Hogge

Epona. She sings really lovely in Ocarina of Time. And she gives you that horse.

This. Or... put Retro Studios in charge of making a Wii U exclusive GTA-title based on the GTA 5 engine... only set in Vice City. And it has to have an 80's radio station. And the main character should be voiced by Don Johnson. And look like him. Or they could make a GTA-beater based on the Miami Vice license, with the whole original cast. Then Miyamoto-san could run around Sonys booth next E3 and go:

Regarding the Wii U, I think that Nintendo are trying to follow in Sonys footsteps. Create a brand with the "Wii" name and hammer it in, make customers associate it with a certain experience.

2D Zelda games: I don't know why. My only GBA cartridge (which I bought for my DS) is A Link to the Past. And yet I didn't even play through the first dungeon. I think it's the top-down camera, because I generally dislike those types of games. I feel that perspective kills immersion and the sense of precision. And generally, it feels too much like you're running around on a grid, rather than in a living, breathing world. I got Zelda Collectors Edition for the Gamecube and started to play both Zelda and Zelda 2 and I didn't enjoy either of those neither.

The ultimate dream is a unification. I've said it before and I'll say it again: I'd like to see a home console you can take with you. While the Neo Geo X is bad, it's sort of what I imagine. You have a portable console, which can handle a set number of polygons, texture resolution etc, but is optimised to consume little power. When you come home, you insert it into your home unit, which contains extra hardware to make the thing output HD graphics. It'd have wireless controllers and everything needed to make it a full home console.

Same here. Finished it once and started Master Quest, but didn't get anywhere.

It makes perfect sense. It's this and this generation, thus I have a selection of three consoles. Regardless of which I buy, I know that all games for that console will run smoothly and flawlessly for that console. And because there only are three consoles, I can easily keep track of which one is more powerful, reliable and I can also be fairly certain for how many more years I'll be able to play the latest games on it. That's how the console business works today. A console comes out, and then it's replaced after 5-7 years. In fact, all I've been hearing for the last 4 years is PC gamers moaning on how the current console generation is SO out of date and are holding the graphics back. The Xbox 360 was launched in late 2005, so by the time the XBONE comes out, it'll be eight years old. And Microsoft are talking about continuing to support the 360 for a couple of years more. That's ten years of being able to play so near it makes no difference, all the latest games (not counting Nintendo games of course). Sony too are talking about giving the PS3 a 10+ year lifespan. With hardware developers being allowed to release new models whenever they want, we won't have this. I've got friends who claim to have 7 year old PC's that they play games on. Only, when I ask them, they admit that they've spent a fair share of money on swapping parts to be able to keep up with the latest games. Have you tried to play an old PC game lately? You have to download patches to make games run on new operating systems, sometimes these patches are fan made, because the developer wants you to buy the new game instead of the old one. But more often than not, there aren't patches. With let's say a Wii, I know that I can play every Nintendo home console game since 2001, without the hassle of any patches or glitches. What makes you think we're reaching a technical peak? There are greater draw distances, more advanced shaders, better AI and more advanced physics to be acheived. Not to mention acheiving every game designers wet dream: no optimization. Not wasting any time on making game-specific resources. We have code to render 3D waves that physically affects objects in the water, and 3D soldier meshes from our latest FPS, where we've rendered every fuzzy fibre in their balaclava, and AI where every single soldier behaves rationally and finds his way across the battlefield without pre-programmed waypoints. Let's just toss them in to our flight simulator, so that we don't have to waste any resources on anything except for what we need. Sorry, but that's exactly how it'll go down if it'll ever go down. The PC standard was a whim by IBM, where they sought out a company to make a standard OS, then they licensed that OS to other computer manufacturers. That's how Android happened: Google decided to make an OS that would be licensed to all phonemakers who desire to use it. 3DO may have failed, but it's essentially how any future standardization will look like. One company will have to rule the platform. That's the way it has to be, because otherwise all hardware manufacturers will have small differences to set them apart, which will make compatibility go out the window and kill off the point of having a standardisation to begin with.

Then whom is going to decide when the next generation should come out? And what specs and features they should have? It's going to be like the PC market, where some people will buy high-end PC's and moan and groan because too few game developers will make full use of their computers. And on the flipside, others will complain that they paid a lot for a compute, and then can't play every single game, just months later. Besides, a standardised format has already been tried and failed, because that's exaactly what the 3DO was: a format defined by one company, and then manufactured by anyone who desired to do so. And it failed miserably.

