The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword

Redemption has arrived. Nintendo once again surprises friends and foes alike, and delivers exceptionally like the game designers they are.

The wait has been quite long, only comparable towards the time between Link's Awakening and Ocarina of Time's releases. But Skyward Sword has finally been released, and it is the ultimate way for the Wii to blastoff into history, and the amazing gaming year that 2011 was.

There are so many changes towards the established action adventure formula, I don't even know where to start. Visually, it is inspired by Impressionism. Gamers and journalists have simply called it a mix between Wind Waker and Twilight Princess's styles instead. This is one of the great standards to see nowadays, seeing that many Zelda games simply look so different from each other.

The orchestral soundtrack that was at first used for the Super Mario Galaxies has now been fully used in here, allowing for epic, dramatic and interesting songs to appear all over the place. Flying around above the clouds while you hear a motivating song is an effective, atmospheric experience.

Seeing the new fluent control surrounding swordplay instantly reminded me of a little obscure game called Die By the Sword, developed by one of the teams responsible for the present Call of Duty franchise. That was no doubt an experimental game, as it is the only game from the 90's I recall having similar swordplay, which of course plays much better now on the Wii.

It successfully sets itself apart from the other Zelda entries, for feeling as fresh as it possibly can, while at the same time keeping familiar in gameplay, story and design. I have skipped on Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks, so comparisons won't be made with those, as the handheld games are separated usually from consoles in several ways anyway. But I will play them in the future.

Skyward Sword is the largest Zelda game yet. And that does not mean that there is lots of traveling to be done. Sure, it's there, but the 3 main areas you will be venturing into are absolutely large enough by themselves, filled with level designs of entertainment. Not to mention the enjoyable sidequests awaiting you as well.

The Lanayru area is pretty much all the way so much fun to discover, and it's dungeons are probably the best the game has to offer. The Mining Facility dungeon is pretty much spot on when it comes towards a balance of puzzles, enemies, length and atmosphere. Only the boss was content at best, but that's still okay for me.

Difficulty wise, I am finally happy to say that this has been improved. Starting with 6 hearts as Link now is exactly one of the reasons the difficulty is better than before. It's not the hardest Zelda game by far, but it does not make fools out of veteran gamers playing their beloved Zelda games right now. As far as enemy design goes, this is spot on. Ghirahim is a great example.

One of the best things that have been designed are the sharpened controls though, thanks to Motion Plus, which is so underused by the way. Enough has been said about the swordplay. It feels much better than when Twilight Princess first started with the idea. But not even the Wii remote's innovating way of controlling are well presented, the interface and the buttons on the remote itself have been carefully selected as well, to allow for a consistent way of playing and navigating the game.

I also liked the little changes some of the traditional elements have gotten out of this entry, such as bombs being able to roll around the fields now. Boss battles implemented have been reasonable for most of them, which is good. But thinking about it in a broadway sense, The Legend of Zelda almost never has any great boss battles, except for final ones usually. But atleast this time, they are memorable, much more than earlier ones.

Which brings me to the end of this review. My thoughts and feelings surrounding this got more positive the further I got with the game's story(which is as far as prequel status and canon goes, pretty impressive), and I have full faith in the next entry, which of course has already been announced. What do you expect, with a reputation of the highest degree when it comes to video games?

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword is innovative, feels fresh, has an astounding presentation, crafts precise controls, is lengthy, challenging, explorable and most of all fun. How Link has progressed in all these years, my my.

Rating: 8.8

Upcoming Promising Movies in 2012

I wonder what movie will be nominated the most for the Oscars of 2011. Not that the Oscars are perfect and fair awards, as opinions differ naturally, but yet it would be interesting to see what movie will win this time. To be frank, there were no amazing movies last year for me. But perhaps gems will rise up once again during the awards, like The King's Speech(2010), coming out of nowhere.

The point of this post though is about upcoming promising movies. Normally, I despise trailers, because the chance of seeing spoilers unfold is larger than you think. However, some movies are hyped up so much, you cannot look away. Other movies's strength simply do not lie at their plots, so watching their trailers isn't that risky.

Prometheus

Ridley Scott returns in the director's seat 33 years later on back to the Alien franchise. Well, only partially, because the story will focus on some entire new mythology, set in the same universe. If it has suspense and great looks, then this movie has already won for me.

