3DS; £39.99; cert 12+; Nintendo

Ocarina of Time is a game about curiosity and the joy of discovery. It’s not simply a role-playing game that includes a bit of exploration, it is a game that asks you to remember – as Miyamoto famously does – what it was like when you were a kid and your neighbourhood was a place of wonder and mystery, and there was something interesting around every corner. The land of Hyrule can still take you back there if you let it.

But you could, of course say, well, this is Ocarina of Time – again. Another nostalgic re-release for an industry suffocating under the weight of technical demands and budgetary heft. But it is also the perfect reminder, in an era of relentlessly governed, ruthlessly prescriptive corridor shooters that there is something profoundly right about giving players a world to explore, a few hints and tips on its rules and the freedom to go out there and get hopelessly lost.

The story, of course, is still the guiding line – with young hero Link charged by Princess Zelda to see off the threat of the evil Ganondorf. But there are multiple side-quests, some that you just discover, others handed to you by the cast of idiosyncratic characters (I think these challenges represent a child’s view of adult-imposed chores – at once filled with import but also mystifying and irrelevant). Everything has to be discovered, everything spins out from the hub world that is Hyrule field, a vast meadow that represents the game’s and the player’s imagination.

And the sense of exploration is layered in on itself. It matters what time you get somewhere (thanks to a simple but vital day and night system), and there are the masks that can be loaned from a shop in the market and worn to elicit new responses from characters. How these systems sit on top of each other without becoming unfathomably complex and repetitive only Nintendo knows.

The controls, once so carefully mapped to the N64′s unique controller, have been expertly converted to the handheld console. Players are still able to assign items and weapons to any button they like, but it’s also possible to access your entire inventory – as well as the camera controls – from the touchscreen, so there are multiple set-ups available. Aiming the bow or catapult is achieved with the left trigger, though you can also opt to use the motion controls, moving the 3DS itself to aim, which is remarkably intuitive.

In the midst of combat, I sometimes found it difficult using the small 3DS analogue controller to leap and strafe, while aiming and intermittently protecting myself with the shield (using the right trigger) – everything’s so bunched up on the device, as opposed to the comparatively enormous N64 pad. But, of course, another beauty of Zelda is its generosity; for the first few hours enemies are pretty soft and there are always plentiful heart symbols to replenish your health. This is not Demon’s Souls.

Visually, Nintendo has pulled off a clever trick here – the game resembles your memory of Zelda on the N64, but it has been enhanced to match modern standards of clarity and resolution. It retains the cartoonish impressionism and the slightly drained patina, but the textures are more complex and many subtle effects have been tweaked. It does not look as good as, say, Kid Icarus promises too, but that is part of its charm: playing Ocarina of Time feels like nostalgic reverie, and the iconic visuals play into that.

The 3D capabilities of the device don’t add much of practical use to the game, though they do help to enrich the sense of immersion in certain locations. Hyrule field, for example, becomes a much more impressive expanse, while set-piece locations like the Spirit Temple are lent an architectural grandeur that the small screen would normal detract from. The animated sections, though, benefit most obviously – the lovely legend sequence, which shows the three goddesses leaving the Triforce behind, is a sumptuous, almost psychedelic, firework display of falling comets and expanding star fields that comes alive again in three dimensions.

The thing is, and this is way off-message as far as Nintendo is concerned, it doesn’t matter. Zelda is Zelda. The important element, alongside the textural updates, is the transportation to a handheld console. The pleasure is the same as the original handheld Zelda: Link’s Awakening way back on the Game Boy. It means the vast game can go everywhere with you; it means you can curl up with it in some shabby old armchair, preferably in front of an open fire.

There’s something to be said about experiencing a game on its original platform, with its original interface – but Ocarina of Time on the 3DS is exactly the right way to update a treasured game, and it makes one of the fundamental achievements of this industry available to millions of people who never saw the original and aren’t prepared to hit eBay for an N64.

Because be in no doubt, Ocarina of Time is one of those rare works of art that transcends taste and simply is great. It should be a set text on every game design course on the planet. It should be shown to every studio that thinks the term “cinematic” is somehow exactly synonymous with “linear” – indeed, it should be shown to every studio that thinks “cinematic” is the loftiest aim of interactive entertainment.

