Zelda : Ocarina Of Time Pre-Emptive thoughts....

Zelda, Ah zelda, If it weren't for you I probably wouldn't be playing games today.

Ocarina of time as you may well know is probably the best game of all time. I know everyone today thinks that is a cliche, but I genuinely think that this deserves it claim. Every medium has it's own overrated thing, michael jackson in music, shawshank redemption in film, and a lot of people would put ocarina of time on that list.
But in all fairness, this is in no way overated, It deserves every amount of acclaim it has been given. Does it have flaws? Yes, But there what perfect the game. OoT is like the Dark Side of The Moon of gaming, it is purely amazing from start to finish.

First of all I was surprised in the first place that nintendo decided to put Grezzo at the helm of reviving this classic (well under the watchful eye of Miyamoto).

For me OoT summarizes how games should be made, and how they shouldn't. It is just a perfect collaboration of time and effort. The original had a lot of perfection and charm that I thought would be lost in this remake.

The reason I'm not reviewing this right now is because, although I have had the game since friday, I am only up to the fire temple and I just don't want to give this game a verdict yet.

But what about the influence of OoT? I first got OoT for christmas 1998 I was about 5 and I had never played the N64 before, the only other games I had ever played were alex the kidd and sonic the hedgehog on  the mastersystem and megadrive respectively. Initially I wasn't bothered with the game, It started off slow and it took me an absolute age to find the sword and get enough rupees for the shield. It wasn't untill I finally beat gohma that I had worked out how amazing this game was, It actually turned me into what I am today, be that good or bad. Unfortunately the original has become rather dated to the younger generation and they can't experience the same magic that me and millions of others have experienced in the past.
Seriously though, what games do kids play these days (I'm talking real kids not the trash talking 12 year olds online). They all play these stupid mindless movie tie-ins, only occasionally have I seen a kid pick up a copy of mario galaxy or decided to play sonic colours.

I think nintendo, by remaking the game for the younger generation, have really saved the game industry. A lot of kids will purchase the 3DS just like they did the original DS. I can really see that OoT will be one of the major games that kids will pick up since it will most likely be a best seller and the box art also looks pretty cool. After probably playing and embracing the magic inside that tiny cartridge, they will be able to pick out similar games. Games meant for a more hardcore gamer, this is where it all begins folks. Soon we could see 'generic movie tie-in' and 'yet another minigame colab' being replaced with starfox and metroid.
This is a welcome change, and one that could see us getting more games like okami and zelda without a developers fears of poor sales.



Ok past that whole thing now, the info:

The 3D looks amazing, yes it will eat your battery, but if you are able to have a charger in while you play.....It's something else. Really, I think 3D is wasted everywhere, but just seeing the cutscene with the mastersword transition amazed the hell out of me. Playing bombchu bowling in 3D is a massive help and really helped out at some parts in the game.

The visuals. Wow....Just wow. I have never seen OoT look so amazing, I mean really. Everything is so improved over the original, it's amazing. I really am not a graphics whore, but seeing the game look so close to the concept art is really cool.

Gameplay: It's still the same gameplay but with a few twists.
1) Aiming can be done with the gyroscope and the slider, the gyro controls work really well. However  found a massive problem with them, It's near impossible to play the game while on some journeys if there are bumps everywhere, it makes the gyro move. I haven't found a way to change this yet, but I hope there is one.
2) All the refference info is on the bottom screen, Believe me it helps, having a map at the bottom of the screen is extremely handy. However, map the items that require aiming to the physical buttons.


Last word: This game is amazing, even if it's a port it's the killer app and not just crap to fill int he lack of 3DS games. I would even go as far to say that the piece of plastic it comes on is the greatest piece of plastic ever (And I haven't even completed the game).

Retro Review : Turok for Nintendo64

Turok

N64

FPS

Back in the begging of the N64's life I was about 6, I only had three games for the N64 : Zelda, Mario and TUROK!

Turok was a unique experience to me, I had never experienced a first person game before and I also had never played a game with guns in. However, there was always one thing that made me love this game, Dinosaurs. 

Dinosaurs freak me out more than anything, they just scared me, even still I think jurassic park is scarier than the ring (Although anything was scarier than the ring).

Basically the aim of the game is to find the chronosceptre, which is a special device. You play as Tal set who is the current Turok, which is a dinosaur hunter. Turok, Unlike his 2006 counterpart, is an actual bad ass. He runs around and beats the crap out of anything that gets in his way, be it raptor, man or deer. Even when he dies he respawns and shouts 'I AM TUROK' that's pretty cool.

A great thing about the game was that it allowed you to use a crap ton of weapons, such as the bow, a knife and my favourite: the Pulse rifle (The real pulse rifle).

Even still now I enjoy running through the linear, yet somehow expansive world just gunning down whatever I want with a nuke or a missiile launcher. This is a major factor to what made the game fun, it isn't like today's FPS'; there is no health regeneration or zooming. No just you, a gun and a whole load of enemies.

