Day 73 of 100 Happy Gaming Days: The Legend of Zelda

On New Years Eve 2013 I made a number of resolutions. One of those was to finish every game in the Zelda franchise...suffice to say I've failed, but I did play through a few of them. Let's see, I've finished...

The Legend of Zelda
A Link to the Past
Ocarina of Time
Four Swords (GC)
Four Swords (GBA)
Minish Cap
A Link Between Worlds
Skyward Sword

I've still got a few to go but for today's blog however, I want to focus on the first of the series.

The Legend of Zelda was released on NES in the UK in 1987, and was regarded as an absolute masterpiece, thanks to its grand scale and allowing players the freedom to approach the game in whatever way they wanted. You could tackle the dungeons in any order, explore Hyrule till your heart's content or perhaps increase the challenge by not allowing yourself to use the sword.

I on the other hand didn't need to increase the challenge because the game drove me utterly mad! I was constantly getting killed, I never had a clue where to go, a walkthrough was never more than a few inches from my face and those Keese/Bat things have to be the most hated characters in gaming, ever!

...so why is this a happy gaming day?

When you gather the scattered fragments of the triforce, make your way to the enemies lair, defeat Ganon and save the Princess...it feels so rewarding. The Legend of Zelda rewards exploration, experimentation, and overcoming seemingly impossible odds. Yes, the game is horrendously difficult, but it laid the foundations for an entire franchise that generations have come to enjoy, and thankfully the principle of rewarding a players curiosity and ingenuity has lasted the entire series.

Hopefully this will still be the case when the new open-world Legend of Zelda title hits the shelves in 2015.

Day 71 of 100 Happy Gaming Days: Majora's Mask 3DS Special Edition

The biggest announcement from Wednesday's Nintendo direct, without question, was Majora's Mask for 3DS.

I must admit I never played MM the first time around, despite having sunk a ridiculous number of hours into Ocarina of Time, so when Zelda fans began pleading with Nintendo to remake MM for 3DS, I had to see what all the fuss was about. I had the game on the Zelda Collectors Disk for GameCube and I was surprised to find a much darker Zelda adventure. There's a somewhat foreboding undertone making MM a standout entry in the long running franchise.

Nintendo are releasing a special edition version of MM for 3DS, but what's going to be included??? 

The special edition includes a copy of the game, a SteelBook case, a pin badge in the shape of the mask itself (with an attractive collectors box), and a double sided poster.

It's not a bad little haul for the extra £5 you splash out on the special edition release, the only criticism I could make is why hasn't the badge been painted?! It would have been so much more visually striking, then again you could probably find something similar on etsy, so it's not the end of the world.

Majora's Mask is set to be released on 30th June 2015, better pre-order this one, folks. It's going to sell out fast.

Day 50 of 100 Happy Gaming Days: Cuddly Toys

We're fifty days into our 100 Happy Gaming Days Challenge, so let's celebrate hitting the halfway mark with some gaming cuddly toys! \ (^ o ^) /

Nintendo at E3 2014

I spent the majority of yesterday glued to my computer watching the Nintendo Digital Event livestream and I've got to say I was pretty impressed. I don't want to get into the whole 'who won E3' debate, but I want to give you my own thoughts on some of Nintendo's announcements.

Smash Bros- Let's get Smash Bros out of the way as this was clearly the focal point of Nintendo's conference, and rightly so because if this isn't a system seller, nothing is.

We discovered that Mii's will be playable characters and it was pretty much expected. It's allowing you to inject some of your own personality into the game, which is a design ethic that Nintendo has been proudly delivering throughout many of their recent releases.

Pac Man was also revealed to be a playable character, again not very surprising seeing at the game is being developed by Namco Bandai. And after all was said and done we got treated to a stunning anime of Link dueling with Pitt, which then turned out to be another character reveal for...Lady Palutena.

My first impressions were "Really??? This is what they're saving till last." Then I saw the amount of effort they had put into this reveal, as previously mentioned the stunning anime, with the well scripted dialogue reminiscent of Kid Icarus Uprising. Lady Palutena then silenced doubters by showing off one of the most impressive movesets of any member of the Smash Bros roster, leaving enemies obliterated and me appropriately stunned.

I was a little disappointed to find that Smash Bros has been delayed from July until October, but I'd rather that the game was polished and performing at its best. We learned that the 'amiibo' toys are going to be an released alongside the game (more on those in a moment), there's also a gorgeous line of Gamecube controllers being released alongside Smash Bros (I'm going to be so bankrupt), and they've even brought back the digital trophy collection last seen in Smash Bros Melee.

There was little gameplay footage during the Digital Event but there didn't need to be any. The Smash Bros Invitational was going to provide a whopping 2 and a half hours of live footage, I'm watching it now as I type, and suffice to say I can't wait for October to arrive so I can finally join the fight.

Amiibo- Ever since Smash Bros Melee was released on Gamecube fans have dreamed of collecting their own Nintendo figurines. Now the dream has finally been made a reality in the form of Nintendo's line of amiibo toys; wallets ready.

The toys can be used in conjunction with Smash Bros, along with other future Wii U/3DS releases, and they allow the character to leap into the game to beat the living daylights out of your opponents...that's when I became confused.

