Killer App is a new series of podcasts designed to celebrate the greatest games of the past decade or so and stars team members from games™, Play and SciFiNow. The debut episode kicked off with universally acclaimed Resident Evil 4, while the second episode concentrated on the more divisive Heavy Rain.

To listen to any Killer App podcast, tune in directly through NowGamer.com or subscribe through iTunes. To read more on the history of Metal Gear see issue 117 of games™ on sale now.

Related posts:

1. NowGamer 2.0 now live
2. NowGamer passes 1 million unique visitors
3. NowGamer.com Reveals Top 50 Gaming Moments
4. The Making Of Metal Gear: part one
5. The Making Of Metal Gear: part two

The Making Of: Snake’s Revenge

Let’s get one thing straight: Snake’s Revenge is good. One of the biggest travesties in the series’ 25 years is the insistence of fanboys who claim otherwise. Although Kojima wasn’t involved, the game stays true to the spirit of the original, requiring both stealth and patience. It features diverse locations, standout visuals and great music – by all accounts it’s one of the best in the NES library and deservedly sold well. Gameplay is complex too, as you interrogate officers, use directional microphones, and manage a massive inventory. Additionally, not only was it developed by the Castlevania III team, but Kojima himself likes it. Without Snake’s Revenge the series would have ended in 1987. Its only legitimate negatives are a tricky opening level, side-scrolling areas which are out of place, and rather tough bosses. But you know what? Man-up and defeat the final boss and then say you don’t like it. A little effort will reward you!

The Making Of: Metal Gear 2 Solid Snake

Due to low sales Kojima didn’t plan a sequel to Metal Gear, instead starting work on Snatcher for the NEC PC-88. The US release of the NES port, meanwhile, did phenomenally well. In the November 1988 issue of Nintendo Power it ranked third after Zelda and Metroid, and stayed in the monthly top 30 until January 1990. Konami Japan was aware of this and asked several members of the Castlvevania III team to produce a sequel for the West. In an interview for the now-defunct Gamers Today website, Kojima explained: “When I was in the MSX division, this one guy in the Famicom division developed Snake’s Revenge. One day we hopped on a train together. We were talking and he says, ‘I’m developing this game called Snake’s Revenge, but I know it’s not the authentic Snake, so please create a new game of your own.’ That was when I decided to create Metal Gear 2.” And when asked what he thought of Snake’s Revenge, Kojima replied: “I thought it was very faithful to the Metal Gear concept. I enjoyed it.”

Wanting the inside story, games™ tracked down Toshinari Oka, who kindly answered questions through an interpreter. Some websites credit Oka’s first job at Konami as a contributor on the RPG-remake SD Snatcher, but the man himself is quick to refute such claims. “I didn’t work on SD Snatcher. I joined Konami in 1986, in April. Do you know Parodius? I worked on the MSX version. The very, very first version of Parodius. I worked on so many games; King Kong 2, and the MSX versions of Nemesis 2 and Castlevania.”

Thankfully, reports that Oka worked as a programmer on Metal Gear 2 are entirely correct. “Ah, yes, I was. When the project was launched, I was Kojima-san’s co-worker at Konami. We joined Konami the same year, at the same time. At that time we were friends, and when the manager of R&D decided to launch the project, I was chosen as the programmer.”

MG2 was filled with numerous great ideas, such as capturing a messenger pigeon, deciphering a tap-code to learn a radio frequency, plus different types of rations needed for specific tasks. Some of the best ideas were later re-used in Metal Gear Solid, such as a key that changed shape depending on temperature, a mysterious ‘fan’ who informs you of mines, an alert countdown, plus the now-iconic RADAR system which shows enemy movement. “I don’t remember the idea about the pigeon,” says Oka. “But we had team meetings many times. In these meetings we talked about what kind of ideas should go in, and some of the members popped up with suggestions. I can’t specifically remember which idea came from whom, but some of the ideas from the meetings were included in the game. But mostly, the main portion of design came from Kojima-san.”

Did anything have to be cut? “I think Kojima-san probably had more things that he wanted to include, but because of the hardware specifications, the limitations of the MSX2, not everything could be.” Which leads us on to the technical side of creating MG2. “The programming language was Assembler. The computer we used was Hewlett Packard 64000 hardware. An old machine,” laughs Oka, thinking back. “I liked being creative, and wanted to create something really impressive, so I enjoyed programming these games, although the work itself was really hard. It was a great experience.”

