Tag: News

No, this is not for sale, but it is definitely worth sharing.  James Gabbard has shared this awesome creation, which is fully playable and customizable.  The inspiration for a Super Smash Bros board game came from a Kotaku Photoshop Contest.  He simply took the contest to the next level, and it only took him a whole month to complete!  The player pieces seen in the video are the original twelve in their original art form and colored with your everyday colored pencil. 

The board is set up with levels that show big moment’s of Nintendo’s history in chronological order, so it will be as though you are making your way through history.  Not only that, but it has many references to jokes that any Nintendo fan will recognize. 

For more and a video on this board game, hit the jump!

You know what’s great? Fan-made musical arrangements based on hit video game classics. You know what’s even better? When the fans are actual video game music composers. Laura Shigihara was the composer for the popular Plants vs. Zombies, a game that received much praise for its addictive gameplay and awesome musical score, and she decided to hop on YouTube and deliver her own take on the Lost Woods Theme from The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. She added a little of her own flair to give the song a little longevity, and it’s really something special. Hit the jump for her video.

A Zelda game based on a sky theme may be all-new to the series, but sky settings and magical races that populated them aren’t. The Minish Cap introduced a race of sky dwellers known as the Wind Tribe who inhabited Hyrule in ancient times but at some undisclosed period in history left to live in the clouds. Twilight Princess spoke of a Sky People, ancestors of the Hylians, who founded Hyrule’s culture before leaving it behind to take up residence in the heavens. Now we’re heading up to Skyloft, a sky continent high above the clouds that has been separated entirely from the surface world below.

Many have speculated on whether Skyloft has some connection to the Cloud Tops or to the City in the Sky, but now I’m going to explore how these possibilities might play out. Knowing Zelda tradition, we could see explicit connections, or we could get only vague hints and clues. Let’s break down the evidence we have, shall we?

As most of you are aware, Gamescom 2011 is currently taking place in Germany. Like any other gaming convention there is no shortage of cosplayers, and since Zelda has such a big presence this year, there was no shortage of Zelda cosplayers.

One German cosplayer went around the show floor searching for and interviewing everyone they could find wearing a Zelda costume.

If you’re interested in cosplay, or just want an excuse to listen to people speaking in German, you can check out the resultant video inside.

Nintendo might not have had an official press conference at Gamescom 2011 this week, but they certainly made headlines. In addition, they made their presence known on the floor. Not only were there lots of demos to try out, but they even had a special Zelda 25th Anniversary wall covered in birthday cards from German fans who stopped by.

You can check out a gallery of pictures of Nintendo’s booth, along with the birthday greetings, after the jump.

There have been some pretty impressive-looking fan-made box art mockups for some Zelda games over the years. One of my favorites was the drop-dead gorgeous 3DS-Ocarina of Time 3D bundle, which included a gold-and-silver Hylian crest themed 3DS and some remixed art and logo work.

GoNintendo’s pulled together a bunch of fan-made box art for Skyward Sword, including a similar limited-edition package concept which bears strong thematic resemblance to the aforementioned Ocarina 3D piece. Obviously the logo used has been given some TLC, prominently featuring Phi as well as a “the” added to the title with a Master Sword-styled font for the “T.” There’s another couple boxes after the jump – one of which I think comes very close to what the actual packaging will look like. Head inside to see.

If the name Charles Martinet is alien to you, you might know him for being the voice of Mario.  The Italian plumber is known for his phrase “It’s-a-me, Mario!” just as much as his red hat.  But Charles plays the voice of many more Mario characters, like his brother Luigi and Toadsworth.

In the interview during Gamescom, Charles tells about his audition to become the voice of Mario.  He also talks about life before he became Mario, as well as a few hobbies he has for in between games.

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be the voice of one of gaming history’s most beloved characters? Hit the jump to learn a little!

Anyone who’s ever spent a considerable amount of their time scouring the internet for good quality fan-made work related to The Legend of Zelda series – gorgeous fan art and video tributes – would surely have occasionally pondered and even searched out the other end of the spectrum… something a little more ambitious, and a lot harder to find. Whether you’ve looked or not, rest assured, the existence of Zelda fan games is as real as the development of other fan projects related to other franchises such as Metroid and Mario. Having the ability to utilise one’s skills in programming, mapping, spriting, modelling, audio composition and project planning in the context of your favourite video game is an exciting prospect for some fans, and even with extremely limited resources, team members, time, budget and future profit, a number of aspiring game developers strive to the very end to keep their fan projects alive.

Albeit, many of these independent game developers also fail miserably. Some, worse than others. The most common scenario follows the young, hopeful game developer who envisions the perfect Zelda game, downloads a game-developing application, such as Blender or Game Maker, fiddles around to their heart’s content and composes something entirely unprofessional, only to abandon the project within the next few months. The alternative in this case is the completion of a less-than-average fan game, which exist in extraordinary numbers across the world wide internets, offering little enjoyment and serving no purpose apart from ultimately granting fan games with their poor status in the creative world. Having passion to create is one thing, but who’s got that kind of time and expertise to create something truly remarkable? And in complete knowledge that the end-project will indefinitely be unprofitable? No one would want to bother with fan games! That’s just crazy!

Well, welcome to planet Earth. Some people here are crazy. But crazy people happen to create some truly amazing work. And honestly, some of the Zelda fan games around the internet are nothing short of mind-blowing, capable of rivalling even Nintendo’s ideas and efforts. Read on to find out more.

As you may or may nor already know, Gamescom 2011 is currently going on in Germany. While Nintendo does not have a press conference at the event, they do have representatives on the floor. They also have a Skyward Sword demo.

There’s a video online showing some off-screen gameplay of the demo. While, it’s pretty much the same as the demo we saw at E3, there’s something different about it. They’ve had a couple of months to polish things, and while it may just be the fact that I haven’t watched Skyward Sword footage since E3, I think it looks better. The lighting looks fantastic, the best I’ve ever seen from a Zelda game. While, I prefer the Twilight Princess style, the lightning was simply not as advanced. After all, Twilight Princess was originally for the GameCube.

Jump inside to watch the demo footage.

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