August 2006
Deeper Story In Twilight Princess
Thursday, August 31st, 2006 at 12:22am by Staff
The Legend of Zelda series has never been heavy on the storyline, but that doesn’t mean Nintendo can’t treat gamers to a good story. Nintendo of America’s Head of Localization Bill Trinen revealed a few interesting points in the lastest Game Informer magazine:
“With Twilight Princess, the depth of story and its connections to past games means not only does it have twice the text as Wind Waker, but it includes a fair number of legacy terms that originate in past games, so consistency is a big focus there,” Trinen noted. “We’ve also been given the opportunity to provide a lot of input on everything from play control to character design, so over time our role has grown from simply localizing the Zelda games to almost being a branch of the development team itself.”
Twice the text means deeper conversations with non-player characters, more storyline, and more characters to interact with. In Wind Waker, I personally was very happy with the story on Outset Island and Windfall Island, but things quickly dropped from there as the island hopping increased and story interaction decreased… and yet Wind Waker may have the best storyline in the series! I don’t think any gamer wants Nintendo to turn this series into Final Fantasy, but they could at least hold the story writing to the same standards as they do the controls, gameplay, and graphics. Based on Trinen’s comments, there is reason for optimism.
If anyone cares, Trinen expects the game to get a T for Teen ESRB rating.
Poll: Your favorite Nintendo celebrity?
Wednesday, August 30th, 2006 at 9:38pm by Staff
ANOTHER Nintendo secret delays Nintendo Power delivery
Wednesday, August 30th, 2006 at 6:37pm by Staff
If you happen to be a subscriber to Nintendo Power (Official Nintendo Magazine in the U.K.), then you won’t be getting your issue early this month, as you usually do. That’s because the issue has been embargoed until Sept. 1 due to a “BIG exclusive” that was, surprise surprise, not named by Nintendo at this time.
From the official forums:
On this ocassion subscribers will not recieve their issues any earlier than the proper on-sale date (01 Sept) due to our cover game being embargoed until that date. Rest assured this wouldn’t happen normally and it’s because it’s a BIG exclusive.”
No one seems to know what this exclusive cover game is, but rest assured people are already rabbidly speculating about it across the Internet. I’m about rumored out these days, but this is certainly a breath of fresh air compared to that mind numbingly bad fake Chinese manufacturing snafu rumor I wrote about this morning. I pick up Nintendo Power at the bookstore occassionally, so I’ll probably be learning about this exclusive news the same time as everyone else on Sept. 1. The exception being I’ll be reading about it George Costanza-style in the Barnes and Noble restroom.
Wii controller manufacturing issues
Wednesday, August 30th, 2006 at 12:33pm by Staff
In the words of the great Sam Jackson, hold onto your butts Infendo. The latest news out of Japan this morning is that the Wiimote is having some quality assurance issues at a manufacturing plant in China that one magazine is speculating could affect the launch date. Seems that there are some button sensitivity issues where they are not responding as they should when pressed, or they don’t even respond at all when two buttons are depressed simultaneously. There is also word of “strange noises” coming from the controller during use.
The original article is in Chinese, but Go Nintendo has a stable of translators working on it in an attempt the glean what exactly is going on in the Land of the Rising Sun (and China). We’ll keep you posted on updates as they occur.
Note that this unconfirmed snafu has only affected the controller, and not the console. And before you go thinking this is why there’s no launch date or price, remember that the Xbox 360 was announced on Sept. 15 2005, which just so happens to be a significant date for Nintendo this year. The trustworthiness of this PC site has also not been confirmed.
UPDATE: My BS meter hit the roof when I read this article this morning. PSP’s and Wii manufactured under the same roof? Trade secret violation right there. This isn’t even a rumor in my opinion anymore, considering IGN has confirmed in the past final build Wii’s are already in use.