Were any difficulties encountered? “As a matter of fact, some of the portions of the programming were very difficult. But I wanted to realise the image that Kojima-san had tried to create. I did not want to say, ‘No, I cannot do it’ – I always tried to cope with a challenge. I thought that if I couldn’t realise all of the game ideas from Kojima-san, probably the game wouldn’t be so great, so I wanted to make everything possible.” Oka elaborates on his involvement: “I did all of the movement for the player, like the crawling scenes and crawling movement. I also programmed the transceiver sections, some of the movement of the enemies, and probably the RADAR too. It was a long time ago!”

Playing the game today, the attention to detail is astounding, with aspects such as Snake accurately holding a gun in his right hand whether facing left or right, and other graphical touches. “I really liked the transceiver sections,” says Oka. “You know where the character faces are shown on screen? I created the line, that little horizontal line which was moving, because I wanted it to feel realistic for the player.”

Interestingly, some things came about by accident. “I cannot say which specific part, because it’s a secret. But I made a mistake in the programming – it actually had an error, and some of the movement was wrong. Snake wasn’t supposed to make that kind of movement by himself. But another team member saw this movement and said, ‘That’s good!’ So eventually this way of programming the movement was used in the game. “I still have one of the first versions off the production line from right after the game was developed,” says Oka enthusiastically. “Each team member was so excited to buy a copy. It’s one of my treasured memories.”

Despite its quality, Metal Gear 2 originally missed out on a worldwide release due to the declining popularity of the MSX computer. It was finally translated into English, however, when Konami included it in 2006’s Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence on PS2, and it has since been recognised as a game that deserves to stand alongside any other Metal Gear in the series.  “I’m really glad to hear something like that, because there isn’t much information about our English-speaking fans in Japan,” says Oka. “I feel honoured to have been a member of a development team for the Metal Gear series, and really honoured that I could be a part of something that people were impressed by, not only in Japan but also Europe. It’s an old game, but I’m happy there are still fans playing it. I can’t believe it – I’m so pleased.”

If you’ve not played Metal Gear 2 yet, it’s well worth digging out, and is also soon to be included once again in February’s MGS HD Collection. It had a major influence on the entire series and, we’d argue, is one of the finest 8-bit games ever developed.

Part One

Related posts:

1. The Making Of Metal Gear: part one
2. Metal Gear Solid 3 stars in Killer App episode three

The Making Of: Metal Gear

Like a tiny serpent hatching from an egg, the Metal Gear series had humble origins. Although hoping to join a Famicom team, Hideo Kojima was assigned to Konami’s MSX division. As he explained to the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum, originally the project was not even his: “The company asked me to create a combat game. Actually, a senior associate had been in charge of it, but he was stuck, and I was asked to do it. You could not have more than four bullets with MSX, and you can’t make a combat game with that. So I came up with a game like The Great Escape, where a war prisoner had to escape.”

Wanting an extra perspective, we interviewed Tomonori Otsuka, programmer on the original, who explains the rivalry between Famicom and MSX: “I’m very pleased if my memory helps you. Most of the memories on developing videogames are going to be lost, so I hope your work plays the role of recording history. Konami had development teams for several platforms at that time, such as coin-op, Nintendo, MSX. The Famicom was launched after the MSX, and the MSX team had already released many titles. Famicom was the brand new platform and it was not determined successful yet. MSX also had a bigger market than the Famicom.”

Metal Gear was highly original, even down to the South African setting for the story. Though as Otsuka reveals, this came secondary to design: “I really didn’t know the game takes place in South Africa. It might be written in the [manual]. The story and character design were by Kojima-san. I didn’t deal with that kind of work. I don’t think Kojima-san likes South Africa especially. He was excited by the idea that soldiers have to hide from observation. The story was decided to emphasise the unique gameplay.”

Otsuka describes life at the time: “We developed two or three titles a year and the teams next door were rivals, because the number of companies that developed for the MSX2 was very small. We were very busy every day and didn’t think about the story of the games. I was a programmer and the work was to write the code [following the design] directions. I don’t remember how long the programming took; the work did not go as scheduled. However, the program was reused on several stages and creatures to save time.”

