Nintendo 'gets touchy'
2007-10-05 07:31
San Francisco - Nintendo has
reworked one of its most beloved franchises in a new Zelda
video game designed to appeal to a broader audience.
The Legend of Zelda, which was first released 20 years
ago and has become one of the company's most successful game
lines, is a classic action-adventure game set in the land of
Hyrule.
Legend of Zelda: The Phantom Hourglass for Nintendo's
handheld DS device has already won strong reviews for its
beautiful imagery, deep storyline and innovative use of the
device's touch screen to control almost every aspect of the
action.
"It's definitely the big game of the holiday season for the
Nintendo DS and reaches the traditional audience as well as the
new audience they are starting to shoot for," said Jeremy
Parish, features editor for gaming news site 1up.com.
A sequel to 2002's Wind Walker, the new Zelda adventure
once again puts players in control of the elfin hero, Link,
after he washes up on a mysterious island following an accident
at sea.
Instead of mashing buttons, players poke or trace movements
on the DS touch screen to make Link jump, somersault, or swing
his sword.
That's in line with Nintendo's drive towards making games
more accessible to customers outside the core audience of young
males who are happy to spend hours a day mastering every nuance
of a title.
"I think what Nintendo was doing with the series was to
strip it down to the essential gameplay and appeal to a broader
audience," Parish said.
That should help make the game, which launched just over a
week after Microsoft's Halo 3 juggernaut burst onto the
scene, a top-seller through the holiday season.
A chart-topper
The game is expected to sell more than a million copies in
its first two months on the market, according to game sales
forecasting outfit The simExchange.
"Without a doubt this will be a chart-topper," said Jesse
Divnich of simExchange. "We're looking at over a million units
for a Nintendo DS title which is as strong as it gets when
talking about a triple-A release."
Another highly anticipated game on sale this week is Enemy
Territory: Quake Wars, a fast-paced, graphically rich PC game
that pits humans and alien Strogg in fierce online battles.
The Quake series, made by renowned developer id Software
and published by Activision has been a staple of online
"deathmatch" competition, and Divnich said he expects it to
sell about 210 000 copies this month, not bad for a PC game
appealing mainly to hard-core fans.
But it will soon face competition from other shooting games
such as The Orange Box collection of games based on the
dystopian Half-Life 2 game, and Crysis with its
super-realistic graphics. Both games are being published by
Electronic Arts.
"The consumer base is really waiting now to see how Orange
Box does and whether it will overtake Enemy Territory to be
the one title that everyone will be playing this holiday
season," Divnich said.
On the console side, Xbox 360 owners have Project Gotham
Racing 4, which features dozens of sports cars barrelling down
city streets. Previews have praised PGR4 for its gorgeous
graphics and realistic weather effects.
Basketball fans have their choice of EA's NBA Live 08 or
NBA 2K8 from Take-Two. Both games are available for the Xbox
360 or Sony's PlayStation 3.
"EA has a good handle and control on the basketball market.
For last couple of years, 2K has scored higher review scores
among game critics but the sales are not going to reflect
that," Divnich said.