It isn’t. The aim is to construct a world – however mannered, however repetitive and surreal – and make it worth exploring. All games should be about curiosity and surprise; it’s not just violence and lulz that make Rockstar’s titles so successful. The likes of Red Dead and GTA (alongside the works of Valve, I think) are the true western heirs to the Zelda hegemony. I wonder how Skyward Sword will fair in this context? I wonder how anything will ever better Ocarina of Time in its small but vital corner of this bloated industry.

Rating: 5/5

Games

3DS

Nintendo

3D

Keith Stuart

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Are Nintendo and Microsoft about to announce their next generation consoles? The industry certainly seems ready for it

In a quiet news week, several months before the massive E3 event, rumours are starting to circulate about the next generation of Wii and Xbox consoles. While the manufacturers themselves are keeping quiet, everyone knows that hardware research and development is an ongoing concern that doesn’t stop for a few years when a new machine launches.

We also know that the console industry usually works to a five-year cycles. Sure, the last generation was so hideously expensive for Microsoft and Sony, the duo have sought to hold off a generational leap by releasing new, slimmer versions of their machines, and by introducing motion control hardware. But progress is inevitable – and that looks to be all the evidence that game sites need to start speculating.

So we’re overdue a refresh. But is one actually on the way? Let’s take a look at the facts.

Wii 2

The rumour: That Nintendo will announce a follow-up to the Wii at E3 in Los Angeles this summer. The device will feature a Blu-ray drive, a quad-core processor and a built-in LED projector, presumably so you can project games onto a wall rather than relying on a large TV display. There are also murmours of 3D support.

The evidence: A lot of the information feeding this gossip comes from an IGN article posted last December, which gathers a range of vague and cryptic quotes from Nintendo personel and third-party developers about the possibility of a Wii sequel. The article includes a chart that shows how each Nintendo hardware iteration since the launch of the NES in 1985 has had roughly a five-year lifespan. And as the Wii was launched in November 2006, we’re due a change-up.

Elsewhere, some sources have observed that a previous title in Nintendo’s massively popular Zelda series – Twilight Princess – was released for both the GameCube and the Wii in a sort of cross-generational baton pass. And Nintendo has a new Zelda title, Skyward Sword, due for release this year. Could Big N be looking to try the same promotional trick twice? Charlotte Martyn, editor of unofficial Nintendo magazine Ngamer, reckons not, according to a quote on Tech Radar, but suggests that, “this year’s E3 would seem the logical time for Wii’s successor to be confirmed, given the dwindling release list for the current console”.

The doubts: The Blu-ray, processor and projector details seem to come from an anime and manga news site named 3anime, which opens its new story by claiming that Nintendo has ‘confirmed’ a successor to the Wii. It hasn’t – not even a bit – and that rather puts the rest of the information into question. Also, Nintendo has never filled its hardware with expensive cutting edge components, so Blu-ray players, quad-core processors and bespoke projectors would seem to be red herrings. As Time Magazine’s Techland blog points out, “projected video doesn’t seem to line up to the company’s commitment to motion gaming. Standing in front of a projector would just make a big shadow.”

The verdict: Forget the tech specs, that’s utter conjecture. But it would make sense for Nintendo to announce Wii 2 this year, with a 2012 launch. The company can capitalise and build on the hype surrounding its 3DS launch, and with Wii sales falling, it can reconnect with its huge mainstream audience. “I’d be very surprised if Nintendo didn’t make a hardware announcement at E3,” says Tim Ingham, editor of game news site, CVG.

“Microsoft and Sony have aggressively moved into the space that Nintendo created, and it can’t compete with hardware that’s becoming outdated. And, of course, people just like to buy new shiny things, it gets as shallow as that. Wii is no longer new and shiny, it’s not something that your broadsheet or lifestyle journalists want to write about.”

But there’s another factor that should be prompting Nintendo to go with an E3 announcement. Yesterday, CVG ran an interview with Christofer Sundberg, the co-founder of Just Cause developer, Avalanche. He argued very strongly that the next generation of consoles would not feature optical disc drives. It’s a point Philip Oliver, co-founder of Blitz Games Studios, has made before: physical media is dead.

Sony is heading in this direction, both through the PSP Go and the recently announced NGP console, which will use flash memory cards, rather than discs. But Nintendo could well be in the best position to bring about the digital distribution revolution. As Ingham points out: “Nintendo is best positioned to go digital-only. It has a client base that’s used to playing games on devices like the iPhone; its core uses are comfortable with downloading smaller games digitally and using these as their main source of play.”

