Remember in Mario Sunshine, that though the story was on the light side, all cutscenes were fully voiced? This is a rarity for Nintendo, a company that still keeps to some age old traditions of game design. Despite having the technology to include features such as voice acting Nintendo has for the most part shied away from including it in many of its games. I'm sure many of you will be happy to never hear Bowser talk again, but there are those that would love to see Nintendo's most epic franchise, The Legend of Zelda get the fully voiced treatment. Then again there are also those who believe the series shouldn't have to move with the times in every regard and that there is nothing wrong with characters remaining mute. Here are the reasons for and against a fully voiced Legend of Zelda.

Zelda should be voiced:

Link doesn't have to talk

Link is not a mute, yet we never see a line of dialogue in his name. There is a simple reason for this, Link is the every man that the player transposes his or her thoughts and feelings onto. However, everyone responds to him as if he is at least reacting to what they say. So those worrying that Link will sound like poor old Sonic the Hedgehog did when they gave him a voice box needn't worry.

Zelda needs to move with the times

What big budget action adventures aren't voiced? Struggling? Exactly. Text based interaction back in the day was a necessity, audio files literally couldn't fit on game carts, that's why we also had the nostalgia inducing MIDI music as well. So now games are going on discs that can store gigabytes of data, that problem simply doesn't exist any more. There are no restrictions now so Zelda should hurry up and join every other game of it's likeness and include voice work.

Voiced characters can add new dimensions

Actors. Zelda has never had actors. In a rich interactive experience, shouldn't characters have the extra depth that a voice actor can bring? Zelda characters, even the small ones, in fact especially some of the small ones, have incredible design and personality. You want to talk to NPC's because they are so interesting, that's a lot more than can be said for a few other games. So voice work can give these characters even more personality. Imagine if the Happy Mask salesman had an equally creepy voice to him, perhaps he would give you even more nightmares.

                                                                                                            One creepy guy

Zelda shouldn't be voiced

Imagination...
I've just raised the example of the happy mask salesman, I'm sure you have an idea of what he sounds like if you've played Majora's Mask and I'm sure it's scary beyond reason. So if the game was voiced, yeah he might have a creepy tone, but would it match what's in your head? Not likely. It's like when films are based on books, everyone who read the book says, 'oh I didn't expect him to look like that, or sound like this'. Truth is, we all probably have the perfect voice for Zelda character's in our heads that is individual to us. This argument doesn't only work for old characters that we already have conceptions of either, our imagination is in a wonderful teamwork with what is presented to us visually so we can build some of the character ourselves. Nothing wrong with a bit of imagination.

Humphumum... Ha Ha... Hyyaaa!
No, I haven't just lost it. These are sounds that Zelda character's make, little inklings of information about their voice that give us a bit of extra character. Why not go the whole hog? Well, because that would screw about with my last argument wouldn't it? These little sound bites don't get in the way of your own interpretation of a character but can perhaps give you a bit of guidance as to what was intended with the character, just so we don't think Tingle has a Jamaican Accent for example.

Just because everyone else does it doesn't mean Zelda should
In direct contrast to what was said about moving with the times is the argument that art is art. That voice or no voice, neither is actually better than the other, just a different artistic choice. Zelda can stick to its guns if it wants, it doesn't make it archaic.

They could really screw it up
You know, everyone could be walking around with Ye Olde English accents. Or worse, this. Or even worse, THIS.


So what do you think? Voice or no voice? Personally I do like the quirky style that Zelda has and I think that too much tampering could ruin that. Then again I'm not opposed to change, I was even one of the few that actually liked the Wind Waker when it first came out. Perhaps with the Wii U we will see a big change in Zelda.

Tom ASB

Haven't posted here in years, hi to anyone who recognises me! This is a blog post I have written for my website, managed to get some hands on time with a 3DS today and am pretty impressed: 
 

  This entry originally comes from a website I have recently set up, as it is only three weeks old, hits are still a little sparse so I'm posting it here as well.
 
As I said in a previous post, it seems odd that I have played the latest MGS game, mere months after it was announced, years I waited anxiously to get my hands on MGS4, so it’s a breath of fresh air that the latest Metal Gear Solid title on the PSP seems to be coming along swiftly.

The first thing I noticed about Peace Walker is its over all look and production quality, just from the TGS demo you can tell that the attention to graphical detail goes far beyond any title that I have ever seen on the PSP. In game graphics aren’t where the high production value stops either, menus and cutscenes come over very well too, and that’s even the more of a compliment to give as the TGS demo is obviously in Japanese and my knowledge of Japanese begins and ends with ‘Domo’.