The Hobbit

The dwarf song in the trailer did it for me. In the book, which I have read, it simply didn't have that much power to me, looking at it's lyrics only. But once they sing, in here, while Gandalf wanders off in dangerous territories, it powerfully makes a mark in the minds of fans. While it will have a different atmosphere than it's epic trilogy sequel, the sense of adventuring will be perhaps much stronger.

The Dark Knight Rises

It's a no brainer for me. Whatever Christopher Nolan touches, he turns it into gold. From Following(1998) to Inception(2010), he has made several remarkable films, and several masterpieces. This final part of Batman's strongest reboot will most likely keep us amazed and respected about its way of filming, storytelling, performances and music for decades. Expect the magnificent unexpected touch of Nolan.

The Expendables 2

You cannot get more manly than this. It's all about the cast, and the plot is funny on it's own, because the first film displayed typical elements of an over the top action film from the 80's and early 90's. Veteran action actors will once again team up to fight evil, and this time, Arnold Schwarzenegger WILL have action, and this excites me already.

[REC] 3: Genesis

Third part of a Spanish zombie/infected/possessed franchise, Genesis looks to be effing crazy, perhaps even more because of the happy irony starting at a wedding. It promises to connect subtle clues from the first 2 movies, and then end off with a good setting for the final fourth film in the future. Honestly, I don't think this movie can fail for me personally, given how the sequel was just as good as the original. The [REC] films are simply some of the best modern zombie infested movies around.

The Tall Man

My number 1 promising movie goes to The Tall Man though, which does not have a trailer yet. I choose for this, simply because the director, Pascal Laugier, directed Martyrs(2008). It does not mean that this will be as horrific as that, but it is definitely enough reason for me to keep watch for an eventual release date for this. Next to Prometheus, The Tall Man sounds the best as a title for me.

Are you excited? And did I miss any film worthwhile to watch this year? Let me know!

Cosmos

You might have remembered my little literature based blog post in the middle of this year, where I asked the readers to recommend any titles of interest according to the subjects I tend to find interesting these days. Well, even after no one replied, I have read several books now, roughly about 3 per month. And it's such a great hobby that unfortunately the younger generations tend to avoid, unless it's their homework. There are always exceptions, of course.

I have read books by well known authors such as Richard Dawkins, Dan Brown and Friedrich Nietzsche, each of them specializing in very different topics, yet nonetheless had me profoundly intrigued. At other times I choose for a bit more obscure, religious based books, such as The Divine Comedy and The Satanic Bible. Admittedly, they left a dissapointing taste.

But this is just random rambling I am talking about now. Today, as my final blog of 2011, I would like to review one of the greatest modern scientific books, which is Cosmos, written by Carl Sagan.

Having seen the mini TV series a year ago already, I knew what kind of contents would be waiting inside. But the good man insured readers from the start that even though both media products are based on each other, they are different enough.

And after going through Cosmos a second time, now in literature form, I was once again astonished. It is one of those science books that gradually lets people open their minds about the entire cosmos we have dwelled in since the beginning.

The late Carl Sagan goes through various topics that focus on the universe, civilizations and science. Chapters about the enlightened city of Alexandria, the evolution of galaxies, cosmic explorations and great scientists such as Johannes Kepler, Christiaan Huygens and Isaac Newton make sure that Cosmos has a mixture of things to tell.

Perhaps the best parts about this book for me personally were about discovering each planet further; why Jupiter is so massive and enveloped with enormous amounts of hydrogen and helium, why Venus has such a dense atmosphere with it's thick clouds and why Mars has a red sky, a red surface and gigantic dust storms. Each planet unfolding bits of pieces, it's like opening up a present slowly, given by someone.

Comprehensing this information, especially when talking about how large the observable universe is, how stars, planets and life arise and how the laws of nature work can delightfully develop the mind. Sagan happens to be, one of the most charming scientists I have ever seen and read about. He is one of the key reasons I am inspired to learn as many reasonable things as I possibly can(as many others have done already) about science, astronomy, physics and other fields of knowledge.

My rating system for books is different than other forms of media. I use the star system, to see how it works out and to keep exchanging between the ways of reviewing.

Rating: ***(out of 4)

Finally, dear readers, I wish you all a very promising 2012, full of flourishing living moments.

The Factory

Officially called DeFabrique, however, for the sake of this blog, and any English readers, let's call it by it's title listed above.