So, with a reasonably powerful Wii 2, boasting a strong digital download service and HD visuals (a must considering the huge rise in LCD TV sales since the Wii), Nintendo can shape the next-gen conversation without resorting to cutting edge hardware components.

Xbox 720

The rumour: Microsoft is gearing up to announce a sequel to Xbox 360, widely nicknamed the Xbox 720 – you know, because that’s two full revolutions. Or something.

The evidence: This one has come about due to a series of job listings on the Microsoft website (see Engadget), looking for hardware engineers, specifically Xbox-capable hardware engineers, to join a team that’s currently, “defining and delivering next generation console architectures”. That would very much appear to be the smoking gun of console rumour confirmation.

Also, developers seem to be openly discussing the prospect of new hardware – always a good sign that something is imminent. In that CVG interview with Christofer Sundberg, he said this on the subject of new Xbox hardware:

“It’s actually quite an interesting subject for us – because when we worked on Just Cause 1, the Xbox 360 came out [at around the same time]. We had to do the 360 version in six months. It’s an interesting place again right now, where the projects we’re working on today might be coming out on [Microsoft's] next technology.”

This reflects a comment made last year by Bungie community director Brian Jarrard who said the studio was planning its next title, “to potentially span multiple hardware generations.”

The doubts: Okay, so Microsoft is clearly recruiting for its console R&D division; but we’ve already established that console manufacturers – by their very definition – continue to work on furture hardware throughout the lifespan of the previous product. Indeed, the fact that the team size is only just ramping up would suggest that we might have to wait a little while for the results. Also, Microsoft has stated very publicly, that it’s supporting the Xbox 360 until 2015. Now, that doesn’t mean we won’t see a follow-up until 2015 (Sony is still selling the PS2 five years into the PS3 lifecycle), but it probably means Microsoft has until at least 2013 to start getting serious about a new machine.

The verdict: There’s nothing really here to suggest that an announcement is imminent, and there was a major hardware launch last year: Kinect. “The rhetoric coming out Microsoft is largely, well, Kinect is your new console, it is the next generation,” says Ingham. “That’s fine and a good defensive position, but it’s more about Microsoft’s market growth than it is about technology.”

However, there are some compelling arguments as to why Microsoft should be considering an upgrade. “There are developers out there who are keen to get their teeth into new hardware,” says Ingham. “There was an interesting quote from Cevat Yerli, the boss of Crytek, who said that the console market has remained static for so long that the high-end PCs are effectively a generation ahead in terms of hardware. So it’s little wonder that some teams are getting slightly restless. The in-house studios, especially, are probably thinking, ‘we’re sick of the same old hardware, we want something new’.”

Developer pester power should not be overlooked here. It’s crucial to the console manufacturers to have the best studios onside, and the best studios tend to be the ones with incredibly bright, ambitious coders who want to try themselves against bleeding edge hardware. Sony famously toured the world’s most talented development houses in 1994 taking its PlayStation demos with it – the company knew it had to get the dev community interested before even thinking about consumers.

Of course, Xbox 360 is still selling, and Kinect is performing well with over 8m units sold. But then, there’s no reason why Kinect shouldn’t be compatible with the Xbox 720. Or whatever it will be called, whenever it is announced …

PlayStation 4

A bit more quiet at the moment. In an interview with Japanese site PC watch last month, Sony Computer Entertainment President Kazuo Hirai stated this about the PS3: “Every year, we reveal and release new features. That’s why, we’re not deliberating on a PS4 or a next generation machine, whatever you call it.” (Kotaku has a translation here). R&D is certainly continuing on PS4, but the company is adamant that it’s concentrating on PS3 and NGP this year.

Games

Xbox

Wii

Controversy

PlayStation

PS3

Kinect

DS

Keith Stuart

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Latest game in Activision’s Call of Duty franchise poised to become biggest-selling title of all

As premieres go, it was unconventional. Held in a cavernous temporary structure in London’s Battersea Power Station, rather than the cosy confines of Leicester Square, the assembled celebrities – along with the likes of Sophie Ellis-Bextor, Alex Reid, Duncan James from Blue, Goldie, Calum Best, Gail Porter plus, ahem, the girls from The Only Way Is Essex – for once happily mixed with the non-VIPs.

But that was because rather than celebrating the launch of a film, they were participating in the video game industry’s annual moment in the pop-culture limelight – the launch of a new Call of Duty game, this time subtitled Black Ops.

