You may remember how a week or so ago, we posted about a Breath of the Wild multiplayer mod in development for CEMU. This mod had pictures of multiple Links on screen, a shadow Link battle and all kinds of other content. The works basically. To the point half the mainstream media ended up writing about it.
Unfortunately, it also turned out to be fake. As you can find out in our follow up article or REGNR8’s video.
But hope isn’t lost for multiplayer Zelda modding! Oh no, it now seems there is a real Zelda multiplayer mod in development!
This mode (based on The Wind Waker and called Hero of the Winds) aims to turn the game into a full blown MMO with item sharing and co-op multiplayer!
So here’s a video discussing the mod by REGNR8:
As you can tell, it’s still in its really early days at the moment. Players don’t exist in the same world. Standard co-op multiplayer features don’t exist. And for the most part, things require a third party application to get working.
However, some aspects of the game do exist even now. For instance, you can send rupees to other players by pressing a button in the bundled app. This acts exactly like you’d expect, with the rupees coming from your wallet and ending up in the other person’s.
Additionally, it also seems to be setting up a system where you can gift other items (like bombs and arrows) to them, and comes with a nice built in chat system so you can view players online and talk to them about the game.
It’s an intriguing start for a system like this, and certainly shows promise.
But its creator (Melon Speedruns) cannot handle this alone. He needs help getting the game fully working with the system, as well as making it so multiplayer can interact in the same version of the Great Sea.
And that’s why it’s putting this news out there. He hopes that people will join him to improve on the setup, and eventually turn The Wind Waker into a full blown MMO with all the features of games like World of Warcraft. Or something similar.
So check it out, and maybe offer him your assistance if you can give it. Because if this project gets completed, it will be the biggest revolution the Zelda series has ever seen!
Thank you.
Given its status as a PlayStation classic, you’d be forgiven for assuming the N Sane Trilogy would remain a PlayStation 4 exclusive. After all, Crash himself was originally Sony’s mascot. The games themselves were the company’s equivalent to Mario. And well, with all the marketing Sony is doing for the title, the remake’s status as a PS4 exclusive almost seemed like a guarantee.
But now it seems that’s not the case! Why?
Because a concept artist working on the game has posted a very interesting video of the game’s menu online. Here it is:
As you can tell, it features Xbox One icons for the buttons. In other words, it’s a look at the N Sane Trilogy’s menu as if it was being accessed on an Xbox One version of the game.
And that’s really interesting. After all, didn’t Sony say it’d be an exclusive?
Yes. Yes they did.
But from the video posted, it seems that may be a lie. Instead, the exclusivity could merely be a time limited one. A quick way to keep Sony fans happen for a while before porting to the game to other platforms to bring it to an even wider audience.
Which isn’t really a bad thing. N. Sane Trilogy is a great remake of the first three games, and one many Xbox and Nintendo fans would like to play.
So to see it come to other consoles would be amazing. It’d be a way for millions of people to try out some of the best 3D platformers ever made.
Can you really be unhappy with that? I know I can’t.
Still, what do you think anyway? Are you happy Crash Bandicoot N Sane Trilogy could be coming to other consoles?
Or does it feel weird having this remake potentially get ported to other systems?
Post your thoughts on the matter here or on social media today!
Source:
Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy Artist Shows Save/Load Screens with Xbox Prompts (Reddit)
A while ago, a multiplayer mod was announced for the Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild. This mod was created by a user on the REGNR8 Discord, and showed all manner of interesting new features and tweaks. Like dialogue for trying to ride someone else’s horse:
Or a battle against Dark Link in a shrine:
It looked utterly amazing, and seemed to show just how far video game modding had moved on recently.
However, there was just one problem.
It wasn’t real. All those screenshots you see above… are just mock-ups. They’re basically mere concept art for the mod and what it might actually offer.
The mod itself isn’t actually in development yet.
And we know this because the REGNR8 YouTube channel actually interviewed the mod’s creator. Here’s their video where they talk to Fooni and go over his plans for the mod in general:
As you can clearly tell, it’s not exactly at the state shown in the pictures. Forget horse boarding messages or Dark Link fights in shrines, this one hasn’t even really been started yet!
What’s more, we should have known this already. Why?
Because journalists are supposed to research their stories. They’re meant to contact all parties involved and try and get their views on the matter before putting the thing live.
