Archive for May, 2009

The year is 2005, not long after the DS’s launch. Somewhere in Japan two people are having a serious conversation. Their recently released DS would decide the company’s fate. If it succeeded, then all their troubles would be over. Failure on the other hand, was not an option.

The office looked like any other office, save for the seemingly endless supply of Nintendo plushies lying on the floor. Some were missing their limbs, others had been completely torn appart. The whiteboard on the wall was filled with the same words: ‘THE PRINCESS IS ANOTHER CASTLE’. The windows had been closed, there was a strange aura in the room. Behind the only desk in the office sits a man. His face is not visible.

Suddenly, the man starts talking: ‘It seems the DS failed’, the man says. There’s something odd about his voice, it almost sounds like he’s in pain.

The other man stares at the floor. ’That would appear to be the case, yes’, he says. 

‘You do realize that we could not afford another failure, not after the Gamecube’. The man in the chair sounds angered. He spins his chair. His face looks awful.The face of a man that hasn’t sleeped in days; the face of a man that just heard his wife died; the face of a man that just heard he lost his company.

‘It’s not our fault’, the other man whispers. ‘The DS was a hit or miss. Yes, we took chances. But did we truly have another choice? The idea was briliant, you can’t deny that’ The man sounds desperate. He spent weeks, months working on the design. How could his idea fail? 

‘That’s what we thought about the Gamecube! Hell, I should’ve known better. Listen, it’s not your fault’, the man wipes some sweat from his forehead. ‘Listen to me, they’ll be here any second now’.

‘What are you talking about?’, the other man says nervously.

‘The cops of course. We had to do some underground work to get enough money. How else could we afford the production of one million of those worthless toys!’, the man shouts in rage. He needs his medication.

The other man takes a few steps back. ‘I’m sure there’s a way out of this’.

‘No, there’s not. If we run, they’ll catch us. If we hide, they’ll find us’. The man opens a drawer, there are two gun like objects inside. ‘I’ve prepared two modified zappers. They’re both loaded. I’ve already made up my mind, do whatever you want, I don’t care. I’m going to coin heaven.’ The man holds the zapper to his head.

The other man is shocked. How could his boss do this? He wants to scream but isn’t able to for some reason. He sees his boss’ index finger reach the trigger. A clock ticks. Finally, he’s able to utter some words. ’No, don-’

Bang.

It was already too late: the doors of the office flew open as the cops came swarming in. They arrested the two people in the office. These two people were Satoru Iwata and Shigeru Miyamoto, both keymen of Nintendo Ltd.

They were never heard of again.

Petman’s mind is a blog by one of my fellow Zelda Dungeoneers (is that a word?). I’ve added a link to it on the “Check it out” category here on your right. Much like my own blog, it’s about games and stuff involving games. I’m pretty sure you’ll enjoy reading it, I know I did. So, it’s on the right, don’t forget! Ah, I’ll post a link to it here since I’m pretty sure you’ll forget anyway:

Petman’s Mind 

You know, there was a time where two dimensions were more than enough for everyone. We were all oblivious to the ‘third dimension’. We had X, and we had Y. There was no Z to be found.

But all that changed when F-Zero got released on the Super Nintendo. For the first time in our lives we saw really real 3D. We were finally exploring the third dimension, without the use of warp drive 10! Yes, we were content… Or were we? As time went by, more 3D games appeared. Wolfenstein, and many more. Oddly enough there was something different about these games; they had something we lacked. We had depth, yes. So what’s missing… Height perhaps? And that’s when we realized: we had been foiled.

Don’t get me wrong, mode-7 was a great innovation. It gave us a taste of the third dimension. A small taste, but a taste nonetheless. By flipping a large texture horizontally and by using different mirror and spin techniques we had a semi-3D world we could actually explore (well, all we did in F-Zero was control the floor, not the car unfortunately :<). Great games like Super Mario Kart, Pilot Wings and F-Zero all used the technique extensively, but it still wasn’t really 3D. It was two-and-a-half-dee.

Later on we got some real 3D games thanks to the Super FX chip. Of course they looked primitive, but it was the real stuff. Star Fox is still one of my favorite games of all time. Despite lacking textures and fancy graphics. It featured real 3D, and we loved it.