Speaking of the cutscenes, they are done in a familiar format to the cutscenes in ‘MGS: Portable Ops’ taking the form of a moving comic. There are beautiful transitions when the 3D switches to the 2D cartoons, and overall, the cutscenes seem a little more colourful than the drawings in Portable Ops.  
  
On to the important part then, gameplay. Peace Walker seems to take most of its influence from MGS4 with a fully movable camera and and a third person aim mode for weaponry. Of course, the PSP doesn’t have a second analogue pad so camera movements are mapped to the face buttons. This obviously isn’t as comfortable or convenient as having the extra pad, but the game makes up for it with auto aim etc. Your main ‘action button’ seems to be the right shoulder button which controls your CQC abilities and fires when in aim mode (holding the left shoulder button). My main issue with the controls is that crouching and sticking to walls is mapped to the
D-pad which means you need to take your thumb off the analogue pad to press the button, this can be a little awkward as it means that you need to stop your movement in order to crouch or move up against a wall. Again this is only a little problem which you will probably get used to the more you play the game. Also, when you lay down n the ground you couldn’t then crawl, which is something I tend to do a lot in the series so I hope this is added in to the game.

The demo itself started with Big Boss and his recruited troops on a beach in the dark, a set up for your basic tutorial level with one troop shouting commands at you that you have to adhere to. After a cutscene you are on a beach with Miller, who players of the original MGS or MG2 may recognise, giving you commands by codec. you then make your way into the forest where you get a real sense of what the game is like sneaking up on enemies and practicing CQC and gunplay including a possibility to try out co-op in the part after the tutorial. 

So Wii Sports resort came in the mail today marking the first time I've played my Wii in three or four months. To say that I deliberated on spending £40 on a Wii Sports title would be an understatement, I was hovering over the order button a few days back for quite some time. Though my final decision was worth it, Wii Sports Resort is a great title which is good fun to play alone or with friends, which is in itself a problem as I'm now tempted to shell out for a second MotionPlus. The MotionPlus itself is not in any way disappointing, now I don't know about you but when I first got the Wii and popped Wii Sports in I was hit with a very slight disappointment which turned into a form of denial, blaming the game for not utilizing the controls enough etc. I finally had to come to terms that I had expected too much from the Wii. With the MotionPlus I feel like that initial expectation I had has been met, it really is 1:1 recognition even though you have to re-calibrate every now and again. This is clear from the get go where your sky diving Mii has the outline of the remote around him and every slight motion of yours is portrayed on the the screen, really exciting stuff! Because of this my imagination has been racing all day about the possibilities the MotionPlus can bring to games, especially the up and coming Zelda title. It really does feel good to be excited about the Wii again.

    Francis Fukuyama once said that with the end of the Cold war came 'the end of history', meaning the end to countless fighting for different political ideology as liberal democracy had proven that it was the best form of governance. That sentence has only a slight relevance to what I am blogging about today, but I am knee deep in politics revision and it is difficult to switch off. What I am going to be addressing today are the differences between this generation of consoles and those that have come before it, concluding that there are some differences that make this generation more of a mainstay in the homes of the many (even exam speak is rubbing off on me). 

Today a teaser hit for a gaming franchise you may have heard of, stating that the next metal gear is coming along with a cryptic message depicting a power button, a green power button. You can't blame most people for deciphering this as a hint towards MGS hitting the 360. I'm not here to evaluate this assumption being right or wrong, instead I am going to have a look at the general reaction that surrounds the wake of news like this. Of course there are those that believe the teaser as irrefutable evidence, I found this comment on Joystiq courtesy of a lovely unbiased user. 

Well since friday I have been playing a ton of Spore and I have to say that I love it. Whilst it falls short in some stages, namely tribal and Civilization I think the game is still excellent. Of course the people who have been following it for years are going to have had expectations through the roof, those who actually expected the dream game where perhaps asking a little too much and are now sulking. I also had very high expectations but realized that the game was not going to live up to every expectation. When I played the game I did notice the shortcomings but was actually surprised with how few of them there were. You could argue that perhaps Maxis were trying to do too much, covering all bases, yet they seem to have a good enough grasp on each one to give each stage a feel that caters to a different style of gameplay but remains entertaining. Whilst no stage, bar the space stage perhaps, competes on the same level as games that are specified to those styles in complexity they remain pretty expansive in their own right.