was the same game on both, just with a lower res on the Wii. Wii can probably handle whatever PS3 can do, but, would be limited to 640x480 (and maybe some minor reduced effects, but, I'm in no position to speculate on that).
Of course, the answer for me is the Wii, since, if I wanted to play Quake 4 anyway, I would just do it on my PC. While, Wii has Zelda
have fun playing hello kitty island adventure with wii gestures.
Actually, people have been having fun playing 3rd person shooter with two joysticks for a while now. The same game could arguable handle better on the Wii, but don't say the current controllers are crap. Just say that the Wiimote is better at certain things. I have yet to see how a game like Mortal Kombat or Tekken would work on the Wii. How do you kick, jump and punch in sequence?
It looks like this confirms the "full switch to right-handedness" of the game. With no option to swap for lefties (unless I missed that somewhere else in the article), that's going to steepen the learning curve for us southpaws.
Obviosuly all these 360 and ps3 trolls have not read these articles. All of them have one thing in common. all the people who were at this event agree that this control is much much better then the analog controls from the other zeldas. Actually pointing and aiming with the wii controller doing things like bow and arrows is much easier with this controller. I knew this would draw all the fanboys who use no logic what so ever in their answers and ignore what the people who have actually played it have written.
Everybody should read iawata asks part 2 for twilight princess wich was posted this week. In it they state that they were rushed for time and that they could have delayed it another 6 months but they did not want to delay it more. They did the best they could while actually releasing the wii version in a reasonable amount of time. But of course all the fanboys make stuff up and will not read all the impressions of the game and the interviews with the developers. All the people who have played it agree on one thing that compared to the other zelda controls the ones for the wii are much better . even when compared to the gc version of twilight princess. But of course all the fanboys of the 360 and ps3 will ignore all the facts and say what they want anyay.
It is good for the girl to be on top!
Classic Controller maybe? There's also the gamecube controller, but the d-pad is in a bad location for those fighting games. The wiimote could also be used turned on it's side, but you'd be limited by two buttons, so that would suck. The Nunchuck+wiimote could work too: 1 joystick, 3 triggers, four buttons on d-pad.
Wondering how all this controller mess works out in practice. Nintendo wanted to make things simpler with the Wii, but as it looks now you have to have three controllers to get the best out of all the games that the Wii offers. The Wiimote works only with Wii and NES games, Classic Controller with NES, SNES and N64, but not with Gamecube games, Gamecube controller works with NES, SNES, N64 and Gamecube games, but its flimsy dpad makes it hardly the controller of choice for NES and SNES.
The PS1 is technically inferior in every way (except disk capacity) to the N64. Which sold more?
The PS2 is technically inferior in every way (except disk capacity) to both the GameCube and the Xbox. Which sold more?
Clearly, the "Most powerful console =! the winner."
Funny, I just saw this today. An interview with Perrin Kaplan of NOA stating that component Cables would be available Day 1 at both Retail and online.
Yeah, I wish people would quit saying the Wii is just an overclocked Gamecube, as it is very far from that. All you have to do is look to the main CPU to know...the GC uses a PPC4xx variant, while the Wii uses a PPC750 variant. There's a huge difference here, the PPC4xx was more of an embedded processor...the 750 is a full blown desktop processor. It can handle (I believe) 2 more integer operations per clock than the 4xx, it has an Altivec unit (which Gekko did not), and it's around 20-30% more efficient per clock than the Gekko (from Nintendo's own estimate). On top of that, it's clocked at somewhere between 800 MHz and 1 Ghz...so saying it's 3-4x more powerful than Gekko is about right, and probably conservative. I'm sure the GPU is better than the GC's by about that amount. Is it as big of a jump in processor power as PS2-PS3 or Xbox-360? No...but it's a definite improvement on the Gamecube in every way. Plus it has lots more RAM and lots more disk space due to DVD9.
On top of that, it's clocked at somewhere between 800 MHz and 1 Ghz...so saying it's 3-4x more powerful than Gekko is about right, and probably conservative. I'm sure the GPU is better than the GC's by about that amount.
... doesn't.)
Moore's Law called, and it wants its vague 10x improvement over five years back. Ignoring the massive, law-confounding improvements in processor and GPU designs over those years, obviously.
In a predictable manner, I'll get modded down for this - but if you buy a Wii, you have to realise your money's going towards a rather spendidly interesting new controller. And Nintendo's profits - this ain't a loss-leader. The console itself is seriously downgraded, and frankly a bit naff compared with what could have been possible if the budget was aimed solely at it.