As my current work location, the place is a large maze, as all the newcomers and temporary workers constantly tell us. Working as an assistent in the spot of catering has shown me varied days of work. Entertaining as it is, it has even inspired me to pursue getting a degree as a basic cook, and anything I am willing to do beyond, despite having a degree for a different field already.
 
It's history goes back as far as the early 20's, and to this day, it holds titles from it's age when it was still an actual factory. Titles such as The Warehouse(which is not the actual current warehouse), Silo 61 and the Jute Cellar are at first confusing, but then it becomes clear that they add to the industrial theme that is still being used.

The Factory is nowadays first and foremost an event organization, where large parties, congresses, auctions, fairs and meetings are planned, discussed and scheduled by our people. When many come over, hired employees are used for different professions such as security, paramedics and entertainers.

Impressive as the interior locations can be, each day being able to look quite different than before, the amount of work to be found in each event can be stunning. Personally, I am most of all responsible for the buffets for colleagues as well as other attending ones. Well known famous Dutch people may even be present, here and then.

Next to the events, The Factory is quite known for it's sub location surrounding most of the inner area, where the sport known as Go-Kart can be done. Starting with this sport at first, it was able to grow larger due to it's success and eventually become the popular party place to be, situated in the middle of the country.

It happens to be an unusual place where all sorts of things can happen, from regular to quite crazy. Personally, factories in general have had quite an interest upon me, so I am glad to be a part of this business.

Retro Blog: Super Smash Bros. Melee

The original title deserves as much attention as it's sequel, but I gotta hand it over to the sequel for introducing to me personally to a world of tournaments, or as it officially is called nowadays, e-sports. Still, talking about all three current games as a whole while focusing mainly on Melee shouldn't hurt.

Around the spring of 1999, a very curious looking fighting game was revealed in a Dutch gaming magazine. Called Super Smash Bros., I was instantly hooked as a young teenager, and I remember hanging up a picture of the game on the refrigerator in the kitchen. After obtaining the game, and after unlocking everything, the most cherishable memories I have with this game is having very good times every saturday afternoon with my best friends since then.

Super Smash Bros. came with it's own unique but simple based fighting system, where easy movements were set in place in order for us to glance at physical moves, as well as special exclusive moves. In essence, all of the character's worlds were put up against each other, bringing with them stages, cameos, items, music themes and of course the main characters themselves.

This trend became the basic for what the fighting games are all about. Introducing us to franchises, as well as recognizing the well known ones, while this crazy fighting system was being put to great use, there is no doubt that Super Smash Bros. remains a classic all-stars based game.

Now I can go all I want into how these games actually play out, but I trust that anyone that is reading this can easily and understandably take note of this, by using either a manual, a YouTube video or just by having played them. After all, the franchise is massively popular, one of the biggest from Nintendo.

After playing several more prominent N64 titles, the GameCube was among us, and the internet with it's mighty influence had arrived. Simultaneously I was getting introduced in 2002 with the sequel, Super Smash Bros. Melee and the gigantic fan site known as Smashboards, which also happens to be the first forums I had started with and pretty much was the first true homepage for me personally after a small period of scouting for Emulator ROMS, being very active there until the second half of 2005.

Having watched the teaser trailer of the sequel uncountable times, each time drooling of the thought of playing this on the successor towards the 64 bit console, it finally arrived in May 2002, a half year after the American release, which felt way too long for me. Again, after unlocking everything, I had even more fun with this than the original.

Then, at Smashboards, the Dutch Tournament was announced by Mr.Silver, and curious people responded. Situated east from my hometown, I was obviously hooked as well as my buddies. While we trained together(and personally I trained countless times as well against the CPU, which worked for me, but only in a fair way), we decided to register for this special event happening in late 2002.

And as the first contenders arrived in Ede, the competition had started. The names were filled in, the brackets were used as Double Elimination, the money was given from us all as the price for the first place, and the atmosphere was starting to change.

Never before was I excited that much to get higher in this private tournament. I can remember how pretty much all of us had such a good time competing against each other, discussing the game and the rules we used, and in overall the mood was great.

I met many kinds of people there. Some of them have vanished with no sweat, others from which I held either respect or friendliness had disappeared from my available connections entirely, and some are still my friends today. We do not speak much to each other, but we all remember the awesome memories of the Dutch Tournaments, which by the way were 10 in total, and happened from late 2002 until mid 2005.

