Elliott George Edwards

Legend of Zelda: 25th Anniversary Concert in London

Elliott George Edwards — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 10:59:05 +0000

Now, Nintendo isn’t that kind of company to miss a good reason for a party, and when it’s a time to celebrate their top franchise’s long rain. Zelda is by far one of the most iconic franchises in the videogame medium, and has been Nintendo’s. On the 25/10/2011, I travelled to London to celebrate it’s 25th Birthday.

The performance was excellent! The music was played by The Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra, and conducted by Eimear Noone. After the first tune, which was the Hyrule Castle Theme, Zelda Williams (who has been a big part in the recent Zelda game adverts) came out and announced she would be presenting the show. Then, a few tunes later, Eiji Aonuma (the producer for the Zelda franchise) came out and talked about the games, the fans and the music. Obviously

The music was accompanied by footage on screen showed gameplay and cutscenes from various games in the franchise. It showed everything from the games on DS all the way up to Ocarina of Time. The only problem I had with the footage shown was that every single frame of Ocarina of Time was shown from the 3DS remake. Now I understand that the video obviously looks better on Nintendo’s shiny new hardware than it did when in 64 bits, and I know that Nintendo needs to make it’s money (it is a company after all) but I felt like, replacing what is universally considered to be one of the greatest games of all time, with a remake, seemed to go against the spirit of the day. It’s meant to be a celebration of 25 years! Not a celebration of the 25th Anniversary. This simple change made these sections feel more like a massive advert rather than celebrating a loved franchise.

It was a real shame that there was barely any sight or sound from Manjora’s Mask and Zelda II: Adventure of Link. Both these games were major console releses for the franchise, and although Zelda II is universally considered to be a bit clunky, Nintendo shouldn’t have just forgotten about it, and especially as the music in the game is some of the best in the franchise, if only they were orchestrated? Nintendo? Please? No? Ok… *runs into corner and cries*.

But Manjora’s Mask’s exclusion is just uncalled for. Some consider it to be the best game in the series, others consider it to be the greatest! And even if people think otherwise, it’s normally one of peoples top Zelda games, if not their personal favourite. Sure, it’s the worst selling 3D Zelda game, so what? It’s a Zelda game! And it should have been here! Same with Zelda II…

Another thing I would have liked to see at the concert was the 25th Anniversary Celebration that was preformed at E3 2011. I really loved that compilation tune and it’s a shame that the only way I can hear it is on YouTube.

In the way of venue, I though Nintendo could have done a bit better. I would have felt somewhere like the Royal Albert Hall would be more suitable for such epicness, but instead they chose a fairly small comedy club. I’m not sure why they chose this location, maybe because of the Live at the Apollo TV show, the people at Nintendo thought “Oh! That looks nice and big!”. Seriously, the wide angle TV lenses do wonders!

Once everything on the programme was over and done with, everyone obviously stood up to applaud. The orchestra and conductor bowed and after a few minuets of continuous clapping and whooping, Eimear announced “Everyone, please welcome, Koji Kondo”, at which point the entire room erupted once more as the lead composer for the franchise stepped onto he stage, sat down at the piano and played us all a melody, then, after an even bigger applause, gave a little speech, thanking all the fans for coming etc. So, we all cheered once more, thinking this was the end… but OOOOHHHHH-no. There was one last thing.

Eiji Aonuma came onto strange once more, and began to talk about Skyward Sword. It was, basically, another advert. But it was welcome, because talk about a new Zelda game is, at least to the mind of everyone in the building, defiantly a good thing. And after telling us about the included CD of the music from the performance we had just seen, he then introduced us to the Harp Trailer, which hadn’t been released by this time, with all the music played live by the orchestra. A great experience which made my hairs stand on end.

So the day was epic, just epic. Sure, they could have had a better venue but at the end of the day, the content was amazing and everyone was so hyped and happy to be there it was brilliant just to be a part of the crowd. If Nintendo does another show like this, as they have been around the American states, I highly suggest you go, even if your a casual fan of the series.