“I think the highlight of Metal Gear,” adds Otsuka, explaining the technical challenges involved, “is hiding from the view of cameras and enemy soldiers. The game screen is [viewed top-down from above] and users can see the position of the player and cameras. If there are some obstacles between the player and cameras, he must not be found and will succeed in hiding. It was very difficult to determine if the player is viewed by someone or not.”
As for Kojima, completing his first game came as a relief: “As the expectations for it were pretty low, I was just happy to finish the work. I had this pressure from my fellow workers, as I had been with the company for about a year, yet had not completed anything. People would tell me: ‘Hey, at least make something before you leave the company!’ I remember people started looking at me differently after finishing it.”

Metal Gear goes west

Although the MSX2 original was officially released in the UK, the real success in the West, and especially America, was the 1987 Famicom/NES port. We spoke to Masahiro Ueno, formerly of Konami Japan, who took on this daunting task when he was just 22 years old. “I was a fresh graduate when I worked on Metal Gear. I actually worked on an educational game for Famicom Disk System first, but it was cancelled. So Metal Gear was my second project, but the first shipped game. Muraoka-san, who has been the sound director for the Metal Gear franchise, worked with me on the NES project.”

Speaking with Ueno is a little melancholy, since he is reluctant to accept praise for something so important. “As you probably know, Kojima-san does not like the NES version. My team was asked to port the original MSX2 version to NES in three months, and we had to make some changes for management and due to the hardware limitations. Since Kojima-san was not involved and he does not like the changes we made, he does not think the NES version is an authentic Metal Gear. What I did was port the game as management asked, so I don’t deserve credit.”

Although Kojima has publicly criticised the NES version, this is unfair. Apart from the phenomenal achievement of programming a NES title in three months, it’s still a fun game despite the changes – like an easier remix. Significantly, it was Ueno’s version – and not Kojima’s – which created an American fan base and ultimately led to Kojima continuing the series.

We ask Ueno about the jungle area that was introduced: “Management wanted to differentiate the Famicom version a bit since the MSX2 version had already shipped. Having a different intro was the easiest and most efficient way for us to do so, since we only had three months.”

The other big change was the replacement of Metal Gear as a final boss: “This was simply due to the hardware limitations. It’s probably possible to implement the robot if we had used a better [mapper] chip such as the VRC4, but it was not available for us back then.” Although Kojima tried to disown the NES port, we now know better. It’s not as good as the MSX2 original, but it’s still very enjoyable and important to the long-term life of the series.

C64, PC and Amiga?

The NES port of the MSX2 original proved popular enough to be ported to the C64 and DOS. On the back of the IBM box were screenshots for an unreleased Amiga version. Charles Ernst explained the DOS port and unreleased Amiga edition: “I worked for a company called Banana Development. We ported a bunch of arcade titles for companies like Taito and Konami back in the 1980s. I was offered the gig porting the Famicom game Metal Gear. The initial version came on a floppy disk-like device and was in Japanese.”

“Typically, we ripped as much graphics off the ROM as possible, but in this case we weren’t able to. We also couldn’t get a debug version of the game so I had to play to the end – needless to say I videotaped everything. Overall it took about seven months to produce. Konami America was a great company to work for. Their input was:
‘Make it look and play as much like the original as possible.’

“There were plans to create an Amiga version but it was shelved after most publishers dropped the Amiga due to piracy. Our company was supposed to port the Amiga version and we did the [PC box] mockups to encourage Konami. Another brilliant programmer, Dave Kurensky, was the Amiga guru in our studio and would have been the one to port it. I am 99 per cent sure there is not an Amiga version floating around.”

Part Two

Related posts:

1. The Making Of Metal Gear: part two
2. Metal Gear Solid 3 stars in Killer App episode three

For some time now, Blaze Europe has been the go-to company for Sega retro handhelds, its array of hardware slowly becoming smaller, more powerful and packed with more features as the years have progressed.

Now, though, Blaze hopes to launch its gaming technology to a far higher level, leaving behind its traditional role as an Argos stocking-filler and going straight for the jugular of the likes of Apple. In terms of portable, low-cost gaming potential, the highly ambitious GameGadget handheld will cover, Blaze says, far more formats than just the Mega Drive. However, the truly unique feature is the company’s plan to introduce an iTunes-style interface to download games, with full DRM, from its own bespoke servers.

“We’d say the growth of the retro game is through the iPod, and the download of Sonic and Street Fighter and that sort of proliferation,” says Blaze Europe general manager Mark Garrett. “But ultimately, the iPod isn’t the greatest gaming device in the world. Most of the games that were originally developed weren’t developed with touch screen in mind, so that whole gaming experience, of not being able to feel because of the buttons, is sorely lacking.”