There were so many funny as well as thrilling moments that it would be impossible to let myself type them all out in here, or even to remember others which I have forgotten now. Examples such as the quirkiness of some people's behaviors, the trash talking on the internet before and after the tournaments, watching with an audience at the final battle on each tournament, the crazy Mario Party Blood events, shout outs, comments and applauds towards others. It was so awesome, you just had to be there to acknowledge this.

And let's not forget that at the early tournaments, I quickly became at a time the best Smasher of The Netherlands, until my main rival Remen and other rising ones eventually continued to beat me successfully at later tournaments. Indeed, I was known as Flok, where as I used Mario as my main character, while I pretty much introduced wave dashing in our country.

At one point, the DT's even went international. Starting with number 6, The Doug, as if a new challenger had appeared in Melee itself, came in from Britain and proceeded to take the first place away from us Dutch men. We were all shocked as well as amazed at the foreign skill he showed us, but between you and me personally old rival, I still remember the half final match between us. Specifically, about the amount of matches needed in order to go to the final battle. What happened was that I won the first 2 matches, which would had let me won originally, but the group decided to enlarge the matches to a total of five. You then beat me four times in a row, but I will never forget this moment, hah!

I think that it was Dutch Tournament number 10, the final one, where another infamous foreigner came to beat our ass. It happened to be Captain Jack, a Japanese Smasher which I did not attempt to play that day, because I held the weird opinion then that this guy was too much for me. What I realize since then is that this was a stupid mistake from me, and that my opportunity to fight against him was gone. And after DT 10, many of the veterans went further with their lives.

Really, I could talk hours upon hours more about Melee and essentially the competition of these crazy tournaments, but I think that everything which I wanted to say has been said. Melee itself by the way can become very hectic when it comes to competitive play, but this was only known exclusively by the community supporting it. In the first place, Melee, like the original and Brawl, are played for fun. But we all know what else these games are and still are capable of.

Finally, I would like to thank everyone who was involved and attended the ten Dutch Tournaments hosted by Mr.Silver. My time during these moments was enjoyable, hectic, special and most of all, memorable. I will never forget this period of my teenage years guys.

But of course, my story with this incredible franchise had not ended. In E3 2005 I believe, Nintendo showed the world the next rewatchable teaser. Super Smash Bros. Brawl was announced, and the community discussed the game until the very release in 2008. The Smash Bros. Dojo, an idea maintained by Masahiro Sakurai, was used by Nintendo to keep us updated and hyped about the large sequel project.

Brawl was promised to involve a large group of renowned video game composers from many companies. As such, the soundtrack is one of the best things about this game. Online gameplay was introduced, and while not perfect in any way, it satisfied most.

The character roster, the stages, the items, the trophies, the features, the gameplay, the rules, everything had grown larger, making Brawl the essential fighting game for the Wii. It even let people create their own simple stages, and the single player was largely improved.

As I had promised back in 2005, I decided to host my first and so far my last own tournament, called the Balance Tournament. After a few months of Brawl's announcement, this was set in course and after the surprised responses of a tournament being announced "like 2 years too early", curious ones were vast once again.

Fast forward towards 2008, roughly one week after the release of Brawl, in collaboration with my favorite video game shop Dr.Games, the Balance Tournament was a success. The prizes were nice, the mood was once again enjoyable, I saw old and new faces and I even entered the tournament right away, as a fresh amateur who had just started playing the game. For your interest, others before me had imported the game already and thus had a giant leap of experience among the others.

And after the latest comments in my own tournament thread, I think I even said once that a second tournament could surely happen someday. But, as it stands, it hasn't happened. I was satisfied with the conclusion of the tournament, and went back to my passion of other video games.

Now, at the end of 2011, I type this special blog. And while I did so, I continuously had great memories in my mind from those days in the past, from all three games. In my opinion, Melee is the superior tournament edition, Brawl is the best technically, and 64 is the most nostalgic.

The future shows us that Super Smash Bros. itself isn't over. Nintendo has told us about a possible connection between a 3DS and a Wii U version, and this is only the start of how crazy a part 4 can and will be.

Whatever and however these games and their impact will have, I will always hold the view of the franchise as a whole; as being a celebration of Nintendo's greatest worlds. And I will never forget the enormous fun it provides.