Goldeneye 007 review for the Nintendo Wii

Elliott George Edwards — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 11:12:05 +0000

Screenshot from the game Goldeneye 007

I am going to concede before I begin this review, that I have not yet played the original Goldeneye for the Nintendo 64. I feel ashamed to admit it, as being a game reviewer who hasn’t played GoldenEye is comparable to being a dairy farmer who hasn’t tasted cheese… but I haven’t played this revolutionary classic yet. Nintendo have been attempting to bring it onto their Wii’s Virtual Console service for quite some time now, but due to the title originally being developed by Rare, which is now under the control of Microsoft, there have been many arguments over the rights to the game, and Microsoft want it released on Xbox Live before in hits the Wii shop channel, and visa versa. Both Nintendo and Microsoft have to come to an agreement if we want to see the original Goldeneye being legally playable on their current gen systems.

So until that unlikely day comes around, you won’t be able to play Goldeneye on your little shiny Wii, or will you? Thankfully, Activision (The people behind some of the most successful titles in the Call of Duty franchise) have created a splended re imagining of the original game exclusively for the Wii. Using the story line of the original film and recreating it in the 21st century, with Daniel Craig’s Bond replacing that of Pierce Brosnan’s.

Now! I am incapable of comparing Activision’s Goldeneye to Rare’s original production on the N64. Neither can I collate it to the 1990′s film if the same name, as I haven’t seen it in it’s entirety for quite some time. Therefore, I will be reviewing this as a lone game, not as a remake and not as a game of a film. This is a standalone game for me, and I must say, it’s not all that bad.

This game isn’t CoD or Halo, Goldeneye’s campaign is built mainly around stealth! You must sneak around, unnoticed. You should be capable of running around guns ablaze in the lower difficulties but in most parts of this game your as good as dead, in the higher difficulties, if you get spotted by two or more guards so you will mainly try and avoid using a gun that isn’t silenced. In fact, you’ll mainly try and avoid firing a bullet, and use melee attacks against your foes. The stealth approach makes this game feel very fresh next to the amount of CoD rip-offs there are out there. It’s good to see Goldeneye 007 is willing to play like this and visit it’s farther and pick up a few tips. It’s not all lurking in the shadows through, as there are vast quantities of epic gun fights that you will need to fight your way through, having to outsmart hundreds of guards and blasting missiles towards armed helicopters. They have hired what seems like an army to kill one man with a pistol and a smart phone! If these sections of the game don’t make you feel like a real badass, there is something wrong with you.

Speaking of the smart phone, this device is used throughout the adventure. Want to

Using James' smart phone in game.

activate a bomb? There’s an App for that! Want to track down a suspect in a crowd of people? There’s an App for that! Want to analyse photographs of a military helicopter and send it off to MI6? Yeah, you guessed it, there’s an App! The inclusion of the phone really makes the game feel very 2010, but also looses the bond aura of obtaining loads of gadgets. But, it gets the job done and provides some enjoyable moments of gameplay

The plot is half decent, but really it’s only there to give the gameplay a reason to exist, and as I like the gameplay, I don’t really care about the plot, so we’ll move on!

The graphics for this game were very good for the Wii. It’s nothing special but it does look decent and does the job of portraying the forests and facilities that bond finds himself in. The character models are also done well and animations are realistic and believable. Like I said, it’s nothing special in comparison to other games on the market, but that is obviously down to hardware limitations. But it is good looking Wii game.

Sounds are all very spiffing. The voice acting is great, with Daniel Craig and Dame Judy Dench acting out the roles of James Bond and M. All the voices were also superb and fitted the script. The music is wonderful, with the opening tune from the original Goldeneye movie completely redone in a teriffic opening sequence. The in game music is also pleasing. I really do consider the music in this game to be on par with most of the 007 films.