And Nintendo? Yes, I know you're (quite sensibly) avoiding the minuscule HDTV market, but some anti-aliasing would have been nice? Running at a low resolution means the jaggies become painfully obvious.
(To the moderators, again - the game might be wonderful, but if you're spending 70 blissful hours marred only by the digital equivalent of Vaseline smeared over the screen, wouldn't you have preferred it if Nintendo had reduced their profit on the console by, say, $20 - and gave you much clearer graphics in the process? The art looks great, the GPU
Tedious Bloggy Stuff - hooray?
...of course you could have played Quake 3 with a KB/Mouse online on the Dreamcast.
"Our opponent is an alien starship packed with atomic bombs. We have a protractor."
... back when I was saying the same things about the DS with its wonky two screens and, get this, a stylus input for a video game. Then I met Kirby. All I can say is Wiiiiiiiiiiiii I'm a convert now.
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
The GBA had no real 3d capability.
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WHO ATE MY BREAKFAST PANTS?
I think the usual gripe about these statements are that sonytards and xbots believe this entitles them to argue that the Wii won't have enough processing power to render anything more complicated than pong, which could be wrongly interpreted and actually taken seriously. Because, really, nobody's gonna change anyone else's opinion online, *ever*.
:p
That, or you're a troll / hypocrite / astroturfer.
"have fun playing hello kitty island adventure with wii gestures."
Yeah, maybe after I've played Twilight Princess, Mario Galaxy, Metroid 3, Trauma Center, etc.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
Maybe the GBA had no real 3D capabilities, but go play Golden Sun, and tell me a GBA game can't do a smashing good job of simulating three dimensions.
...the Amazing Non-Existant Sony Portable Doodad? (ANESPD! Rolls right off the tongue). The DS has outdone the PSP, through more effective marketing, innovative design, and the fact that it doesn't suck. (Read: it has good games, fun to play, battery doesn't explode, etc etc.)
That game was gorgeous.
Either way, what was your point? That the GBA couldn't compete with the PSP's predicessor?
Odds are looking good for Nintendo. They've pretty much done everything in their power to make this thing succeed, and all they can do now is hope for an accepting early adoption base. Sony, on the other hand, insists on punching its consumers in the teeth moments before console release. WHY SONY WHY?! (After seeing that PS3 Baby commercial, I was mortified. Why would I buy a console that obviously includes a screaming, crying Satanic baby?
No, Mr. Green. Communism is just a red herring.
That, or you're a troll / hypocrite / astroturfer. :p
;-)
;-)
Nah, just a awkward, non-upgrading PC gamer who's entertained by all the different varieties of console fanboys.
In one corner, you have the Xbox360 fans crowing over how wonderful it is to have a space-heater complete with high resolutions, downloadable software and online capabilities - and soon the ability for people to write (severely limited) homebrew stuff. PC users look back, slightly bemused - yes, those are good things, but they're not exactly new...
Then you've got the PS3 fans, wowed by Mullet Gear Franchise n and some completely fabricated, pre-rendered 'gameplay' trailers. Sony seems to be repeatedly shooting itself in both feet over a machine which might be slightly more powerful than an Xbox 360, but will probably turn out just like its predecessor - a bastard to program, and filled with annoying restrictions in inconvenient places. The machine may also be a loss-leader to attempt to promote some of Sony's other technologies - HDTV and Blu-Ray. Neither of which are exactly necessary for armchair gaming.
Finally, there's the Wii fans, proclaiming that their machine has deliberately naff graphics (it's all about the gameplay!), as if graphics and gameplay were mutually exclusive. If that was the case, shouldn't the Wii have a simple, dumb framebuffer and flat-shaded polygons at most? The GPU's pixel shaders are an affront to the gameplay Dogme! Yes, the controller looks rather interesting, and the platform will have a couple of great, genre-defining games (just like the other two consoles) - but there will also be plenty of dross, using the controller as an utter gimmick.
So basically, third-parties like myself get utterly infuriated by all the in-fighting between the fanboys, and never get round to buying any of the consoles - being unable to justify new hardware for the handful of new games that look interesting for each platform...
Tedious Bloggy Stuff - hooray?
Nice, thanks for the link. Hopefully I can pick some up at the local shop, or worst comes to worst, the big blue evil. Twilight Princess in 480p should look pretty damn good, especially once my upconverter works it's magic on it.
The key to the enjoyment of pop music is to replace any instance of "love" with "C.H.U.D."
I guess I was replying more to: "a GameCube turbo with a pointer bolted on." And I was basically just saying that the DS certainly wasn't a GBA turbo with a pointer bolted on.
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WHO ATE MY BREAKFAST PANTS?