Super Mario 3D Land

Undeniably, Mario's latest adventure on the Nintendo 3DS holds a special tribute towards one of the greatest NES games, which is Super Mario Bros. 3, which also happens to be my favorite Mario platformer.

Super Mario 3D Land is also connected with the 2 Game Boy Land titles, but I don't think there is much relevance other than the name. It's design is closely observed from various kind of earlier titles, including Super Mario 64, the Galaxies, the New Super Mario Bros. entries and as if reincarnated for a new era, Super Mario Bros. 3 elements are floating around this whole game.

With it's precise controls where I only had to get used with the slide pad's movement for a few levels, 3D Land is instantly familiar for anyone who has played with the plumber's platformers before. It takes constructive level design, which gradually emerges towards getting better crafted, while it keeps you busy with collectable valuables, well known and new enemies, remixed and re-used songs from before and a steady rate of variety.

It is, if you think about it, so diverse by it's levels, that it constantly keeps the players busy and guessing as to what kind of obstacles are to be found next. The new and old power items such as the Raccoon Tail and the Boomerang Suit offer simple yet enjoyable ways of playing. And if you have trouble, presumably because of the last levels, there is help available.

The 3D is rendered useful in here, allowing for some interesting level designs here and there. It has also become more accurately to land on spots during the game now because of the third dimensional helping out. Certainly, this is a very good choice as a game if you want to see what benefits 3D brings towards gaming.

After beating the game, unlocking 8 more worlds, I beat those as well and I can safely conclude that it indeed is a better game than the New Super Mario Bros. games, but does not hold up well enough towards the Galaxy games, when speaking of level design, length and presentation.

For a portable 3D platformer, this is a good choice to pick up if you want to spend 5 through 10 minutes each day to swift through several levels, or just beat the whole game in roughly a week. Which means getting a whole lot of Star Coins and seeing the last available levels.

I am also told that the very last level is unlocked if you beat the whole game pretty much twice, but I don't feel like doing that, much like I did so with the first Super Mario Galaxy.  In any case, Nintendo has put up a very fine Mario game once again.

Rating: 8.0

Heroes of Newerth

After laying down Defense of the Ancients back in early 2009, based of Aeon of Strife as earliest as I can tell, this game succeeded it.

The same game concept is re-used in here, but instead of being limited to the engine of Warcraft III, Heroes of Newerth has it's own one, allowing for many more things to be designed here, including a shop, better dedicated servers and voicechat amongst several positive things.

It borrows or steals(take your pick) hero concepts from DotA Allstars, which was maintained by Eul, Guinsoo and IceFrog throughout the years, while creating unique kinds of heroes on S2 Games's own. Sometimes, in present day, even the community gets the chance for their suggestions to be implemented.

Heroes such as Balphagore, Martyr, Ra and Engineer add their own original spin towards the established formula, making it all even more intricate, time demanding and enjoyable to know and use each of those. Especially newcomers, who know by now that the game has become F2P, if this is their first game based of DotA, prepare to get overwhelmed by the content, as well as the community.

That's right, the community is still as bad as I remember from the days of DotA, perhaps even worse, as vote kicking, conceding and constant yelling at the microphone or insulting, blaming, grieving and raging are ways to demotivate anyone. It is the only reason why Heroes of Newerth isn't an excellent game to pick up and play, because there are uncountable multiplayer games where the competition is still intact, yet way less badly emotional.

Heroes of Newerth can either be very entertaining, or very obnoxious, depending on the circumstances, most of all including your teammates and the enemies's. The best matches are usually those where the teams are equal in their overall strength, and they continue to clash, all 10 players available at once during battles.

There are plenty of sites nowadays which can explain how these kinds of games are played, including League of Legends, Demigod, Heroes of Newerth and the upcoming DotA 2, Realm of the Titans, Rise of the Immortals and Blizzard's own version of DotA. So I won't mention how it is played once again(I wrote a DotA blog at IGN already).

This sub-genre of action Real Time Strategy seems to have originated partly from Herzog Zwei for the Sega Genesis in 1989, although I cannot backup this claim. Anyway, enough with the history lesson.

If you are looking for a team based competitive online game which can be very enjoyable and which constantly gets updated with new content, balance changes and bug fixes, Heroes of Newerth would be a good start. Other current valuable options within the genre are still the ongoing DotA Allstars and most likely League of Legends(I haven't played it).