Goldeneye 007 split screen being played at E3 2010

Goldeneye’s single player campaign is short and a little easy, and you can choose to go back on it with more objectives and health packs so on so forth. I have spent a lot of time in the single player, and I have enjoyed it over and over again. But the big draw for Goldeneye is of course, it’s multiplayer, and I’m telling you now, Goldeneye multiplayer is (for the Wii’s standards) AWESOME!

Offline is by far the most superior FPS experiences I’ve seen on Wii to this date, enabling you and three other players to locally battle it out either in conflict, team conflict, you only live twice and the epic Golden Gun. There are 200 odd different modifier combinations to change up the action, including my favourite of all… PAINTBALL! A modifier that should in my opinion always be left on. There are also “On your feet” where if you stay in the same place for longer than a couple of seconds, you’ll explode. Another modifier makes it so if you and another player touch, you both explode! This is a setting which almost became a game in itself for me.

Online is just as tremendous, and possibly better than offline. You once again have multiple modes. There is Conflict, Team Conflict, Blackbox (a variant on capture the flag), Goldeneye and Heroes. You also can unlock more modes as you gain levels, as well as getting new guns, grenades and special abilities. Unfortunately, the modifiers are not available online, which is a real shame as it would have added so much enjoyability to the title. The only flaws I had with online was the long waits I sometimes had for my console to connect to a match, and the regularness of the “Hosts disconnecting” and having to find a new game again. I won’t really go into the whole having a friend code thing, as that is Nintendo-Wifi’s fault and not Activision, but it is a flaw when having to swap codes with your mates ONCE AGAIN in order to play against them. But that said, at the time of writing this review, there is still a great online community willing to give you a match, even if it’s not the same numbers as you would get in Halo Reach or MW3.

Now I should probably talk about controls, I didn’t get the one with the gold classic

The gold classic controller pro that you can buy exclusively with the game.

controller, neither do I own one already, and no I don’t even have a Gamecube controller to resort to. So you may be asking “OMG! HOW DID YOU COPE ONLINE?” Well, I did a moderately good job. I’m by no stretch of the imagination good at first person shooters but with the controls I did a decent job of eliminating the Russian threat from time to time. I do have a mild preference to using the pointer controls over using analogue sticks. The set up may be impossible for FPS veterans, but I personally find the pixel point accuracy from the Wiimote addictively entertaining. It almost makes duel analogue sticks feel very old fashioned and outdated, although the turning circle with pointer controls is a slower process.

So, at the end of the day I feel that if you want some shooter action, and the only console you possess is a Wii, then buy this game! There is no reason why you shouldn’t and it can be picked up for a good price nowadays. I can’t talk for fans of the original, but I have heard that it is true to it’s roots. There is now the “Reloaded” version of the game for PS3 and Xbox360, so I would probably suggest getting this game for the PS3, as the game is pretty much identical to that of the Wii (with pointer controls from the Playstation Move) only with new roughs to go down, better A.I. and HD graphics, as well as an expanded online community WITHOUT FRIEND CODES!

But, if you are a loyal Nintendo supporter, or you just want to see the next instalment of Goldeneye on a Nintendo system, this is a fun game that shouldn’t leave you disapointed.

Yo Internet!

Elliott George Edwards — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 14:02:30 +0000

I am currently messing around with this site quite a bit, so if things are not where you expect them to be then don’t worry, they will be pretty soon Please comment if you have…

Waiting for my mother!!!

Elliott George Edwards — Sat, 31 Mar 2012 16:49:38 +0000

Please Like, Comment and Subscribe!

Well… my mother is in a shop/petrol station/SPONSOR! so I am left to my own devices… so I produce a vlog, in my car, while waiting for my mother. Who says this channel is repetitive?

Me on Facebook! http://www.facebook.com/ElliottGeorgeEdwards
Me on Twitter: @elliottgedwards
Me on Vokel! http://www.vokle.com/people/486806