Aghama

Zelda - Talk about the ultimate bait & switch; a year ago they show us an incredible battle between Link and Ganondorf, and now they give us...this. Link looks just plain silly, and the game is a huge step backwards in terms of maturity. How many here actually enjoyed the young link more than the old in OoT?

Mario Sunshine - Wow! It's....Mario. Looks like Mario 64 with a facelift and an espresso maker on his back. No real gameplay shown here.

Metroid Prime - I still don't see how they're going to pull it off.

Star Fox - Looks good, hopefully they'll get the frame rate sorted out. I still wish they had left Star Fox out of it, though.

Virtual Striker 3 - Who the hell plays soccer?


Other News of Note

• GameCube released is delayed until Nov. 18
• GameCube will be launched in indigo and black, with orange possibly coming at a later date (will be available in Japan)
• Super Smash Brothers Melee and Eternal Darkness are delayed until Dec. 3, Star Fox Adventures until 2002

Aghama

This just in:

Zelda is cel shaded (think Jet Grind Radio)
Mario Sunshine is indeed a true sequel to Mario 64

Can anyone tell me it wouldn't have been a better idea to cel shade Mario?

Aghama

...and the damn thing's delayed until November 18.

Mezzanine

Yeah, that sucks. Even though it's only a 2-week delay, they had already announced a specific date for launch and now they're changing it. On the bright side, at least there will be black GameCubes at launch in addition to the purple ones.

Aghama

Yeah, that's some small comfort. Hopefully X-Box will have to be delayed as well. Since you all asked, here are my impressions:

Moved up top

All in all, a pretty disappointing SpaceWorld, what with the delays of Eternal Darkness and SSBM until December and Star Fox until next year. But at least I have to stop bitching about the indigo console.

HN

WTF WAS THAT???????? WHO FROM THE POKEMON WORLD DID THEY HIRE TO DO THAT???? THAT VIDEO HAS TO BE SOME SORT OF PLOY B/C THAT WAS BULL@#$%@#$#@$%!!!!!!.

bring back the look that was in the picture of link vs. ganondorf that was released awhile back. damn!

--HN

p.s. here we go, THIS is what we want zelda to be! damn!

Liver&Onions

I think Zelda took a lot of balls to make the switch like that... and just looking at the pictures kinda makes me like it. At first I was like "what the f*ck?!" Then as I looked more, I thought looked kinda cool... like playing a cartoon...it's transport you somewhere back to your youth... Plus isn;t it hte gameplay that matters?

Aghama

Yeah, the more I watch the Zelda movie, the more I like the style...except for Link. He looks so wussy.

Deftones

am I the only one that can't get these damn videos to work?

Aghama

I guess so. Other than upgrading Quicktime, I don't know what to tell you.

Deftones

well i did upgrade to quicktime 5.0 even though it says i only needed 4.0 they are working now. looks good. the zelda looks weird, but i reserve all judgment until i actually play them myself.

Aghama

Nope, nope, that won't do it all, you have to say it looks abominable and is a personal insult to you. Wait, that's the IGN board, sorry.

Mezzanine

Where did you read that Rogue Leader was delayed? Everything I've seen is still listing it as a launch title... unless of course you mean delayed to Nov. 18 along with the system itself.

Aghama

My bad, I was just looking at IGN's release date list, which has it as TBA for some reason. As far as everyone knows, it's still on for launch.

Aghama

Wondering what the heck happened to the old Zelda you saw at Space World?

By now you know that Nintendo's Legend of Zelda for GameCube has drastically changed since it was first shown at Space World 2000 last year. The game's old dark, realistic look has been replaced by a much more stylized, cartoon-like appearance complete with a simplistically designed Link and all-new comedy elements. Designer Shigeru Miyamoto recently explained the company's decision to change the graphic look of Legend of Zelda.

"The video footage of Legend of Zelda we showed at the E3 show was almost identical to the one we first showed at Space World 2000. Actually, we were not lying to you about what we were doing. Well, as a matter of fact, at the time of E3 we were hiding the secret. But one year ago at Space World 2000, we were seriously working on the version of Legend of Zelda you saw at the event. We were repeating so many of Link's experiences, and we were trying to decide on what new direction the new Zelda should take, and after that I began to wonder what the idealistic age of Link is. In a new Zelda, is a grown up Link something I really wanted to pursue?

"As you know, if one product receives rave reviews and becomes a hit, then the next year there are a number of similar games following the trend. A look at the movie industry, or animation made in Japan, they are following a similar trend and in the end only the very enthusiastic movie lovers can tell the difference. But the general public can never tell them apart. And that is what we are most afraid of. So more in detail, what we are now doing is putting emphasis on making our games better than the others and we are not ignoring the importance of making something different.