Check out some videos of the wii in action; you have the same exact problem as the analog stick: you can only turn at some predefined max speed. You basically get a little mouse cursor on the screen to control, and if you go to the edge of the screen you begin turning.
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WHO ATE MY BREAKFAST PANTS?
If you really don't have any last-gen consoles I recommend you try one out. Avoid fanboyness - roll a dice to decide which, they're all pretty good. Buy whichever games in the top 10 on gamerankings.com look interesting.
Or, if you don't want to spend a lot of money on this experiment, get a dreamcast and download some games for it, it works with burned CDs.
Is good for girl to meet boy in park.
Is better for boy to park meat in girl.
Just give me more videos of cute chicks playing tennis on wii.com
I love the wii. I want a wii. But no translation of wiimote motions to sword motions is disappointing. If all it is is "a flick of the wrist" that execute the exact same sword attach, then what's the point? They could have simple mapped the action to a button!!
You've kinda gone the wrong way about it, but I can't help but agree with basic core of your sentiment.
... well, I don't have a NES cause I came to the console scene late, but I have every console since the SNES/Genesis days and the Wii won't be joining that collection any time soon. I just can't get excited about the Wii. Maybe it's cause I've never been the greatest home-system-light-gun game fan, but it's probably more because having to physically move the controller to affect the gameplay isn't the type of interactivity I crave. I'd much prefer traditional control systems but advanced in game physics and a real feeling of contact between in-game entities (i.e. Dark Messiah).
I'm struggling to see the attraction in waving a remote control at the screen in order to play new versions of games I've already played, and a few other gimmicky titles.
I'm a total gaming nerd, but the Wii is going to be the first console I'll probably skip since
The DS still feels gimmicky even if for little more reason than that the developers still don't really seem to know what to do with it other than a 'we have to use it because it's there' mentality. Lost Magic is a good example of DS stylus usage. Stuff like Age of Empires just doesn't need it. The ultimate irony of AoE is that the original game on PC, if ported to DS as is, would have definitely required the stylus. But they changed the core game mechanics to turn based, which then remove the hard requirement for a stylus/point and click interface (it's still much better with it, but it's no longer life or death, unlike how an RTS absolutely needs mouse control), yet still obviously felt compelled to use it.
And if anything, I'd suggest the feeling of an advanced level of control is going to be lacking greatly through the fact that you don't actually make contact with anything with the Wii controller. The DS stylus has to actually contact the screen to make an effect; the Wii controller hits nothing but air while still affecting the on screen action. That just doesn't feel right to me. But maybe that's just me. Besides, I've replied to a -1 Flamebait article, I'm either going to get modded down by people that don't agree or ignored anyway.
I know no one gives a shit about individual (especially dissenting) opinion, but I just wanted to chime in with a note of mild agreement, with at least your overall point, if not the specific way it's been presented.
Come to 123 main street, at midnight of Nov. 1. Oh and don't plan on leaving, unless you sign a release agreement. What was that? Oh? Yes, there's something about your soul in the agreement. Oh, and remember that this IS an important title for the wii, your release agreement hinges on the success of the title. Have a good day.
"NASA's Rollercoaster For Moon Rocket Escape"
Xonk?
What... no howls of indignant outrage that the much fabled wii'k controller has no true motion translation? No gnashing of teeth over the fact that it is nothing more than a motion sensitive button? Where are the ex-fanboys burning effigies in the streets, because they can not parry, parry, thrust .. twiiiirl, parry, parry & thrust?
Confirmation that the wii'k will sell only because its not cool to like M$ or $ony.
axis discrepancy indicates hexagons beyond control anomaly
Link finds out he is a homo!
I'll be hacking my way through Hyrule by hand, thank you very much.
Kind of... What you will actually be doing is flicking your wrist or swinging your weemote, or really just making some movement with your right arm in some arbitrary way while controlling the direction of the swing with the left analog stick. The "hacking" is really just a substitute for pressing a button, nothing more, nothing less. I can see it adding a little fun for a child, but not much for an adult.
I like Nintendo, I have a DS which is pretty cool, though I think somewhat overated. I still play SNES games frequently, more than my xBox or PS2. I am not really a Nintendo fanboy, but I definately am excited for their new console. I have a 360 which I am very disapointed in, and I have ZERO intent on buying a PS3. The thing is though, I didn't really see this as some kind of "1337" preview. It sounds to me like a typical all ages roleplaying game. And the control scheme, which you would have thought would be pretty good because this is one of Nintendos big release games, seems to be mostly average. I am sorry, but if you are going to have a system that isn't a graphical processing powerhouse that puts a PS2 to shame, your control scheme better be really cool and add something to the game.