I thought these figures were going to be similar to Disney Infinity and Skylanders; where introducing the figure will allow you to PLAY as the character and not just watch them on screen. They're almost like a virtual pet as you can train them by introducing them to various games, and customise their movesets and abilities to make them your own. Either way the amiibo look fantastic and it's going to be interesting to see how they fare against the likes of Disney Infinity and Skylanders.

Splatoon- The Wii U finally has a first party shooter...but it's not Metroid. Splatoon is a third person shoot em up where two teams of four try and graffiti a variety of levels with their own colour of ink. The team who has gained the most territory ultimately wins, but covering ground also allows you to transform into a Squid so you can quickly traverse your ink and get to where the action is to fend off your opponents.

It's nice to see Nintendo delivering a new IP and I'm really excited to play this one. The art design has a great sense of attitude, reminiscent of Jet Set Radio, with the gameplay style of one of my own personal favourites; De Blob.

Zelda Wii U- We were treated to a cutscene of the brand new Zelda game for Wii U and it was nothing short of stunning. There wasn't much information provided but we do know it's going to be an open world adventure, it has a similar art direction to Skyward Sword and I don't know about you but the weapon designs look amazing. It's scheduled for release sometime in 2015, it's going to be a long wait...

Hyrule Warriors- ...In the meantime however, we have Hyrule Warriors, which I was quite skeptical about this considering it's a hack 'n' slash title rather than a traditional Zelda adventure. The reveals were very persuasive however, as Nintendo revealed there will be four playable characters (Link, Zelda, Impa and fan favourite; Midna), and there will also be two player co-op. Since Smash Bros has been delayed this is arguably Nintendo's biggest release until then, let's hope it delivers the exciting experience it promises.

There's a ton of other stuff I could go into but this blog is already long enough.

Nintendo have come under a lot of criticism as of late, but whether you love them or hate them, they delivered a fantastic performance at E3 2014. In fact the show's still going on as they're still making new announcements throughout the whole of the convention, but will it be enough to persuade the masses to go out and buy a Wii U? Only time will tell.
      

Day 12 of 100 Happy Gaming Days: Nintendo 'Cool Stuff'

Nintendo have revealed their 'cool stuff' page on the UK website today and to be honest I'm quite impressed. A lot of the Nintendo merchandise I find when I'm out and about can be quite poor, and while some of that is also present on the cool stuff page, there's also some great exclusive items to purchase as well.

This Ganondorf statue will set you back a whopping £281.99, but the attention to detail is phenomenal. The statue is 23 inches tall and cast in high-quality polystone, which has been hand crafted and hand painted. What I really like is hand tailored fabric cape, and the fact it looks so bloody sinister. Awesome.

Another item I feel I should draw your attention to is this Tanooki Mario Figurine with a Leaf power-up.  The price is £150, which I think is hideously over-priced, but it's still a very nice piece all the same. It's 15 inches tall and is made from high quality polystone resin, there's also another version without the Leaf Block for £130.

The cool stuff page stocks everything by character and you can find hats, bags, phone covers and other knick-knacks to show your love for Nintendo. The only problem is, like Club Nintendo, a lot of these exclusive items are selling out faster than a red shell rebounding off a drain pipe. So if you want something, be sure to get it quick.

Day Nine: Play Expo

I've been going to Play Expo for the last two years and I've recently picked up my tickets for this years event in October. It's held at Manchester's Event City venue, which is a stones throw away from the Trafford Centre, and for a whole weekend it's crammed with games as far as the eye can see.

Last year Nintendo were there to show off Zelda: A Link Between Worlds about a month before it's official release in the UK, along with Sonic Lost Worlds and a playable demo of the upcoming Mario Kart 8! I imagine Nintendo will be back this year and seeing as Super Smash Bros Wii U has a planned Winter release they'll hopefully be bringing it along.

Ubisoft were there last year with Assassins Creed 4 demoing on PS4, also about a month before the PS4 was on sale, so as you can imagine there was queue that rivaled the Great Wall of China. The same can also be said for the Oculus Rift which was attracting a lot of attention, hopefully they'll be back this year as I wasn't prepared to wait in the queue last time around, and Namco also made an appearance to torment gamers with Dark Souls 2.

Then of course there's the retro games with several hundred machines on offer from the Atari 2600 to the PS2; so I was certainly spoiled for choice. This was accompanied by a huge selection of arcade cabinets and pinball machines, ensuring that everyone who attends goes home happy. There's also little hubs set up for people to play tournaments on Super Mario Kart, Doom and plenty other titles so if you want to have a little competition you're covered.

There's also a large number of stalls selling games for pretty much every platform imaginable, along with some great gaming merchandise and handycrafts as well, I picked up this Blastoise T-Shirt last year.

Cosplayers are also welcomed with a load of people turning up in fantastic outfits and there's usually talks with various designers sharing their cosplaying tips.

This year is already shaping up to be something special as they've just announced the screen.play feature, which is promising meet and greets with Hollywood movie stars, photo opportunities, film props and movie cars. 

The thing that I'm looking forward to most though is the Classic Gaming Championships, and the final is going to be held at Play Expo. I'm going to enter the heats at NERG in July so wish me luck, I'm probably going to need it.