It would be easy to scoff at the lack of mega-celebrities, but the attraction of the event was obvious – Call of Duty: Black Ops has a good chance of being crowned the most successful entertainment launch of all time. Its predecessor, last year’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, is the current holder of the Guinness World Record for most successful entertainment launch of all time, with day-one global sales of £242.4m, comfortably beating any previous movie, as well as previous game holders Grand Theft Auto IV and Halo 3.

But instead of posing, the celebrities got stuck into demonstrating their credentials as gamers – an online match-up between European celebs saw Manchester City and England footballer Wayne Bridge come a close second to his Dutch counterpart, beating the rest of Europe in the process.

George Lamb compered proceedings, which included a tantalising glimpse of the game’s early stages (games are too long to play in full at such an event) and culminated with a live set from Tinie Tempah.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 sold more than 20m copies worldwide, staggeringly grossing over $1bn (£618m), and Activision hopes that Black Ops will do even better than that. Few would accuse it of over-optimism. Analyst Nick Parker, director at Parker Consulting Ltd, says: “With a growing installed base of consoles in homes, especially after the recent price drops, Black Ops could very well become the best selling Call of Duty iteration.”

The glitzy premiere was backed up by the midnight opening of more than 400 stores around the UK – including 70 branches of HMV – at which fanatical gamers queued to be among the first to get their hands on the game, which casts players as various US military black operatives during the Cold War era, in locations such as Russia, Cuba, Laos and Vietnam.

Many retailers enticed gamers to their stores at midnight with discounts if they either bought or traded in games from the current charts. Cheekily, HMV, for example, is offering CoD: Black Ops for £7.99 if you trade in a copy of the recently released Medal Of Honor, published by Activision’s arch-rival Electronic Arts.

On paper, it was by no means a foregone conclusion that Black Ops would achieve the success enjoyed by Modern Warfare 2. Activision employs two developers, Infinity Ward and Treyarch, to ensure that a new version of Call of Duty arrives every year, and Black Ops is made by Treyarch, previously the less favoured of the two. But Treyarch has upped its game, concentrating solely on Black Ops and employing a massive team of more than 200 people, and previews of the game have been overwhelmingly positive.

The games industry could use the boost provided by Black Ops, as well as this week’s high-profile launch of Microsoft’s innovative body-sensing controller, Kinect. Retailers have reported games sales as being down on 2009 so far, although we have yet to move into the crucial Christmas sales period.

But Andy Payne, chairman of UKIE, the UK’s trade body for games publishers bullishly argues that games consoles have greater penetration in UK homes than last year. “Black Ops, Football Manager 2011, Fallout New Vegas, FIFA 11, Fable 3 and others have boosted the market for AAA boxed games releases, for sure, and Kinect and Sony’s Move will refresh everyone’s hardware,” he says.

“But, given the huge audiences for games on all formats, 2010 has been a year of unprecedented activity and focus. The industry has widened beyond all expectations and will continue to expand exponentially in 2011.”

If Black Ops does out-gross Modern Warfare 2, it will suggest that the argument that video games are relatively immune to recession holds up, because people still buy products which offer long periods of entertainment. In terms of quality, the games industry certainly isn’t slacking, with the titles Payne mentioned – plus the hotly anticipated Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit and Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood, followed by the likes of Gran Turismo 5, The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword and Dead Space 2 early next year – all deserving to sell well.

But Call of Duty: Black Ops looks nailed on for the coveted Christmas number one slot, which was snaffled so comfortably by Modern Warfare 2 last year that bookmaker Paddy Power paid out early.

Although the all-format FIFA 11, Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood and Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit could well be worth each-way bets. Things, at least, are looking rosy for gamers this Christmas.

Games

Xbox

Microsoft

PS3

Steve Boxer

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PS3; £39.99; cert 7+; Southpeak Games

With the current fascination with the 80s, 3D Dot Game Heroes seems a timely if low-key arrival. Best seen as a homage to the 8-bit era, with gameplay firmly rooted in the NES classic Legend of Zelda, 3DDGH looks and plays like nothing else around at the moment.

The plot takes the familiar Japanese arcade adventure format, as your chunky pixellated hero tries to stop the dark king Onyx from conquering a 2D world reluctantly forced into the 3D age. Before you even start, you can select from a large range of Lego-like designs, editing them pixel by pixel if you choose. Disappointingly, despite coming in many breeds (ninja, dragon, mage etc) they all move and fight in much the same way, with swords being the weapon of choice. These are wielded by using the analogue stick to swing and range from your basic prodder to enormous, Soul-Calibur style weapons that can dominate the screen if your health is sufficient.

