This is unprecedented, since Nintendo has always maintained a single Zelda game for each of its console from the SNES onwards, although it did break that tradition with the N64 thanks to the wonderful response the title received. While the last Zelda installment, The Twilight Princess, was a launch game for the Wii in November of 2006, things might be different this time round since the Wii looks as though it is here to stay for at least a couple more years, so there is nothing quite like giving the video game industry a much needed kick in the pants with another Zelda release next year. Come on now, who doesn’t love Zelda? I played The Phantom Hourglass on my DS and could not put the game down from day one. This is one prediction I would love to see it come true.

Source: Gamespot

The Xbox 360 Pro bundle is tipped to be released on October 9th, while there will be an Elite equivalent lined up later next month, specifically on October the 23rd. Don’t expect to go home with heavier wallets though as you won’t see any price drops – instead, you’ll have to settle for a couple of free games which isn’t necessarily a bad thing after all. Chances are whoever picks up either bundle will also be willing to part with more dough by scoring themselves a copy of the record breaking Halo 3 that was released earlier this week.

What’s more interesting is word of a new Xbox 360 Core model that will roll out at the end of next month, boasting a HDMI port, a wireless controller, a 256MB memory card, as well as five XBLA arcade games (Boom-Boom Rocket, Pac-man, Uno, Feeding Frenzy, and Luxor 2) on a single disc. To sweeten the deal, this package will retail for the standard Core price of $279.99. Sounds like October is an interesting month to look out for.

Source: Joystiq

In all seriousness, what is the definition of ’sport’? Do you actually have to sweat when it comes to a sporting event? Does chess consitute as a sport? To answer the last question, it should be in the affirmative as it is included in the Olympic Games. Sports purists might disagree as to what a real sporting event is, leaning more towards the physical aspect that involves a whole lot of sweat and training to build up one’s body. In the same vein, is gaming a sport? It doesn’t really matter what the answer is though with the introduction of the Headshot Gamer Bar.

This unique energy bar targets gamers who think they have actually lost a whole bunch of calories while clicking away furiously throughout the night. In reality, they are more prone to dehydration due to sweaty palms and the huge amount of Coke to supplement their gaming sessions. This toffee-flavored Guarana Infused Candy Bar touts to support the hardcore gaming community, giving you a (presumably) sugar rush without tasting like crap.

I don’t suppose gamers are the only ones who have exclusive access to this energy bar, as it sure won’t hurt to munch on one as a midday snack. Will gaming centers and Internet cafes carry this Gamer Bar soon? Only time will tell, but you know that Gaming Bars have hit big time when Jonathan “Fatal1ty” Wendel munches on one while winning the next gaming championship. There is no word on pricing, although the Gaming Bar will be released sometime late next month.

Source: Uncommon Loot

Internet speculation has shown that this title will most probably be relegated to the PlayStation Store download section instead of being a full-fledged retail release. Plenty of people are placing their bets that this title is known as Warhawk, as it was not seen in public since the last E3 showing. Of course, like any other rumor worth its salt, you won’t be able to believe it until an official press statement clears up matters.

A representative from Sony apparently claims that this rumor was created by an ex-worker who thought the game should have gone his way instead. What do you guys think? Will Warhawk make it to retail stores when (and if) it is finally complete, or will it take the download highway instead? I suppose waiting a little longer for a polished title is worth the price, instead of receiving a copy of a rushed game that is littered with bugs.

Source: Rumor Reporter

The Adult Link comes in a rather menacing pose, featuring him winding up for his signature spin attack that everybody loves. In addition, he has the Master Sword and Hylian Shield to complete the hardcore adventurer look. The Adult Link is cast in top-notch poly-stone, where he is lovingly and carefully hand finished and hand painted, ensuring that no two statues are exactly alike. The fact that only 2,500 of such statues will be produced makes it all the more desirable.

Pre-orders can be placed today for $109.99 a pop. Each purchase will come packed within a foam interior to protect it against bumps and knocks during shipping, while there is a card of authenticity inside the box just in case you want to part with it many decades down the road on eBay to pay for your college tuition. The Adult Link was conceptualized by artist Goran Sadojevich, while the base he is standing on is the brainchild of James West.

Source: Ubergizmo

There has been an awful lot of fuss about how complicated joypads have become, especially with Nintendo Wii having such a radically different control method to the norm. Having grown up through a series of different forms of joystick and joypad, most gamers don’t give the number of buttons a second thought.