Look at the first party roster on the Dreamcast. Sonic Adventure, Sega GT, Shenmue, Rez, Jet Set Radio, Metropolis Street Racer (the first game in the Project Gotham Racing series), Phantasy Star, Jet Set Radio... the list goes on. Sega had a massive roster of IP's which are spread out and exclusive for either one format or another. When Sega went third party, it was a nightmare for Sega fans. Shenmue, Jet Set Radio and Project Gotham Racing became Xbox-exclusives, Virtua Fighter, Yakuza and Sega Rally were PS2-exclusive, while Skies of Arcadia, Sonic and Phantasy Star came out for the Gamecube. Not only that, Sega games have taken a nose dice since then. They make way fewer and worse games. And the variety is just gone. I'll rather see Sony see their consoles as what they are: money gobbling black holes in Sonys budget, and themselves stop making consoles. Kutaragis infantile revenge has gone on long enough. Sonys IP's are few and far between (when they made a Smash Bros-clone, two thirds of the characters were third party, the other third were long forgotten, like the bugger from Medievil), the ergonomics of their controller is medeival and so on. I'll rather see Sonys franchises spread out on other franchises and die, than Nintendo ones. Espescially not for only a few polygons more. Gran Turismo and Uncharted on Wii U NOW! Sorry, no. We are yet to see any game to make good use of the Wii U. And to be honest, I have seen NOTHING on the PS4 that's impressed me. Nintendo have had a problem which is good to have: their games sell so well on their own formats, that third parties have difficulties to compete. Although, to be honest, the third parties should at times blame themselves. Look at the awful Mass Effect Port. It's supposedly a special edition, but the only special thing about it is ONE gun. And it's got framerate issues, lacks DLC AND it was released at full price, even after the Trilogy Pack had been announced for all other formats. As they say in Sweden: shit in = shit out. This part of the debate I just don't get. What particular online features does Xbox or PS3 have that the Wii U doesen't? Voice chat and..? Um... the current Persona games aren't that amazing looking to begin with. I doubt that it's using the full power of the PS3. Do you think that the developers are going to take the quantum leap to use the full potential of the PS4? No, sorry to say, I think it'll at best look like a graphically more high-end PS3-game. Which is well in reach of the Wii U.

I may sound a bit nitpicky, but Skyrim felt too big. No place felt special, no place was interresting enough to revisit. And traveling was a chore. GTA: San Andreas is as big as Hyrule should possibly get. Gameplaywise, what would be the difference between bows and bolt-action rifles? The only one I can think of is the limited magazine size, although that could be ignored. Imagine how there being sidequests where you can have a gunblade made? Or just a rifle with a bayonet? Oh, and considering the mythology surrounding the Master Sword, it should be the best weapon in the game IMO, rather than something that gets outshined by random trinkets in every game.

To be honest, Hyrule is commonly the same in name only. I want to see Hyrule depicted as a big, open world without loading screens, GTA style. The idea of a Zelda taking place in more modern times isn't bad. Skyward Sword was full of sci-fi stuff, like androids and hovertrains. The Master Sword being a light saber would be out of touch with the Zelda mythology and Epona being a machine is wrong too. But I would have nothing against having a mix of new and old. Imagine Red Dead Redemption, where horses are the most common means of transport, but trains, cars and even primitive airplanes exist. Most people live out in small, self-sufficient farms, but firearms exist. It'd be interresting to see an era like that, but where magic exists.

I met a mother who thought that games are ruining todays youth and that the game industry should stop making violent games for children. The irony? While it was true that her son was playing too much, he was playing WoW. And this was back in the day when you had to pay a monthly fee. So every month she paid a bill for him to play this extremely time-consuming game. And of course, she bought him (11 at the time) Grand Theft Auto.

I have to agree with you on several points. For god knows what reason, Nintendo have made the distinct decision to over-saturate the Wii U with two genres: 2D platformers and minigame compilations. I mean, instead of launching the Wii U with a proper sequel to Mario 64, they gave us New Mario Bros, which is hardly the game that will make the core buy a new console. Then they announced Yarn Yoshi, promoted the hell out of Rayman and they put Retro Studios on work with Donkey Kong Returns Returns Returns. They launched the Wii U with Nintendoland, then they filled out the empty "launch window" with ONE more game: Game & Wario. And they promoted Rabidsland. However, we need to look at this with balance. If Mario 3D World is the main 3D Mario game for the system, then Nintendo deserve a thorough ass-whooping. If it's a game quickly thrown together to please us while they develop the REAL 3D Mario, then I'd say Nintendo are making ammends for their past sins. I can agree that Nintendo need to start developing a wider variety of games. They need to show off better graphics and more "core" games. As I've said before: without core support, the casuals won't join in.

The deal is making me consider buying W101. Thing is that, while the game seems to be visually polished, I don't quite get why everyone's hyped over it. At a discounted price, it may be worth a purchase, just to see what the fuss is all about. Don't get me wrong, it seems well made enough, reminds me of Viewtiful Joe visually and Pikmin gameplay-wise, but I just don't see why it's so special.

Do Sony own the Persona license, or why can't future Persona games come out for Nintendo consoles? For everyone whining about "it's mean against the people whom bought the originals"... Well, guess what: many franchises that defined the PSOne had origins on other companies systems. Final Fantasy was a traditional Nintendo franchise, Metal Gear was for a lot of westerners a Nintendo franchise (although the MSX version was the original and far supperior version). I'm not a Persona fan, as I've never owned a Sony console. But I think that, as the Wii U is selling poorly, Nintendo should get any and all franchises they possibly can. And of course, since I'm not planning on buying any Sony console, this would enable me to try Persona out.