You can also unlock other weapons by locating orbs, spread across six themed dungeon areas, so expect to collect speed boots, bombs, bows and grappling hooks, some of which are essential to negotiating the level that follows and the Boss character waiting at the end.

The game takes the form of an overworld punctuated by dungeons; the former filled with hidden dangers but hiding gold and other bonus items. However, because this overworld is so visually featureless you soon feel punished for the developer’s shortcomings than your own, while formulaic dungeon design soon makes these stages seem repetitive. It’s also worth mentioning that the trial version we reviewed was prone to crashing at regular intervals and the graphics took a noticeable frame-rate hit in some battles. Hopefully, these glitches should be sorted in the final release.

So granted, 3DGH is great to look with a difficulty curve that rises sharply to reward mastering its controls and perspective. However, by aping Zelda’s gameplay so closely, the developers merely show how far they have to go to rival Nintendo’s design skills – even with a formula that’s more than 20 years old. At times, you long for more Sam and Max-style irreverence to a subject so well suited to it. Which is not to say 3DDGH is not amusing, but they’re more in-jokes for retro fans of a certain age than genuinely laugh-out-loud moments. 3DDGH is still worth a look but it runs out of ideas and impetus all too quickly.

Rating: 3/5

Games

PlayStation

Sony

Mike Anderiesz

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Matt Casamassina is moving to the iPhone maker. What does Apple think he can change, though?

Yeah, let’s see Apple match that. Photo by Thomas Duchnicki :: Location Scout on Flickr. Some rights reserved

Matt Casamassina, of the IGN gaming site, is leaving it to join Apple:

“Beginning early May, I will join Apple as global editorial games manager, App Store. In a nutshell, I will be leading the charge for games on the App Store, so whether you browse through iTunes, iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad, the games content you see will be handpicked and organized by me and my team. I couldn’t be happier.”

Although he might need to brush up on the difference between ownership and being in charge: “Anybody who has read my work through the years will know that I’ve long been a huge Nintendo fan, but if there is one company that could entice me away from covering Mario and Zelda it’s the one owned by Steve Jobs.” Errr, actually, Jobs runs the company. Shareholders own it. But, you know, easy mistake.

The commenters are positive – and amazed: “I’ve been reading your material since you first began at IGN, when I was ohhhh, about 11. I’m 24 now, and to think I won’t be reading anything from you on IGN is quite weird,” says the first. There are plenty of requests to review one more game…

Casamassina specialised in Nintendo game reviews; Wikipedia tells us that in 1997 (aged 21) he started as editor of the N64 website which then became the Nintendo 64 section of IGN.

You can still find his IGN articles.

What though does Apple want with him? “Global editorial games manager” is an interesting title, but is Apple really just wanting to have someone who chooses what the store should tout?

More useful, perhaps, to see this in the context of the competition between Apple and Nintendo over gaming. The Nintendo DS, as we know, is far and away the best-selling handheld console. But Apple has ambitions there – at least in the form of its iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad (the iPhone OS platform). Nintendo’s US president Regie Fils-Aime was none too positive about the iPhone OS in a recent interview in which he also denied that he was seeing any effect on DSi sales from iPhone OS:

“Apple “is not having an impact on Nintendo when you look at our business, our volume, our hardware, our software,” Fils-Aime said. “I’ve seen data that suggestions that while consumers are constantly downloading Apps, they play with them for a few times and then they are moving on to the next thing.”

“Clearly it doesn’t look like their platform is a viable profit platform for game development because so many of the games are free versus paid downloads.”

“Fils-Aime believes that gamers will stick with Nintendo’s portables over Apple’s because in the end the gaming experiences are very different.”

“If our games represent a range between snacks of entertainment and full meals depending on the type of game, (Apple’s) aren’t even a mouthful, in terms of the gaming experience you get.”

Is the point behind Casamassina’s hiring to change that? Might be interesting to keep a watch.

Nintendo

Apple

Games

iPad

iPhone

Charles Arthur

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Jennifer Allen of TheGameReviews gives her verdict on the likelihood of the new Zelda title hitting Wiis this year, a new Epic game being unveiled at this year’s E3 conference, and whether or not NeoGeo games are coming to the PlayStation Network. Slim-PS3.com is updated regularly per day with the latest console news and reviews.