And if they’d done that here (By actually asking Fooni about the mod he was working on), they would have learnt the images were mock-ups there and then. Remember, he wasn’t promoting these images online that much. Nor was he going around claiming they were ‘exclusive’ previews of the mod as it stood there and then.
As the video itself says, just one person could have cleared all this up by getting an interview with the guy. One journalist who went out of his or her way to truly ‘research’ the story. One source who really gave a damn about good journalism.
But no one did. So because of this, everyone from Gamespot to IGN to Forbes and even the Daily Express are posting about these pictures as if they’re real. Yep, now even the UK papers are talking about this mod based on the fake pictures!
It’s a great case study in how good journalism practices have basically died out in the digital age.
Still, as bad as these examples are, it’s really me who should be disappointed here. Why?
Because interviews are our bread and butter on Gaming Reinvented! We’re known as the people who interview fan game and mod creators!
And I’m the only who usually conducts them. So to realise I was completely fooled by a bunch of fake screenshots… ones I could have identified had I bothered to set up a proper interview… is almost heart-breaking really.
The one time I decided not to interview a mod creator. The one time I thought I’d just let other people write about the story as is.
That was the one time where my interview could have changed the entire narrative.
So I’d like to apologise to everyone here. I failed you all with my previous coverage of this mod. My standards slipped, and I paid the price.
I will not make the same mistake again.
But hey, what do you think? Are you disappointed the pictures weren’t real?
Or did you secretly hope this mod really was just round the corner?
Post your thoughts on the matter here or on social media today!
Source:
Zelda Breath of the Wild Multiplayer Mod | Creator Q&A (REGNR8 on YouTube)
Prior to Yooka-Laylee, FreezeMe and Poi, there was one other 3D platformer that started the whole genre revival off. Named A Hat in Time, the game starred a character called Hat Kid as she collected pieces of time in various worlds, all while avoiding the machinations of the evil Moustache Girl. It looked great, did really well on Kickstarter (raising over $296,000 in funds there) and eventually kicked off the entire N64 collectathon revival altogether.
But while the games it inspired came and went, A Hat in Time has continued trucking away in the background.
We’ve seen fantastic new levels set in places like a train and a film studio. We’ve seen interesting costumes and mechanics from the game posted on Twitter.
And in general, we’ve seen a lot of things that indicate this will be an amazing 3D platformer. Perhaps even the true return to form the genre has needed.
Yet for all that, it wasn’t ever really announced for consoles. Somehow, the latest in a genre made for home consoles has remained a PC exclusive since the start of the development.
But that’s now changed! Why? Because as the title suggests, A Hat in Time has now been announced as coming to the PS4 and Xbox One! Here’s the official trailer about these two console releases for the title:
It’s pretty good all things considered. However, it still leaves one very obvious question here.
And that’s why it’s not been announced for a Nintendo system yet. Seriously, this game is made for the Nintendo audience. It’s inspired by Mario Sunshine, Banjo-Kazooie and the Legend of Zelda The Wind Waker.
It’s a game the Nintendo fanbase would adore, especially if you take their interest in Yooka-Laylee and Super Mario Odyssey as an indicator here.
Meanwhile the players on the other systems are… perhaps a little less endearing towards games like this.
=Remember, Rare tried it on the Xbox and Xbox 360. It’s why Microsoft bought them, and why Grabbed by the Ghoulies, Viva Piñata, Banjo-Kazooie Nuts and Bolts and others were released on Microsoft’s systems.
Yet their fans didn’t really care. The games just didn’t sell to the Xbox demographic.
Which is something I suspect may be the case here too. A Hat in Time is a good game, and it’s nice its coming out on Xbox One and PS4…
But it’s just the wrong type of game for those consoles in general. It’s one Nintendo fans would likely buy into more.
So let’s hope Gears for Breakfast takes some notes and announces a Switch port at some point. Cause if so, I’m buying the game on day 1!
As any Nintendo fan likely knows, Michael Pachter has a… tendency to make some rather stupid arguments in his analysis. He claimed the Wii would fail in 2006, then said the same thing over and over till the console generation ended.
He argued that home consoles would be finished in 2014, with the likes of the PS4 and Xbox One being non existent.