I just want the motion of your right hand to mean something... Is that too much to ask out of Nintendos big Zelda release? I don't think it is, and even if the game is good, I don't think it is what I was hoping for. I just hope that this time some 3rd party game makers do something for Nintendo that is awsome. My biggest fear is that the control scheme isn't so simplified because Nintendo wanted it to be easy, or because they were short on time, but because the Weemote interface isn't as capable as we thought it would be. Remember that mapping the hand motions and ploting the force of the sword will use processing time, hopefully the Wii has the horsepower it needs to do this and Nintendo simply made a creative decision to not use it for this release. I have my fingers crossed... Actually, I don't, hard to type that way.
You take it, I don't want it...
Get a sense of humor man. That WAS funny.
Your response gave it some nice credibility too!
"I don't play games for children! I play Mario, and Princess! WEEEEE! er.. WIIIIII!"
Yes, and how nice of you for conveniently ignoring the last two games mentioned... Talk about selective quoting.
At least with Wii something is new... and you just can't know, maybe it will catch on and become the new way all consoles work in the future, maybe not. At least it isn't the same thing we've always had.
This will hurt the sword-play a bit I imagine, but there isn't much we can do about that yet. On the other hand, I think this interface will really shine with first-person shooters, and other games that require an aim and click style of play. Maybe it's because I grew up with the mouse and keyboard FPS interface, but using the thumb-sticks to move/aim in a FPS just feels horrible to me, so unnatural. What could be better than pointing your controller (gun) at the target and pressing B (pulling the trigger)? It almost exactly duplicates the real way that tool functions... advanced level of control, no need to make contact with anything.
But they changed the core game mechanics to turn based, which then remove the hard requirement for a stylus/point and click interface (it's still much better with it, but it's no longer life or death, unlike how an RTS absolutely needs mouse control), yet still obviously felt compelled to use it.
So you're saying that the developers of AoE for DS felt "compelled" to use the stylus for no reason other than it being "much better", not "life or death"?
Sounds like a pretty good reason to use it to me. Who wouldn't like a much better interface?
There's certainly instances of "it's there so we have to use it for something" in DS-land. Yet when you combine the new game types that only exist due to the stylus, then add in the games which don't absolutely require a stylus but which play much better with the stylus, then I think you're out of gimmick land.
The enemies of Democracy are
"Get a sense of humor man. That WAS funny."
Ah, sorry. I couldn't distinguish between a 5 year old joke and blatant ignorance. Considering your previous comment about the strapped on pointer, I assumed the latter. I apologize.
"I don't play games for children! I play Mario, and Princess! WEEEEE! er.. WIIIIII!"
Heh. The 'credibility' here you've mentioned depends entirely on how informed the person is. For example, your comment here would appeal to somebody with hurt feelings over Sony's latest round of anti-PR. It wouldn't, however, appeal to somebody who knew that Twighlight Princess was the next Zelda game. So, yeah, you're right, I lent it some credibility to ignorant people.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
480P is 720x480. A VGA resolution is 640x480.
Well I've wrestled with reality for thirty five years doctor, and I'm happy to say I finally won out over it.
Good point.
Widescreen 480P is 854x480, which the Wii can also handle.
Good point. I think the point I meant to make was that they took away the real time option of a real time game in order to make it turn based on a system that actually had the interface/controls to operate in real time effectively, yet still used those controls even though you would have thought the reason they would have moved away from real time is that the system couldn't handle it and ... look, it's kinda like this : it knows where it is because it knows where it isn't.
Maybe I'm getting too old, or maybe I have a short attention span, but 70+ hours seems like a LONG time to play a game.
I'm old (over 30, under 40) and have maybe 2-3 hours of "free" time in the evenings. On the weekends, maybe a few hours more. Assuming I did little else other than play Zelda, guesstimate 10 hours of play per week. That's two SOLID months of "free" time sucked up by Link! Toss in some family obligations, playing other games, watching some TV, going outside (*shudder*) - and it could easily take a geezer like me six months to finish the game!
No wonder kids these days are fat. They spend hours and hours grinding through long games trying to get the rush of completion at the end.
Note to developers: How about making games 20-40 hours long, with good replay value. e.g. Have a straight, quick route through the game, but have a lot of side quests and interesting exploration for those who want to spend the time. Once the game is complete, have the second pass through be more difficult and/or mix up the plot. Add more required side quests on the harder levels.
And you kids get off my lawn!
- Jasen.
Only one of those games is even remotely 'kiddie', and that one's probably too challenging for you. It is a good thing you're posting anonymously because you're showing absolutely no signs of knowing what you're talking about.