The Soul of a Game

a part of The Missing Link series of articles

Article By Hylian Dan

Will video games as a medium be forever relegated to the pop cultural ghetto? Or will they establish themselves alongside such revered media as film, literature, and music? Designer Chris Hecker tackled this question in a keynote address covered by Gamasutra. As I reviewed his points, they strengthened my conviction that the game industry could learn a lot through a closer examination of Nintendo’s Legend of Zelda series.

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I saw an interesting discussion yesterday – Nick, a newsposter on ZeldaInformer, posted about how he felt that he should stop playing Zelda due to wanting to reinvent himself for college, and it caused a heated debate to break out.

What do you think? When should the line be drawn on switching out social interaction for gaming, and is it ever necessary to stop playing games and move on?

Spirit Tracks was available again in demo form at the German gaming conference “GamesCom”, but unfortunately it was the same old demo as the one that was available back in June at E3.

IGN reviewed it again anyway, stating that it was “as engaging and satisfying as ever”. If nothing else, this review is at least a small reassurance to those who worried that the game would be gimmicky and have little replay value.

The Returners are back for another 72 hour gaming marathon on July 10th, beginning at 5:00pm CST time. For those who haven’t heard of them, The Returners are a fundraising group who raise money for various charities by organizing gaming marathons.

The coming marathon will serve to raise money for Child’s Play, and the marathon can be followed live on The Returners’ blog. Be sure to write that down somewhere in your busy schedules!

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Oh, what’s that? I can play hardcore PC games on my crappy Dell Vostro now? Oh, what a relief!

Yup, it’s true. If you’ve got a low grade Dell computer (or something like it), like myself,  you may now have a way of playing PC games such as Crysis – which would normally only work lag free on a l33t computer made specifically for gaming. Now, that’s an easy one grand I don’t have to spend – but what kind of product is going to shave off this kind of expense?

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I think I can say without bias that the Zelda Universe community stands out as one of the biggest and the most thriving Zelda communities out there. Our forums over the years have been home to many of the most intriguing and groundbreaking pieces of Zelda theorizing and discussion that the internet has to offer, and our member base, though large, has formed strong bonds, some members even deciding to marry each other!

But unfortunately, I also must admit that the main site half of ZU has not quite maintained the high standard that makes our community so famous. This ends now.

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A long time has passed since the DSi was released in Japan (while us mortals are still waiting for it) and so far no big-name downloadable content has been offered. But Famitsu has revealed that Sega will release a Phantasy Star game for the console some time this month.

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I’m sure this story will amuse most of you fellow Zelda Universearians. They say that video games can become addicting, sometimes to a dangerous level at that! Click the jump to find out about a case that can be considered alarming.

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Yes, there is another group that will be playing Zelda for a charity. The group is called The Returners, and they are going to attempt to play all thirteen Zelda games in under 72 hours and will be streaming it live. The charity they are raising money for is the Multiple Sclerosis Foundation.

About a week before the marathon, they will open up donation so that people can either go to the website to click on a direct link to the charity or by using a Chipln widget that directly donates to the charity. The donation window will be open during the marathon till about a week after the marathon.

This marathon will take place at 5:00pm CST on March 20th to 5:00pm CST March 23rd. During the marathon they will be interactive with the viewers and answering questions as well as doing various skits live online while they take donations. They hope to give out prizes to their top donors, but they are currently  unsure if they will be able to do so.

They hope to reach their $5,ooo goal with our support.

More information about this can be found at their website.

Source: Returnersgaming.blogspot.com

You heard it right. The head of Sora Ltd. and creator of Kirby and Smash Bros is back with Nintendo again where two announcements were made. One of which is business like and normal people may not care, but another that will; of course, lead to more speculation. Hit the jump to find out!

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Increasingly, I see people asking for a greater variety of items in the Future Zelda section, and every time, I have to ask myself: why? Why would you want more items?

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Running a Zelda website is difficult – actually, running a fan site in general must be difficult, because writing a review of a game that isn’t [insert franchise here] seems impossible. I feel expected to like Zelda, when in reality I love tons of games, and dislike many Zelda games (game boy Zeldas, you know how I feel!). This is why I’m thrilled that my latest most favorite game bears such a striking similarity to the Zelda series that I could express my love for it in front of all of you ZU readers.

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