The game starts quite abruptly, you just spawn at a spawn place and are basically told 'go forward', on the way a main objective is to find 'keys' to unlock a bunch of levels at the end of the first part. the first part ends after walking through the linear part of it, then it opens up into a further amount of missions through portals. This game really opens up and allows the player to really explore and kill dinosaurs. I even still remember the unlock all cheat RBNSMTH which I think stands for robin smith. 

There are a lot of hidden areas in this game, right at the there is a small cave with a gun located in it, this is what I loved about turok looking back. Despite it's linearity, it can really be quite expansive whilst giving a medium feel that suits the game. Blue portals open up with small trials inside that involve traps and pitfalls, hard to get through in order to get the health bonus and extra ammo but even harder to find in the first place.

In terms of controls, it opts for the classic N64 FPS' style, I.e C buttons move, analogue stick looks around and R fires. This also reverses for left handed players. It's solid, but the controls now feel a little bit awkquard. 

I love turok, that's obvious if you read this review. However, it isn't nostalgia speaking it's just the game. This isn't all to hard to find and doesn't sell for more than a few pounds on ebay. It's a great game that anybody who loves classic games, classic FPS' and just fun games should get....NOW!

This is definitely a buy. 

I'm giving this 8/10

Wii-U My thoughts

So after the Wii-U was unveiled a few things went through my head.

1) WTF
2) Is this a controller or a console
3) What about games?
4) OMGWTF is that zelda.....Oh it's a tech demo
5) WOW


Not everyone loves the wii, that's for sure, with it's inferior graphics and really bad online capabilities. I do personally prefer it to my ps3 and 360, and I also think it has done some major good for the gaming industry.
So what about the Wii-U? It promises to please everyone, from casual players to hardcore gamers alike.
I was really sceptical hearing this, I had no clue how he was going to do it, but honestly I think they may actually have done the impossible. Firstly, with the wii they have built up a massive fan base with non-gamers, siminlar to back in the day when we would say 'wanna play nintendo?', older people are now saying 'wanna play some wii?'
So this new fan base will definitely bring in new people to buy what seems like gateway gaming, i.e starting off with wii sports or something then ending up playing zelda skyward sword to completion.

The other thing that excites me about this console is the power, Ok I'm not a graphics whore or anything but I can see this really benefiting the console by far.
Firstly, We will be getting all the first rate nintendo exclusives that we would never see anywhere else, that's awesome.
Secondly, developers won't be as scared to bring out hardcore games onto the console. Unfortunately the wii suffered this problem as developers didn't want to lose out on money.
Lastly, Developers can really make pieces of art on this console. On the wii there was hardly any room to make a truly stunning game in the same vein as final fantasy 13, which in turn cost the wii some really good games. It's the same with a painter, they wouldn't use inferior paints on the wrong canvas to make their finest work.

Next, The controller. The controller in my eyes actually looks like a really clever idea. Obviously the main attraction of this is the screen in the middle, which could be implemented fantastically. You only have to watch the ghost recon online trailer to see that.

Despite the terrible and cringy acting, we can easilly see an already amazing way to implement the device into more than a gimick.
I can see lots of games really using this well, especially RPG's and even sports games.

The controller itself looked very awquard at first (Awkward enough to make nintendo's stock drop), apparantly though it is a very comfortable controller and is surprisingly light. (If you haven't seen a picture of the controller, check out my previous post or google it)
The only problem I really have with this controller is where the analogue sticks are. Firstly, They aren't actually analogue sticks, they slider pads similar to those on the 3DS. Secondly, the sliders are above the face buttons as opposed to being below them, this could make things difficult when playing games in my oppinion.


So am I going to buy it when it comes out?
No, not at launch. Reason being that when I bought the 3DS on launch day I was very upset with the game selection and there was nothing really to tickle my fancy (Well not untill zelda comes out on friday).
I don't want to see this happen with nintendo's new love child. Also the thought of Ubisoft providing a 'killer' amount of launch titles sends cold chills down my spine. Sorry, but ubisoft have really annoyed me with the amount of crap they provided at launch for the wii and 3DS, I don't hate the company but I think they are shameless. (Lest not forget GT PRO for the wii and the terrible ports they released for the 3DS.

However, saying all this, I believe the wiiU will be an amazing console, if there are good games out at launch I will buy it. Apparently it's coming out in summer 2012, so that should be a good way to shift units.

Oh and by the way, SMASH BROS IS GOING TO COME OUT FOR THIS.......(Although production hasn't even started yet)

The start of something new......

So, after being basically bored with my stagnating gaming life, I've decided to pursue a bit of a more intellectual manner of playing games, by writing about them. I am personally a very 'hardcore' gamer that spends a lot of time playing and actually just admiring the games as the art style they are.


So hopefully you can expect some reviews and stuff from me.
Well providing your actually reading this.