IGNcube on Tuesday uncovered new details about Nintendo's upcoming action-adventure Legend of Zelda for GameCube. A couple of important questions about the game have now been answered.

Leading up to the pre-E3 2004 show, gamers believed that Nintendo was working on a sequel to Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker, which would in turn indicate that the action-adventure would be cel-shaded in nature and would also likely feature a young version of hero Link. But as the newly redesigned Legend of Zelda proves, the company has instead reverted to a presentation more akin to the dark and gritty look of Link and Gannondorf previewed at Space World 2000 in Japan.

Nintendo however confirmed to IGNcube that the newly redesigned title does in fact run on a modified version of the Wind Waker engine. The company also revealed that the new Legend of Zelda is in fact not a remake of any kind, but instead an entirely original undertaking.

Meanwhile, more gameplay details were divulged. Link will feature the same eye-tracking system used in Wind Waker. He'll be able to knock all types of enemies off their horses and send them crashing to the ground. And a new dynamic camera system will shoot some dungeons from new perspectives. Evidently when Link explores some still-unrevealed dungeons the camera will pan back and shoot the action from a top-down angle. Players will be able to see parts of the 3D maze that lies in wait. But when the character encounters an enemy the camera will seamlessly sweep in again to shoot the battle from the normal behind-the-back perspective.

Neither Shigeru Miyamoto nor Eiji Aonuma will be directing the Legend of Zelda title. Both serve as producers. A new, still-secret director will helm the project.

A new, longer Legend of Zelda video that shows off never-before-seen areas and scenarios will be previewed behind closed doors at E3. IGNcube will have eyes on impressions for readers shortly after we see it.

It's been four long years since Nintendo unveiled its Space World 2000 demo of Legend of Zelda. The realistic take on the action-adventure franchise, which showcased a brief fight sequence between an older, meaner Link and a downright evil looking Gannondorf, was shelved less than a year after its unveiling so that Nintendo could instead pursue the cel-shaded Wind Waker style. But Nintendo fans never forgot about that brief trailer that showed so much promise.

And, as it turns out, neither did Nintendo.

Today at its pre-E3 event in Los Angeles, Nintendo dropped a earth-shaking bomb. Not only has it secretly been working on a brand new Legend of Zelda title inspired by its famous Space World 2000 demo, but the game is very far along and looks absolutely drop-dead gorgeous.

As the lights dimmed and the brief trailer for the game rolled, press on hand seemed unsure about what to expect. But when the music kicked in -- an homage to the 1998 Ocarina of Time movie spot -- the crowd went wild. (The new Legend of Zelda trailer actually features the same song from composer Basil Poledouris, who orchestrated Conan The Barbarian.) What followed was an awe-inspiring display of cutting-edge graphics and an overall crowd reaction that approached a pure state of euphoria.

The footage showcased a detailed adult Link as he rode his horse across an expansive Hyrule, did battle with a number of different enemy types including a Moblin, Bokoblins and multiple Lizalfos. In one stunning scene, the sun set as dark riders advanced over the horizon. In another, Link battled against a gigantic fire boss. He also explored the forest, seemed to solve puzzles in a dungeon and more. The visuals, featuring what is hands-down the best Link model ever designed and a host of impressive technical feats such as advanced lighting and shadow effects, crisp textures, and impressive draw distance, to name a few, made Nintendo fans' eyes roll in their heads.

After the display ended and the crowd settled, Nintendo designer and director Shigeru Miyamoto took the stage with Master Sword and shield in hand and addressed lucky attendees. "I am not Link, but I do know him!" he joked. "Even after 18 years the Legend of Zelda never stops changing and this game is no different. We are now taking you to a world where Link has grown up -- a world where he will act different and look different. In order to grow, Link must not stand still and neither will I. Thank you and goodbye." With a few more sword swings, Miyamoto stepped off the stage.

The game, simply titled Legend of Zelda (and not Wind Waker 2), is set for release on GameCube sometime next year.

IGNcube will have footage and screens of the game available for download very soon. Because we love you.

Subtitled "The Minish Cap", the next portable Zelda game will have Link taking a page from Alice In Wonderland. Using the titular cap, Link will be able to shrink down and enter the realm of the supersmall Minish people, whose land is infested with evil. The miniature world is interwoven with the full-sized world, to which Link can return by simply removing his cap. The new game will feature the classic gameplay of previous Zeldas with a few interesting twists to keep things fresh.

At least one new item will make its debut, a suction device that shoots out whatever it absorbs. Link will also be able to unlock secrets by collecting magical relics called Kinstones throughout the land. Players can use the wireless adapter to connect with friends and fuse different Kinstones together which is sure to create a variety of options. The Minish Cap will support up to 4 players and is slated to be released in 2005.