Add his constant comments on Nintendo going third party or his rude attitude towards Satoru Iwata back in 2016, and you’ve got that someone no one in the gaming world takes seriously.
Which his latest ‘argument’ won’t be changing one bit. Why? Because Pachter quite literally calls Japanese games irrelevant. He does this in an interview with Game Bolt stating that:
Japanese games don’t matter in the larger scheme of things, You are talking about 2 million units, I mean, a piece of crap like Mafia 3 sold 5 million units, and that game is a piece of crap. So, no, 2 million units is a rounding error, that doesn’t matter. No one is making money off of that.
It’s a very general view, and I guess I can see where he’s coming from.
But at the same time, his arguments also have a lot of flaws in them.
For one thing, they kind of assumes that every Japanese title is niche and every Western one isn’t. Because hey, Persona 2 (a niche title) only sold 2 million copies whereas Mafia 3 (a less niche one) sold 5 million.
But that’s not the case in any region of the world. In fact, a large percentage of games in the West also sell as much or less than Persona 2.
And that’s absolutely fine. If you’re making game for a niche audience (or as part of an unpopular genre in general), it will sell less than a mainstream ‘shoot everything’ title would. That bullet hell shooter, that super hard platformer, the visual novel or comedy RPG… they’re always going to sell less than the likes of Call of Duty or Halo, regardless of their quality.
Yet that’s not something that makes them irrelevant. I mean, imagine if you applied that logic to the real world. Could you really say every other restaurant is ‘irrelevant’ because McDonalds sells more on a daily basis? How about that all drinks sellers outside of America are irrelevant because Coca Cola has so much of the market?
You couldn’t, because many of these other products and businesses are not directly competing with McDonalds or Coca Cola.
So you’d compare say, the top soft drink brands, or the top beer brands, or the top tea brands with each other, not with the market as a whole.
On that level… Street Fighter V might be a success, since it’s popular in the fighting game community. The Resident Evil games may be successful, because they’re popular among survival horror fans. And while Persona 5 may not be up there with Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest, it’s still pretty popular and well liked among RPG fans.
That’s what really matters here. Not whether one or two niche titles from Japan compare to one or two less niche titles from Western developers.
And this is especially true given that said niche/mainstream titles are only a tiny part of their respective markets.
Seriously. Go and compare Mario, Pokémon, Zelda, Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, Smash Bros or Splatoon to mainstream Western games. Those (and many more) sell at roughly the same level, because they’re also mainstream titles meant for a general audience.
If you want to compare your Western triple A games to anything, compare them to Japanese triple A titles like these:
Not the niche titles that aren’t aiming to sell 20 million copies in the first place.
But Pachter didn’t do that, because comparing mainstream titles to other mainstream titles would show that the Japanese gaming industry is not ‘dying’ or ‘dead’ compared to the Western one.
It’s like saying the ‘Western’ market is dead because you compared Shovel Knight to Pokémon.
But hang on, you argue. Doesn’t Pachter discount Nintendo as ‘different’ to Japanese games as a whole?
Yes he does. Problem is, with that logic you could argue a lot of questionable things. Remove what’s considered ‘outliers’, and you can twist the truth into anything.
I mean, imagine if you said ‘social networks aren’t that popular, with the exception of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat’. That’s pretty misleading isn’t it? You’ve cut out four of the most popular social media sites and made a claim that’s very clearly wrong by any normal way of thinking.
Or how about some others?
If you ignore the USA, UK, Australia and Canada, English isn’t a popular first language worldwide
Ignoring Disney, animated movies haven’t done that well in the last decade
Eh, no one uses search engines any more. Assuming Google doesn’t exist
Either way, it’s the same case here. You’re basically removing the number 1 player in the Japanese gaming market if you pretend Nintendo doesn’t exist. Or is somehow ‘different’ from the rule.
You may as well by saying this:
And that’s the case here. By comparing niche games to mainstream ones and deliberately leaving out any evidence that disagrees with his theory, Pachter is being dishonest and making the Japanese video games industry look worse than it actually is.
So no, it’s not ‘irrelevant’. The Japanese gaming industry is doing just fine.
You just need to stop comparing apples and oranges here.
Thank you.
Source:
Japanese Games Are Still Irrelevant to the Mass Market, says Michael Pachter (Gaming Bolt)