In the game industry the people that are most sought after are the people with better technology than skill, rather than the people who love to challenge themselves to make something very fun and deliver breakthrough ideas. That kind of situation I really hate. So that's why I told my staff members that they should have more freedom to create anything they like, and at the same time I've been telling other people my idea for Zelda. So we have completed many experiments and this is the result. And I think the video that I showed you today represents the course that we will take with the next Zelda for GameCube. I can tell you that development on the game is making very good progress right now.

One thing I'm afraid of is that people who already saw Link in the very beautiful graphics may be looking forward to the much more sophisticated looking version of him [Space World 2000 footage] in the next Zelda. I do not want to betray them or shatter their expectations, so what we are doing now is making Zelda as unique as possible because uniqueness is something gamers are always looking for. So I can say that we are ready to make that Zelda."

Aghama

Doesn't say much, but does hint that gameplay might be very different from Mario 64. Hopefully.

spainlinx0

Maybe Mario Sunshine looks like it just received a face life, but personally I think it looks amazing. Even if they kept the same gameply, I loved the originals gameplay, so throw me some new highly detailed levels and I'll be happy. Of course knowing Miyamoto there HAS to be something different.

Chaos

Wrong. What would happen if they did this to Perfect Dark to some other game that depends on a mysterious atmosphere. This cartoony look just doesn't cut it. CAN'T THEY EVEN TRY TO GET RID OF THE KIDDIE JUNK???????????? Zelda is a game that spans all age ranges, and what do they do? THEY $#^&*%* TURN IT INTO AN INTRODUCTION TO ZELDA FOR 3 YR. OLDS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! HOW COULD THEY DO THIS TO US, AND STILL PUSH IT BACK MORE THAN A YEAR?? IT LOOKS JUST LIKE PAPER-MARIO, WHAT ARE THEY DOING, GETTING TO LAZY TO CREATE DECENT-LOOKING CHARACTERS???

I smell a PS2-like launch coming up . . . . . .

Josh H

Just because it looks kiddie doesn't mean it plays kiddie. If the game is fun to play I could care less what it looks like. The Perfect Dark analogy is kind of silly as that was a very violent mature game, and Zelda has always been a cartoonish game that was geared to all ages. If the gameplay in the new game is similar, does it really matter what it looks like? I'm sure it does to some. There are people who care more about technology and graphics than fun gameplay, just like some people are more into DVD technology than the movies on the DVDs.

Trigger

Zelda - Cements my opinion that Nintendo products are designed for ages 3-12. The old footage looked kinda cool I suppose... of course Nintendo would pull this though.

Mario Sunshine - Looks pretty good. If I liked Mario stuff, I would probably enjoy this game, but I never could get into it - too childish. Only game like that I enjoy is the Sonic series.

Metroid Prime - Too short to really tell anything - but what was there looked like the graphics were good and it wasn't too kiddie play-time. Never been into metroid either though.

Star Fox - Nice graphics for this little kiddie space fly-through-the-rings game. Not interested though.

Virtual Striker 3 - I love soccer, but I doubt this game will make it over here to the US. I'm happy playing Fifa on the PC though. This does look promising.

The thing is - these games are pretty much going to be the backbone for every game they release for the entire run of the gamecube. Same dopey juvenile gameplay with different looking characters. I guess Nintendo isn't for everyone... not for me anyway - The graphics do look nice, so I can see how some would be excited.

Aghama

Trigger

Yeah - I'm aware... I admit that I like one particular game with the same dopey gameplay. In fact - bigger laugh is that they are developing the next Sonic for the Gamecube. I'll still pass - sonic has never been a reason for me to buy a console.

Aghama

Dude, if you want a system w/o "dopey gameplay", stick with the PC. Exactly what console games are you thinking of that are deeper than Goldeneye or Zelda?

Trigger

I don't know - I probably will stick with the PC, but the X-Box looks promising to me... Nintendo has all these cutesy cartoon characters that make cutesy noises "tee hee" "ha haa" like babies or telletubbies or something - X-Box just looks a bit cooler to me. Just a personal opinion... sorry. I think Halo will be quantum leaps deeper than Goldeneye and from what I've seen of the changes they made to Zelda - I've got a baby spoon that is deeper than Zelda.

Aghama

What in the hell definition of "deep" are you using? Graphical detail? Halo is a pretty FPS, saying it's even close to as deep as Goldeneye is...ill-informed.