Zelda looks AMAZING!!!!
Don't like the look of Starfox too much though

LOL, That wrestling game by Tecmo by any chance?
TBH though, with the exception of some purty ladies, it looks a bit rubbish.

E3 2004: Miyamoto and Aonuma on Zelda
The two Legend of Zelda producers answer questions about the game.


May 12, 2004 - After the Electronics Entertainment Expo 2004 shut down Wednesday night, Nintendo held a private roundtable that focused on its upcoming GameCube adventure The Legend of Zelda. The game's producers Shigeru Miyamoto and Eiji Aonuma talked about the project and then fielded questions from the press. While the two remained tightlipped about the story and theme of the game, some new details were released all the same.

Tom Harlin, Nintendo of America: I'd like to begin by introducing our speakers. This is my co-host, Bill Trinen from Nintendo of America. He will serve as the translator for this event. Next we have someone that needs no introduction, Mr. Miyamoto. Beside him is Mr. Tezuka, and Mr. Konno. They will each start by giving a small introduction about essentially who they are and their work at Nintendo. We'll start with Mr. Miyamoto.

Shigeru Miyamoto: Good evening. I'll be speaking Japanese tonight. [laughs]. I would like to thank so many of you for joining us here tonight. Mostly we're going to be talking about the Nintendo DS and the new Zelda game. But first there's something I'd like to clear up. I've heard that some of you have heard that my heart is doing so well these days. Is there a rumor going around? [Laughs] There are rumors going around that I've actually quit Nintendo? At least, that's the rumor going on over in Japan right now. [laughs] At the hotel yesterday I had a good kilometer swim, and my heart's doing fine, so you don't need to worry.

Actually, things are really going great for me, I'm really enjoying work and a part of a great situation at Nintendo. My work has been divided up a little bit recently. And I'm sure you all know that the president Mr. Iwata has been in development for some time and last year he has been taking a look at Nintendo's internal development and made some changes to our structure. We've been trying to break up the molds of all of our producers at Nintendo.



We have our own internal first party development studio. We also have second party development studios which are games that are developed outside of Nintendo but published by Nintendo. We also have games produced by third parties. We've seen the number of second party developed titles increase dramatically. And because of that increase in second party development, the number of titles I was overseeing had increased as well. And every day I'd get countless documents on my desk that I'd have to put my stamp of approval on just to disperse money to our second parties. [laughs] So, as of last year I have been put in charge of first party content exclusively. And that's where my focus is now. We've also opened an EAD studio in Tokyo. That studio has been responsible for Donkey Kong Jungle Beat which is available for play on the show floor.

So I'm in a great environment now and have a great setup because I work directly with a lot of the Nintendo DS tech demos on the show floor today.

I am overseeing Zelda in its entirety, in a sense. Mr. Aonuma is the producer. I think that if you have questions about Zelda you should perhaps not ask me, but Mr. Aonuma.



Just very quickly though, as for the reason why Link has changed, there were very, very, very, very many people out there who wanted Link to change [laughs]. Also there's another reason and that's that in developing the Wind Waker we know that we were going to be creating a game in which Link was a young boy and trying to create a very active and very energetic young boy and trying to choose the right style for portraying the young boy in a game like that we tried many different experiments. The ultimate decision we came to was that the cel-shading in Wind Waker was the best option for expressing that. We also wanted to create a very unique game world on the GameCube.

But since then, we've been left with a very big question: and that was, what are we going to do when we decide to make Link a teenager again -- a 16-year-old Link. So after Wind Waker we tried several different models and made varied versions of them. Ultimately we decided that in showing a teenage Link really the best style of expressing him would be something that's closer to our graphical style in Ocarina of Time. So Mr. Aonuma actually wasn't lying at the Game Developer's Conference when he said we were working on Wind Waker 2. He just didn't tell the whole story. And fortunately because he didn't tell the whole story, we were able to surprise you all here with a big announcement about the series.

So the rest I will leave up to Eiji Aonuma.

Eiji Aonuma: I'm sure all of you saw the video of the new Legend of Zelda game at this point. One thing that I'd like to point out to everybody is that none of that is CG. It's all done in real-time and running on the [game] engine. That movie was actually created by somebody who took a version of the game, played it, videotaped and then cut the pieces together to make the movie.

One more thing I'd like to point out. For a long time now -- ever since Ocarina of Time -- Mr. Miyamoto has talked about how he'd like Link to be able to fight on horseback so he could have mounted battle scenes with Link swinging his sword. Unfortunately we were not able to do that in the N64 games. And this time that's been a big focus for us with the new game on GameCube. So I think in that sense, the fact that we're seeing Link on horseback and swinging a sword, I think that's one more way in which Link has matured.

After the Zelda statements from Mr. Miyamoto and Mr. Aonuma, a Q&A session was held. The questions and answers below:

Q: How long has the game been in development, how far along is it, and why isn't it playable at E3 2004?