Blaze hopes to cover all areas of the market in this way, its premium-priced £99 hardware shamelessly resembling the bottom half of a Nintendo DS (“Well, they do know how to build handhelds!” laughs Garrett). The aim is to provide the tactility of a D-pad and buttons (though no touch screen as yet), while jumping on the back of the app craze with a convenient, microtransaction-based download service. “[It’s] completely legitimising the ROM scene,” says Garrett, “and the emulation scene, and providing people access to the original games, in the original format, on a device that is built specifically to play games with.”

The aim, says Garrett – apart from neatly (and profitably) legalising the current activities of many hardcore retro fans – is also to introduce younger audiences who may already be attracted to modern mobile devices to the enormous back catalogue of games that already exists.

“That’s where we start to grow outside of the traditional retro gaming fan, who’s a lot more technically adept and is aware of emulation, and aware of how to go about it,” explains Garrett. “What we’ve developed is the cloud-based solution, where you’re able to store the content that you purchase, download to your device or PC, and it’s through that that we think we can start to open up into a much broader market, where you’ve got a younger audience that have pretty much grown up in the last couple of years playing Angry Birds, who haven’t necessarily experienced Space Invaders or Pac-Man, or played any of the simple retro instant experience games rather than the more drawn-out extended experiences you get with the current handheld market.”

No related posts.

Brought to you by SciFiNow’s Samuel Roberts, games™’s Ashley Day and Play’s Steve Burns, the NowGamer Killer App podcast is a show that celebrates your favourite games from the past ten years, exploring their background, greatest moments and legacy in today’s gaming landscape.

Each show will take a different title from across all formats and genres, while popular choices from the NowGamer community will also be factored in to the content of this passionate new podcast.

Download the podcast from NowGamer.com, the iTunes Store (search for NowGamer), or listen right now by clicking HERE!

No related posts.

It’s not often that magazines give out perfect scores. Those still playing around with percentages seldom dare break the 95 per cent barrier. But for a magazine that scores out of ten, a title deserving of that elusive top mark is the rarest of gaming treats. What qualifies a game to receive such an honour is very much dependent on the publication in question, and yet you’ll often hear talk of ‘innovation’, ‘near perfection’ and ‘sheer playability’ when discussing high scores. So imagine our surprise when, in only our second ever issue, a game came along that was deemed worthy of this ultimate accolade. As with any high mark, this decision was debated at almost tedious length until it was finally settled upon that the game was deserving of top honours. That game was none other than Metroid Prime.

Like all Nintendo franchises, the Metroid series is blessed with a huge army of avid fans that will be there every step of the way. But unlike any other long-running Nintendo stalwarts, Metroid somehow managed to skip an entire generation. While N64 enjoyed Mario, Zelda, Donkey Kong and even Kirby titles aplenty, Samus was left to sit on the subs bench while her creators pondered what should come next. With nothing to satisfy their collective hunger since 1995’s Super Metroid, fans were understandably delighted to catch a glimpse of Samus in Nintendo’s 2000 Space World trailer. Like much of the footage from that event, this proved to be something of a tease, with the proper reveal coming at the following year’s E3 show. Samus’s return was now very tangible, although there was some concern over the new direction which was seen by many to be simply following market trends rather than doing what was best for the Metroid legacy. But upon its UK release in March  2003, all doubts were laid to rest. Retro Studios, the development house tasked with bringing Samus into the 21st Century, had come from nowhere, bringing a totally new feel to the series and cementing the Metroid name as one of pure quality.

“When Metroid Prime was released, no one else was concentrating on the exploration and platforming elements in a first-person game,” recalls Mark Pacini, Retro Studios’ director and lead designer on Prime. “We were dubbed as an FPA (first-person adventure), which to us meant that the core gameplay was not about shooting enemies but rather the immersive experience of being Samus and exploring the environment. We were able to differentiate our game by focusing on those aspects, and I think people felt it to be unique.” In a world where Halo had just reinvigorated the public’s love of first-person shooters, Prime was a breath of fresh air – a game with the balls to adopt a first-person viewpoint without following the rest of the FPS blueprint. Not since PSone gem Jumping Flash! had we seen this done with similar success – and in many ways, Prime is far closer to the quirky jumping rabbit game than to all the bog-standard shooters to which less enlightened sources were so keen to draw parallels. “We also tried to preserve the essence of the Metroid experience in its move to 3D,” Pacini continues. “It couldn’t just be a 3D game starring Samus. It had to be Metroid. That was probably the most difficult part of the whole development process.”

