The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker Nintendo
Gamecube
Look, this is a great game. Controls are great, graphics
excellent, even with a new, cartoony look, the camera control is
among the best yet for a 3-D game like this. But even so, the
latest installment in Nintendo’s venerable
“Zelda” franchise still feels like you’ve already
played this game twice before on the last platform.
“The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker” establishes
itself as the true sequel to “The Ocarina of Time,” the
first Nintendo 64 game, supplanting “Majora’s
Mask,” a disappointing release. The story follows a young boy
trying to save his sister in a world where the exploits of Link,
the hero of the earlier games, have passed into legend.
From this point the game follows a predictable course in which
saving your sister is shown really to be only the tip of the
iceberg. That’s right, you have to save the world. The whole
world. Your quest seems to dovetail with the life of your sexy
pirate friend Tetra, who of course winds up being more important
than you might suspect. This is one of the better parts of the
game’s storyline, for obvious reasons: any game with a sexy
pirate is fine by me.
The game loses a few points for its overly cartoony graphics and
generally irritating music. The main character emits obnoxious,
4-year-old squeaks when he’s happy, distraught, or otherwise
emotive. The cartoony graphics do, however, end up creating some
good effects. Nevertheless, a little more realism, particularly
with the main characters, would add to the atmosphere.
-Dan Crossen
Gameboy Advance SP
Neat! When the Gameboy Advance hit the shelves two years ago, it
should have been the greatest handheld console the world had ever
seen. Offering fantastic color graphics in a portable package, it
promised perfect ports of NES games, possibly Super Nintendo, and
limitless potential for developing great new games.
There was just one problem. You couldn’t play the damn
thing without perfect light directly at your back.
They’ve added a backlit screen, with an option to turn off
the back-light to conserve batteries when you have sufficient
light. But that’s not all. They’ve also repackaged the
system into a sleek, foldable package, a little over three inches
square when closed.
The game library is extensive and growing, with full backward
compatibility to play old Gameboy games. It’s great. Go get
it.
-Dan Crossen