Personally, I wonder how much of this perceived problem lies with the controller and how much lies at the type of games that are available. I would suggest that the biggest problems to getting grandma, old uncle Jed and your kid sister playing are that they don’t want to play the games that are currently available.

Look at something like Nintendogs for example, a game popular with young females. How much of the popularity of that game lies with the subject matter, and how much with the fact that it’s controlled via a stylus and voice commands? Would the game have been just as popular had it been controlled by a standard D-Pad and buttons configuration?

That said, I’m not one to stand in the way of progress, so if Microsoft have some funky new way of controlling games then bring it on! As already mentioned the Wii controller is already causing a huge buzz, and things like EyeToy and the Buzz! controllers on PS2 have also been popular in getting traditional non-gamers playing. But take a step back and look at the types of games controlled by these methods and you’ll see that by far they differ from the normal genres of driving, beating people up or shooting things.

We’ll start with Microsoft’s Peter Moore, who seems to be making the biggest ass of himself lately. His most reason public comment was “Nobody is concerned anymore about backwards compatibility.” Well, maybe you’re not Peter, but what about all those gamers who have upgraded to the 360 and want to play some of their old XBox games? Admittedly a lot of people probably will only ever try and play a couple of old XBox titles at most, and most may never even try, so to a certain extent he has a point, but if they really felt that way then why bother trying to provide any support for it in the first place?

Next we go to Sony’s Phil Harrison, who when quizzed over why Sony had copied Nintendo with putting motion sensing into the PS3 pad had this to say. “When we brought the PlayStation to the market in 1994, we introduced real time 3D graphics for the first time. When Nintendo launched its N64 in 1996 it also had 3D graphics, did we say, Nintendo stole our idea!? Obviously not.“. No Phil, it’s true, Sony didn’t say that, but then that would be tantamount to saying you invented 3D graphics, which quite obviously you didn’t. This was a pretty bad example to give, so maybe it would have been better to be honest and say, “Sure we copied, but it’s a good idea so why not“.

Less well known I know, but here’s CEO of Infinium Labs, Greg Koler. “We are on a fast pace crossing over the threshold of manufacturing and marketing our first product, the Phantom Lapboard“. For those that don’t know the Phantom has so far truly lived up to it’s name by never actually making a solid appearance. In essence it’s a PC for the living room that connects via broadband and can stream all it’s gaming content down as required from the Web. It’s been in development hell for at least three years if my recollection is correct! Truly a fast pace, eh Greg?

Back to Microsoft, this time UK head Neil Thompson who had this to say when commenting on Sony forcing people into having to buy a Blu-Ray drive when they buy a PS3. “If gamers over time choose to go to HD-DVD we’re going to give them the choice to do that, but we’re not going to force them to buy that day one“. Since when did the average gamer have any say over what format their games were delivered on? Last time I checked, never. Fine, you haven’t made me buy a drive that may turn out to be useless, that much is true, but ultimately it’s going to be up to the movie studios and manufacturers of HD-DVD or Blu-Ray players as to which format will finally emerge triumphant. Sure, most consumers will vote with their wallets, so it’s likely that whichever format presents best value for money is going to win in the end, but that’s not down to us gamers, is it?

Finally, we’ll end with the king of crazy statements, Mr. Ken Kuturagi. Here’s his latest slice of wisdom. “If you consider the PlayStation 3 a toy, then yes, it is an expensive toy. However, it is more than a toy. It is a PlayStation 3. And it is the only PlayStation 3. I hope that those who understand this will gladly purchase it.“. Yes Ken. You’d better hope a lot of those that don’t understand that statement buy it as well, otherwise you won’t be selling very many…

Presumably the game must have been popular somewhere though, for a sequel duly followed, and another and another, until most sane people started to cry, “Why are they releasing more of this stuff? I didn’t play the first version, what makes them think I’m going to play the fifth iteration?”

And so we come to the present day and the news that yet another Army Men game is to be released. Ho hum. OK, I’ll put hand on heart here and say I’ve never actually played an Army Men game in any more than demo form, so maybe I’m missing out on a classic selection of games, but somehow, I don’t think so.

Maybe I’m being a little unfair singling out the poor old Army Men, as there are far worse games, but whilst some publishers just rely on churning out the same game year after year we’re going to be getting deeper and deeper into the pool of mediocrity. I urge all of you to vote with your wallets and try out some of the more original games out there, such as any of the Katamari games, Shadow of the Colossus, Trauma Center: Under The Knife or Pheonix Wright Ace Attorney.