Having somehow bypassed a generation, Retro Studio was without the benefits so many other franchises had enjoyed from 3D worlds. While it watched Mario, Link et al running around fully realised locations, the last known iteration of Metroid was a dimension short. A Metroid title hadn’t been released for seven years, and then along came Metroid Prime. “Metroid fans – myself included – were salivating at the chance to play another Metroid game,” Pacini recounts. If this new (and decidedly late) entry into the series was to captivate the market as Nintendo’s other flagship brands had done before, it too would have to take the plunge and embrace the third dimension.

“Mr Miyamoto came to us with the idea of playing a Metroid game from the first-person perspective. He felt that the best way to play a 3D game where the character had a gun was from a first-person viewpoint,” Pacini tells us, proving that it was once again the vision of Miyamoto that breathed new life into the franchise. While it is more ‘logical progression’ than ‘ingenious masterstroke’, we can’t imagine that continuing down the side-on route would have had anywhere near the level of impact that Prime’s innovative fusion of genres did. But even the team wasn’t sure that Samus really wanted to be bulked out in this way, as Pacini reveals. “At first, we were not seeing his vision and we knew the fans would have the same initial reaction. However, as we started down this path, many unique gameplay opportunities came to light and we began to get very excited about the possibilities. If we were excited, Metroid fans probably would be as well.”

No related posts.

Tennis games, whether you like them or not, are at the very heart of the videogame medium. Tennis For Two, developed on an oscilloscope, is famously the first videogame ever made, dating all the way back to 1958. 1972’s Pong thrust arcade gaming into the mainstream with its fun simplicity, and in 2006 Nintendo managed to place the Wii in millions of homes worldwide, thanks largely to the novelty of Wii Sports tennis.

Sega’s Virtua Tennis, developed for the arcade in 1999 and ported to Dreamcast in 2000, isn’t quite as important to the history of games as the aforementioned three, but it might be the best loved and most playable. Striking a perfect balance between realistic simulation and arcade fun, it’s a game you can start playing and enjoy with minimal effort, but also one that rewards extended play with a deepening of skill. Not just a great sports game, Virtua Tennis was a great videogame and rightly takes its place among the pantheon of timeless Dreamcast classics.

Yet despite being recognised as one of the greatest games of its type, Virtua Tennis was far from a sure thing when first in development at Sega. In fact, most of the company was dead against the original arcade game being developed, as Sega veteran Mie Kumagai tells us during her promotional tour for Virtua Tennis 4. “You know, internally within Sega, when we decided to make a tennis game, there was a lot of negativity where people were commenting that we wouldn’t be able to make a great game within that concept. “There were a lot of doubts floating around, a lot of negativity towards the project when we started developing,” she elaborates. “I always felt that because people saw tennis as a kind of unexciting game – just two people hitting a ball back and forth – how were we going to make that an exciting game? That’s what people were asking at the time.”

For a long part of its development, Virtua Tennis was controlled in a very different way to the version we’re all familiar with now. Instead of a joystick and buttons, it used a rotating paddle controller like the one used to play Pong. Strangely enough, as Kumagai explains it to us, it actually sounds a lot like the PlayStation Move and Kinect versions of Virtua Tennis 4, with movement handled automatically, leaving the player to just think about the swing of the racket, which was controlled with a left or right turn of the paddle depending on whether they wanted to perform a forehand or backhand.

“We were developing in that way for a while, but as time went on I got an opinion from Satoshi Mifune who was the director of Virtua Striker,” explains Kumagai. “He came along and said, ‘You know, I think this will work better with just a regular button and stick.’ When I heard that, it pretty much demoralised me because I felt that we had to start all over again.”

Despite the setback, Kumagai and the team went back to Virtua Tennis and re-designed the arcade cabinet and game to accommodate a more traditional control method before presenting a new working prototype within Sega. “We put it in the office and allowed people to come see it and have a go for themselves,” she recalls. “Very, very quickly those negative feelings were gone. The tables were turned and it actually became one of the most supported internally developed titles at the time. It was building up a lot of hype, and, with lots of other very well established creators within the company at the time, I was very happy to receive positive feedback from those people as well. So in hindsight Mifune’s advice was vital to receive, even if it was quite crushing to hear at first. That moment was the biggest challenge for us, but it also led to our biggest achievement, and it’s the reason why Virtua Tennis is still here today.”