That would of course be amazing. But am I the only one who finds the N64-controller too small? Or at least the grips to close together.

I've thought of a Zelda fighter before. There's a lot of characters and races that would be interresting in a fight. A twin-scimitar wielding Gerudo or a spear carrying Hyrule castle town guard. Or a Megaton Hammer swinging Goron versus Ganondorf with that massive sword from the Spaceworld 2000 demo. Regarding racing games: that's not what's lacking. Nintendo need what I previously mentioned: a Gran Turismo-killer. Or at least, now that EA have chosen to do nothing for the Wii U, a Need for Speed-killer. Zelda racing would be Donkey Kong Racing, only with a less suitable franchise or Sonic R (Mario Kart, but awful). In essence: no thanks.

Yes, the Z-trigger is there. I haven't finished the model yet, but it's going to be assymetric, with as the left handle will have a sort of "finger stop" like the middle handle on the classic N64 controller, while the right one will be more shaped like the "outer" ones. As I wrote before, I like the feeling of the handles, they're the most comfortable controller handles in the world IMO, they're just placed too close together.

I've recently been playing a lot of N64 games with friends, and I even picked up Jet Force Gemeni last week. While at game I saw newly made N64-controllers. I wanted them so badly, but I decided to wait. I went online to find out more, and it turned out that they were... bad. The analogue sticks were apparently no better than original controllers half way to the grave. Another problem I noticed was that the two handles you most commonly use on the N64 are spaced too closely together. So a few days back, I photoshopped together a concept of what a "modern" N64 controller could look like and what it should be. And then I modelled them in 3D. As you can probably guess, I was fairly inspired by the Sega Saturn controller. As a kid, I always thought that it was the best looking controller, and I did want to acheive a type of "premium" feel. And what's more premium nowadays than piano black (I'm looking at you, Apple). I did however add N64-style handles, because I always found that shape to fit better in my hands than let's say Gamecube or Playstation handles. The idea is that, not only would this space your hands out more (which is a good idea, considering that most N64 players nowadays are adults), but it would give you access to all the buttons. If I were ever to make this happen, I would probably get rid of the slot underneath the controller and instead build a rumble and memory feature in to the controller itself, with a toggle switch changing between them. Feedback? I'm not planning to actually make them, but I still like it.

Is it the video, or does the frame rate drop in cutscenes?

While I get your point, I think that pleasing the fans should be easy. Everyone's shouting out what's wrong in an unisone voice. Open, non-linear levels, a camera system closer to the character like in Mario 64/Sunshine, a game world that isn't so obviously built from tiles. And in regards to people not being happy with Twilight Princess, it wasn't because of the art style, because that was cool. I personally found the dog sections really booring and Hyrule just wasn't fun to explore. Seriously, what do you think GTA fans would say if GTA 5 would be built from tiles and have a dumbed down camera like the original GTA? And the open world would be divided into linear sections, each featuring one mission. 3D Land was a charming deviation, which I'll probably get for my 3DS quite soon and 3D world might be a purchase as well. But not before Nintendo show off a 3D Mario done right. I'm voting with my wallet, and if this is this generations 3D Mario experience, it gets thumbs down, if it's a fun deviation that Nintendo created to fill in a gap in their lineup, I'll buy it. Simple as that. That being said, Mario World is hardly UGLY and the cat powerup is stonking brilliant. And while the levels are too linear, they do seem ever so slightly less linear than in Galaxy.

I'm going to say what I said before about this game. The obviously tile-based levels with sharp 90-degree edges, together with the locked top-down camera makes me think of Sonic 3D Blast. I was REALLY hoping for a 3D Mario more in the lines of Mario 64/Sunshine.

The stuff that was shown was bloody excellent. Smash Bros will undoubtedly be great, as usual, Mario Kart will probably be tons of fun, Xeno looks on par with probably anything shown during the Sony presentation. I feel conflicted regarding Mario World. The game seems to be a lot of fun and looks quite good. My problem is that it feels too obviously built from tiles. The areas are square, with sharp 90 degree edges. And of course, to me, top down cameras essentially kill off the immersion. I don't know, those two factors together reminds me of Sonic 3D Blast: Which is a shame, because I want a proper sequel reminiscent of Mario 64/Mario Sunshine. And I must be a bit of a killjoy and say that putting Retro Studios on another 2D Donkey Kong is a waste of their tallent. We already have New Mario Bros and Nintendo have shown us Yarn Yoshi. Plus that we've got Rayman. Kinda feels like retro 2D platformers are the Wii U's equivelant to the other consoles Modern Military Shooters. I'd love to see Retro take on a new franchise or create their own. But overall, this is the best E3 in years, perhaps the best since 2007.