The biggest problem with save points is when the game doesn’t allow you to save at any point you wish, but instead only allows you to save at certain points determined by the games designer. I have no problem with this idea in general, indeed as a programmer it is often very useful to limit saving or checkpointing the game to certain positions as it makes the entire job much easier. However, there is no excuse for the stupid positioning of save points that you sometimes seem to come across.

How many times have you made great progress in a game, then spend the next 15 minutes praying that there’s a save point soon so you don’t have to repeat the last half hours gameplay? Equally annoying is when you need to go and do something else, and face the agonising decision between keeping playing or switching the console off and having to play it all over again.

Another example is when you have a particularly tricky section of the game, for example a boss fight, which occurs after a whole bunch of tricky platform jumps. The game has let you save your position at the beginning of the platform section, but doesn’t let you save before the boss, so every attempt at the boss means repeating the platform jumping again before you get another attempt.

Save points which also save your current energy levels can be annoying if not handled carefully. In some cases you’ll fight your way through to a save point, losing half your energy in the process. You save, overwriting your previous save with full energy. The next section is really tough, and having to attempt it with only half energy is really annoying. Guess what! You can’t go back because you overwrote your saved game, and nowhere nearby is there any way of replenishing your energy. After 20 attempts and realising it’s just going to be too hard to get through this stage the game is rapidly heading towards the “I’m not playing that again” pile, or you’re off to try and find a cheat for the game. Ideally, all save points would allow you to replenish your energy fully before saving.

Pretty much any action game you care to mention will contain a Boss encounter at some point, generally in the form of a bigger, harder to kill character, or some massive spaceship or the like. Such sections are usually also graphical highlights, and are intended to give the player the feel they are making progress through the game. So, what happens “When Boss Battles Go Wrong?”. Here’s a list of some of the major problems with Boss Battles.

• The Difficulty Spike – Up until the Boss you’ve been making steady progression through the game. There’s been the odd area you’ve had trouble with, but otherwise things are going well. Then you reach the Boss, and suddenly the game you’ve been enjoying becomes the game you despise. All of a sudden you’re plunged into a sequence of restarts because if you can’t get rid of the Boss, then you’re not going to see the next part of the game. Normally with these Bosses it’s the case that you know exactly what it is you have to do, but achieving that goal seems near impossible because the Boss moves too fast, or attacks too frequently.
• The War of Attrition – This is a Boss Battle which is actually pretty simple to beat, but is made difficult by the addition of too much repetition. In this instance, the Boss will have an attack pattern which consists of a sequence of relatively easy to dodge moves, then a state where you can have a go at attacking. This is fine for say, 3 times, but by the 10th attempt you’ve got a bit bored and start to make mistakes. A variation here is that you make one mistake, which then plummets you down a ravine killing you instantly, and forcing a restart that way.



• The Energy Zapper – This is a Boss who takes relatively little damage from your attacks, yet is capable of reducing your health bar by half with a single swipe. OK, if you were to meet a 40 foot giant robot for real then a single attack would probably kill you outright, but that’s not the point. My in-game character is pretty hard most of the time, and can jump his own height, so why can this Boss take him out so easily? Quite often these Bosses could be remedied just by allowing the player some way of getting back some energy.
• The Rejuvenating Boss – This is most unfair if not dealt with properly. You attack the Boss and knock his energy bar down to half. All of a sudden he flies across to the other side of the arena, glows a bit, and his energy bar starts to creep back up. By the time you reach him most of his energy has been regained, and you’re back to square one. Oh, except you’ve lost a quarter of your energy already and you can’t get any health back.
• The Random Factor – Also known as The Unpredictable Boss. This is the Boss who has three different attack patterns which are chosen from at random. More often than not you find one of them easier to deal with than the other two, but the Boss will somehow realise this and always pick one of the other two attacks.

This is by no means a complete list, but for the most part you’re guaranteed to have come across a Boss that fits into one (or more) of theses catagories at some point. For me, a great example of how Boss Battles should be handled is with Shadow of the Colossus, a game consisting of nothing but Boss Battles! In this game you rarely have to restart a Boss encounter, just because you can normally always find somewhere to hide and regain your energy. Killing the Boss always involves the same mechanism of plunging your sword into a weak point, but the difficulty comes from work out how to trick the Colossus into letting you shimmy up his leg or jump onto his head in the first place. The Bosses here can still be annoying, but once you’ve worked them out, you can normally finish them off reasonably easily. Shadow of the Colossus may get a bit repetitive because of this, but at least you don’t end up shouting at the screen when you’ve had thirty attempts at the same part of the game, each time spending 5 minutes to get to the exact same point before getting killed!