The control method is only half the story with Virtua Tennis, however. The physical controls are really just a conduit for the game design to reach between game and player without obstruction, and it’s the finely balanced gameplay that Kumagai most readily credits for the success of Virtua Tennis. “Within the studio we had a certain set of concepts and goals that we aimed for, and some were compromised or adjusted as the game evolved, but one thing we always tried to stick to is that we wanted to bring a tennis game in which the entry window was as big as possible and as open to as wide an audience as possible. We wanted a game with easy controls that would allow you to play a great game of tennis. So it was geared toward casual gamers in that respect, but also had a realistic feel with lots of replayability so you could play multiple times and get better each time. So it had that hardcore aspect too.

Related posts:

1. Behind The Scenes: Phantasy Star Online
2. Behind The Scenes: Guardian Heroes

It was 1996. In the UK, Britpop had recently sparked into existence, co-existing with the emergent mainstream dance music and club culture. East 17’s ‘Stay Another Day’ had just topped the Christmas charts (to be replaced by the criminally bad ‘Cotton Eye Joe’ early in the new year). Action bluster was all the rage at the box-office, with the likes of Waterworld, Braveheart, GoldenEye and the slightly more sophisticated Seven topping recent film charts.

In Japan, recent movie releases included Ghost In The Shell, Hana Yori Dango, and Shall We Dance?, and even Godzilla was still going strong, with its 22nd instalment (Godzilla Vs. Destoroyah) topping the box office for the entire year. Céline Dion, meanwhile, was the first international artist to reach number 1 on the Oricon Singles Chart in over ten years with ‘To Love You More’, thanks to its appearance on the soundtrack of TV drama Koibito Yo. In the world of manga, Initial D had just appeared, and Cardcaptor Sakura and Old Boy were on the verge of doing so.

Most importantly, in the year or so since the release of Sony’s PlayStation, the polygonal splendour of games like Ace Combat, Tekken, WipEout, Warhawk and Ridge Racer had proved that games had crossed a major new technological frontier. Even on the Saturn (which, notoriously, hadn’t been designed to handle all of those newly fashionable polygons), the likes of Virtua Fighter 2 and Virtua Cop confirmed the ascendancy of three dimensions. Heck, even the SNES was getting in on the polygonal act with the Donkey Kong Country series, then about to receive its second chapter. But Masato Maegawa and his small band of fellow travellers at Treasure simply didn’t care.

He didn’t, and still doesn’t, watch movies. He didn’t, and still doesn’t watch anime, read comics, listen to music, or even play too many games outside of his favoured genres. Instead, he and the tiny team of prodigiously talented  pixel geniuses  at Treasure were quietly getting on with making some of the   greatest games to appear on Sega’s ill-fated console – some of the greatest games in videogame history, in fact. One of those games, which you might have heard of, was Radiant Silvergun. Another was Guardian Heroes.

Guardian Heroes owed its name to Treasure’s earlier Mega Drive title, Gunstar Heroes, but borrowed little else apart from a single cameo from that game’s final boss. Oh, and Treasure’s trademark ability to confound expectation and twist genres into almost unrecognisable shapes, creating beautiful, joyful confusion and mayhem in the process. Guardian Heroes is the last great scrolling beat-’em-up, as joyful to play today as it was back then, regularly appearing on lists of the best Saturn games, and still capable of fetching prices of over $100 (or £60) on auction sites. And yet, at a time when the polygon had just proved itself as the apex predator of the videogame ecosystem, Guardian Heroes was resolutely and unapologetically 2D.

Related posts:

1. Behind The Scenes: Virtua Tennis
2. Burnout Crash! Behind The Scenes With Criterion Games
3. Guardian Heroes review

Related posts:

1. Behind The Scenes: Phantasy Star Online
2. Sonic Generations review

Nintendo’s celebration of the 25^th anniversary of Super Mario Bros last year certainly left a lot to be desired according to most fans. Special red editions of both Wii and DS were the most extravagant tie-in products – and largely useless to anyone who already owned either console – while the Super Mario All-Stars repackaging on Wii was considered a stingy and unimaginative way to celebrate the creation of the company’s greatest achievement, even at its budget price.