Aonuma: In terms of playable versions on the show floor, we're still not sure exactly how long it's going to take to complete the game at this point. But the plan is to by E3 next year have a version that you will be able to play to your heart's content. And in terms of how far along the game is, as I mentioned everything you saw in the movie yesterday is from a version that's running real-time playable on the engine. At this point we've got the engine running and everything's working and it's a matter of plugging in and putting in the finishing pieces.

Q: Wind Waker had a water theme and Majora's Masks had mask. What kind of theme will the new Legend of Zelda game have?

Eiji Aonuma: Well, generally with Zelda games what we try to do is let everybody know what the main theme of that game is going to be once we can present the entire game to you in a format that you're going to be able to play. Hopefully you'll all be happy to know that we do have a quest and a theme and when you're able to play the game we'll tell you what it is.

One thing that I can say is that up until now we've really focused on a young link maturing into a more grown up Link. This time we're going to be focusing more heavily on a more teenage/grown-up Link and so with that in mind we're going to be looking at different ways to express Link as an older teenager and trying to incorporate those types of features into the game.



Q: The game looks great. Will the gameplay feel the same as Wind Waker?

[Eiji Aonuma turns to translator Bill Trinen, who has played the game, and asks for his opinion.]

Bill Trinen: Mr. Aonuma asked me what I thought since I actually played the game. [Laughs]. Yeah, it's pretty good. [More laughter]

Eiji Aonuma: One of my other ideas in Wind Waker was more simplified control for the game, which was tied to the graphic style and the theme of that game as well. One thing that we're doing right now as we go forward is looking at how we're going to show Link in this more grown up role. We ask questions like what kind of control scheme can we implement that's going to reflect that more grown up Link.



Shigeru Miyamoto: Obviously everybody wants us to show things as early as we possibly can and as much as we would like to show things at a very late stage we don't always have that opportunity. And if we wait to show it until everything is done then I don't get the chance to upend the tee table. Obviously one of the main purposes of the E3 show is to focus on the titles that we're going to have out in the next year. This game is going to be launching in 2005 so I hope you'll all understand that while the game is very far along at this point we're not going to be revealing a whole lot of details yet.

One thing I've been asking for is that over the last 18 years the Zelda franchise has seen a lot of the gameplay style used throughout the series and that's needed to remain true to the series, I'd like to see a lot of new ideas implemented, especially in the realm of puzzle-solving and that sort of thing. So I've asked Mr. Aonuma to focus his attention on that.

Q: In the trailer that we saw yesterday, a lot of areas looked very familiar to Ocarina of Time. We saw a castle and Link rode Epona. He might have been in the Lost Woods. Is Link going back to Hyrule and is this now the true sequel to Ocarina of Time?

Eiji Aonuma: How do you know that horse was Epona [smiles]? Unfortunately I cannot reveal all of that at this point in time. Please wait a little while longer.

Q: The graphics in the game are beautiful. Will the game feature high production values throughout? To be more specific, will we see detailed cinematics, major story developments and will characters speak with acted voices?

Shigeru Miyamoto: I actually don't want Link to talk very much. Maybe I'll record my own voice for when he talks, or maybe you can record your own voice [laughs].

E3 2004: Resident Evil 4
Raccoon City nuked and Leon on the run from satanic monks. Capcom pulls back the curtain.


profile :: Resident Evil 4
links :: guide faqs cheats boards previews reviews news features





49.99


..







May 12, 2004 - A nuclear explosion rocks the city. Buildings fall. Houses are incinerated. The population obliterated. It's the stylistic opening cinematic for Capcom's hugely anticipated "survival horror" sequel Resident Evil 4 and it's also the official goodbye to one of the franchise's longest-running zombie hangouts. That's right. Raccoon City is no more.

When RE4 writer and director Shinji Mikami decides that it's time to redesign a series, he doesn't play around.

Of course, Raccoon City did have it coming. The eerie location, saturated with the walking, flesh-hungry dead, has too long been the aftermath of the Umbrella Corporation's dirty deeds. The US government eventually found out about the city and the experiments contained within and when it did, it didn't hesitate. It set out to find and destroy the evil maker of the T-Virus and it largely succeeded. Which brings us back to that nasty nuke. Kaboom!

Speaking at a private event held just days before E3 2004, RE4 producer Hiroyuki Kobayashi goes over it all again. In this latest addition to the series, the Umbrella Corporation has been destroyed. The enemy is entirely new and just as deadly. There are no zombies in the game. But there is a wide assortment of other dark creatures.

"Six years have passed since that horrendous incident," Leon S. Kennedy narrates as the intro progresses. We notice right away that the cheesy voice work for the character we heard so many months ago in Vegas has been replaced entirely. Kennedy, whose voice is deeper and calmer, sounds every bit as realistic as he looks. "I've received special training via a secret organization working under the direction of the president," he continues. The camera slides back and reveals that two foreign soldiers are chauffeuring the hero to some unseen location. They seem to mock him from the upfront compartment. He doesn't notice.

