Course: DK’s Jungle Parkway
Objective: Finish the race before Diddy Kong/Donkey Kong
Secondary objective: Avoid the bananas
Tournament date: 12/15 – 12/25
All of the following information comes from Eiji Aonuma, who spoke with Famitsu about the development of The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks…
– How did the project get started?
“First, let me talk about Phantom Hourglass. I’ve been making 3D Zelda games ever since I worked on Ocarina of Time, but really, I hadn’t been able to change the core of the game at all in any project. There have been new gimmicks and ways of presenting it, but I couldn’t fundamentally change the way the game was played. With the Nintendo DS and its new features, though, I could make a really ‘new Zelda’ with the hardware. You could say as a result that Phantom Hourglass was a dream come true for me. It was extremely fulfilling for me to make, but I did also have some things in my mind I had to leave behind for that project. The previous game had Wi-Fi battles where you drew lines to move Phantom Guardians around, and it was pretty fun — I figured that having that gameplay be part of the main story would result in another ‘new Zelda,’ and that’s where Spirit Tracks began.”
– Where did the idea of adventuring along with Princess Zelda herself come from?
“I thought the idea of working together with the Phantom Guardians in your adventure was pretty fun,” Aonuma said. “But they’re enemies, after all, so we had to think up some kind of motive for them to be your friends. At the same time, though, I liked how the Phantoms were a sort of ‘unbeatable enemy’ in the last game and I didn’t want to change that. That’s how we began to think about some way to use Princess Zelda.”
– Was it hard for her to make the jump, so to speak?
“People on the staff have wanted to have Zelda in the game for ages, but if we did that, then her skirt becomes an issue. Having girls in dresses in an action game is kind of hard to deal with. That’s how we got the idea of having her body stolen and her soul going inside Phantom Guardians.”
New Action Game Delves Deep into the TRANSFORMERS Universe, Introduces All-New Visualisations of Iconic Characters in 2010
London, UK – 16th December, 2009 – Experience the legendary battle between the AUTOBOTS and DECEPTICONS as Activision Publishing, Inc. (Nasdaq: ATVI) announced today that Transformers™: War for Cybertron is in development by award-winning High Moon Studios. Based on Hasbro’s legendary TRANSFORMERS property, the game takes players to the TRANSFORMERS characters’ home planet of CYBERTRON for a new look into the epic story of the grand civil war that spawned one of the most brutal rivalries of all time.
“Transformers: War for Cybertron is an origins story, taking players on a gripping, adrenaline-fueled journey that precedes the TRANSFORMERS characters’ arrival on Earth,” said Rob Kostich, head of marketing, licensed products, Activision Publishing, Inc. “The game transports players to a living, metallic planet where they will battle as giant converting robots in single player, online co-op or head-to-head multiplayer matches that are fully immersive from start to finish.”
“Yes, you may be absolutely right, although I can not remember exactly all the details. There really is a difference between the temples, which we wanted to integrate and those that exist in the final game. And that had something to do with magic. We thought of integrating some actions, some plot threads, and some puzzles that have something to do with magic abilities. We have come to the conclusion that other, already existing, just regular items to be a worthy replacement. So we had originally three temples, which would capture the young Link, three temples for the adult Link and three in which he was to learn each spell – but instead we have eliminated a temple of it. In the final game is now so 3 plus 3 plus 2, or 8 temples to find.” – Eiji Aonuma
Because this information comes from a machine translation, not all of Aonuma’s words are entirely clear. However, he seems to be saying that initially, there were plans to include additional dungeons/magic in Ocarina of Time. In the end, though, some of those ideas were scrapped.
First day sales numbers of New Super Mario Bros. Wii from Japan showed that the game was off to a solid start. But the game has been selling extremely well since then. In fact, according to Famitsu, Mario Bros. Wii has sold 1,401,558 copies thus far. The launch of the title has also stimulated Wii hardware sales – An additional figure puts the console at 9,048,012 units sold in Japan.
Thanks to Thomas N for the news tip!
It seems like some of these numbers come directly from Famitsu while others are from Sinobi…
Wii – 142,000
PS3 – 76,000
PSP – 71,000
DSi – 70,000
DSi LL – 60,000
Xbox 360 – 10,000 (roughly)
DS Lite – 10,000
PSP go – 3,300
1. [WII] New Super Mario Bros. Wii
2. [WII] Tales of Graces
3. [PS3] Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
4. [DS] Tomodachi Collection
5. [PSP] Naruto Shippuden: Narutimate Accel 3
6. [WII] Wii Fit Plus
7. [DS] Pokemon HeartGold/SoulSiver
8. [PSP] Phantasy Star Portable 2
9. [360] Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
10. [WII] PokePark Wii: Pikachu’s Great Adventure
Official Media Create numbers will be posted later tonight.
Jacques Exertier, the Creative Director of Rabbids Go Home had this to say when asked if there will be any other adventure games with the Rabbids…
“We hope so, yes. You’d have to ask the bigwigs at Ubisoft though. All sorts of different factors have to be taken into account before a decision like that is made.”
I’m sure that we’re going to see the Rabbids appear in additional titles – It’s just a matter of which genre they’ll be involved with. I’m not such a huge fan of the Rayman Raving Rabbids minigame compilations, but I’d definitely be open to seeing more games like Rabbids Go Home.