Those complaints certainly haven’t gone unheard, however. Nintendo has listened to feedback and is determined not to let this year’s 25^th anniversary of The Legend Of Zelda pass by without a great deal of fanfare. Anyone who sat through the first ten minutes of Nintendo’s E3 presentation, in which Shigeru Miyamoto mock-conducted an orchestra in a celebratory medley of Zelda themes, will attest to the fact that the love-in is only just beginning. Here we present the timetable of highlights for what looks to be an anniversary celebration that will last from now until the end of the year…

OUT NOW Link’s Awakening DX

Released onto the 3DS eShop on the day of Nintendo’s E3 press conference, this Virtual Console release skips the original monochrome adventure from 1993 in favour of the 1998 Game Boy Color remake, which featured full colour visuals, new dialogue and even an extra dungeon. For many, Link’s handheld debut remains not just his best portable adventure but one of the best Zelda games full stop. So be sure to check it out. Even at the inflated download price of £5.40, there’s excellent value for money in this lengthy and enjoyable game.

OUT NOW Ocarina Of Time 3D

Released just last Friday, Ocarina Of Time 3D revives Nintendo’s landmark Zelda game, complete with re-drawn visuals and stereoscopic 3D so well done it reminds you why you bought your 3DS to begin with. And if you haven’t yet got yourself one of Nintendo’s newest handhelds just yet then you now have a legitimate reason to do so. Ocarina Of Time may be 13 years old now but it still holds up against modern titles and is easily the most enjoyable game to be released on 3DS so far. Be sure to read our full appraisal for more details, and look forward to issue 111 of games™ for an even bigger breakdown of what makes this remake so good.

19-30 JUNE Ocarina Of Time Soundtrack

If you have bought Ocarina Of Time 3D already then don’t just throw away the registration card inside the packaging. If you register the game with Club Nintendo between now and the 30^th of June then you’ll get a free Ocarina Of Time soundtrack. With a whopping 50 tracks on the disc – including previously un-released tunes and one orchestral recording – this is a goliath of a soundtrack, especially when it’s effectively being given away.

SEPTEMBER Four Swords (for free!)
One of the best, and most surprising, parts of the celebration, The Legend Of Zelda: Four Swords is set to release on DSiWare this September and will be given away free to all users. The multiplayer Zelda game, in which four Links co-operate to solve puzzles and clear dungeons, was first released as a bonus mode on the GBA’s Link To The Past re-release but went un-played due to the need to own four Game Boys, four cartridges and enough link cables. As this Four Swords will be available to download on both DSi and 3DS without cost it should reach a much broader audience, leaving no excuse not to try one of the most underrated games in the Zelda series.

AUTUMN Skyward Sword

The one everyone’s been waiting for (at least until the HD Wii U demo of next-gen Zelda came along) Skyward Sword is set to be both the swansong for the Wii and, hopefully, the game that finally makes good on the promise of Nintendo’s MotionPlus controller. Speaking of which, the company is planning a special gold version of said controller, to be made available around the time of Skyward Sword’s release. Which, according to US retailer Best Buy, may be as soon as the 25^th of September.

WINTER 25^th Anniversary Orchestral Tour

The main event of the Zelda celebrations, this tour will visit every major country worldwide and will see a full live orchestra perform popular tunes from the entire Zelda series. Firm details have yet to be announced but Nintendo promises that tour dates and venues will be confirmed in the Autumn and that an orchestral soundtrack CD will be available to buy around the same time.

WINTER Super Mario and Animal Crossing

So the Zelda anniversary is being celebrated with the release of four different games, two soundtracks, an orchestral world tour and a special edition Wii Remote. Is that enough for you? If not, you might also like to keep an eye on some of the other Nintendo games set for release in 2011. Nintendo is so keen to mark the birthday of Zelda that it’s even cramming its celebration into some other titles. Super Mario on 3DS will feature an entire level based on the dungeons from The Legend Of Zelda on NES, while the next Animal Crossing will allow you to dress your character like Link and kit out your home in Zelda-related paraphernalia including a replica Master Sword.

There’s really never been an anniversary celebration of a videogame property on the same scale as this one, and it’s great to see companies like Nintendo finally waking up to the fact that their fans are crying out for this sort of thing. Oh and it’s not just Nintendo that’s celebrating. Take our sister publication, Retro Gamer, for example. Issue 90, now on sale, features a stunning gold foil cover and lengthy retrospectives on both the original Legend Of Zelda and Ocarina Of Time, including testimonials on the latter from respected memories of the games industry. See Imagine Publishing’s online shop for more details.

No related posts.