Leon is deep in thought. He has a big mission ahead of him. The president himself has requested that Kennedy travel to an undisclosed European country and try to rescue his kidnapped daughter. The kidnappers are every bit as mysterious as the once-prominent Umbrella Corporation. Their leader -- if they have one -- has not been revealed. Their demands have not been stated. And before Kennedy has another second to ponder his situation, his car is attacked.

And this about brings us back to the first playable demo of the game. To summarize, Leon finds himself in an old, dusty village in the middle of nowhere, and groups of crazed townsfolk -- armed with everything from pitchforks to knives and chainsaws -- seem intent on slicing him to pieces. We wrote about this same single-level demo back in March, but a number of changes have since been implemented.

In the original demo, Kennedy could only use his binoculars in one spot during one of the cut-sequences. Now the character can use them at any point to zoom in on anything. Chickens now run about the level, adding an extra layer of atmosphere. There are more herb items. Mikami's Watch, a special pick-up in the March demo, is now gone. Oh -- and remember Mr. Chainsaw Man? If he swings his saw into Leon's neck now, he cuts the hero's head clean off in a red eruption of blood. How's that for disturbing? We also noticed that the level is overall generally more polished. It looks cleaner, runs smoother and overall knocks our socks off from a technical standpoint.

The demo still amazes, but it was once again what wasn't playable that has us most excited for what's to come. Capcom showed a brand new RE4 teaser trailer that debuted new play mechanics and never-before-seen areas from the game. The footage clarified the play relationship between Kennedy and the president's daughter, whose name is Ashley. Evidently about halfway through the game, Leon will rescue the kidnapped girl and then he will have to lead her safely out of danger. At that point, as in the Sony PlayStation 2 title Ico, gamers will as Leon actually have to guide Ashley around the environments and protect her from evil creatures and crazed villagers. There's a lot more to it than meets the eye for Ashley is not nearly as strong or as capable as the hero. As a result, players must consider both characters when exploring. For instance, just because Leon can jump out of a window doesn't necessarily mean Ashley can. There will be occasions even when Kennedy will have to catch the president's daughter as she jumps down behind him.

The teaser also showed more new, completely dazzling play scenarios, grotesque graphic elements and story sequences. It appears that Leon's weapons, which now include everything from hand grenades to a sniper rifle and a rocket launcher, do more damage than ever before. Villager body parts explode into bloody pulps quite often. Meanwhile, in one intriguing story cut-scene we saw a group of villagers paddle a small boat out into the lake and unload a group of dead bodies into the water. In another, we saw Leon being choked by a gargantuan-sized bald man with a beard and rippling muscles, one of his eyes not completely functional. In another still, we watched as Leon fight the even bigger Ogre-like creature featured in the original RE4 trailer; as the thing tried to literally squeeze the guts out of the hero (we could see blood squirting from the hero's body), he could use his knife to slash at the monster. On the ground again, players could press L and R at the same time to dodge the enormous monster's swipes. In another scene still, Kennedy fought off hordes of near-zombie-like creatures, some of which wore black priest robes and shot fire. Believe us when we write that these latter foes were incredibly spooky.

Resident Evil 4 does not take place entirely outside. The video showcased to us previewed a giant castle area that Kennedy could explore. Using context-sensitive commands, the character could jump atop dangling chandeliers and then swing across chasms to other levels of the structure. The place looked incredibly large and gothic in design.

A new character was also introduced. His name was not revealed, but we assume he's something of an alley to Kennedy. He's got long, dark hair and talks with an accent. He can twirl a gun like Revolver Ocelot from the Metal Gear Solid franchise. And he doesn't seem to care much about the president's daughter, who may run into bigger troubles than being kidnapped. In one cut-scene, Ashley looks frightened and almost sick. The new character, unsympathetic, turns to Leon and says: "There's supposed to be some kind of symptoms before you turn into one, anyway."

Resident Evil 4 remains one of the most beautiful games we've seen not just on GameCube, but on any console. The gorgeous art style, vividly detailed character models, crisp texture effects, lighting and shadow models, particle system, and animation system all come together for an overall visual presentation that is largely unequaled. Capcom was of course quick to point out that everything shown, but in playable and video form, was running entirely in-game on Nintendo's hardware.

The single-level demo of Resident Evil 4 is playable on the E3 2004 show floor. Which means that, as the new character to the series said at the end of Capcom's video teaser, "it's game time."

But even readers who can't attend E3 can dig into the Resident Evil 4 goodness because IGNcube has posted an incredible new trailer of the game in motion in our media section. Click and be blown away.

Obviously one of the main purposes of the E3 show is to focus on the titles that we're going to have out in the next year