Last week I learned that KTSR 92.1, my favorite radio station, will be going off the air, this Thursday to be exact. It appears what happened is the station couldn’t afford to stay afloat so its owners sold it to Clear Channel Communications, who will promptly turn it into Candy 95.1, a top 40 radio station.

KTSR is the only “hard rock” station in town, so when it goes away so does that. There’s another station, 103.9 “The X”, but it’s not nearly as good – it plays some rock, but lots of alternative crap (not that all alternative is crap, just a lot of what 103.9 plays). Everything else is either country (Texas – go figure) or Top 40/Pop. Just what we need – another station like that.

I had noticed some weeks back that the rotation of the DJ’s had changed. KTSR had this thing called the “12:15 funny” that I liked to listen to over lunch, but it moved to 4:20 when the DJ who played it, Roxanne Rolls (whose name is a pun), moved slots. Turns out when they told the four main DJ’s about the change looming, two of them left, causing the others to be switched around. I used to listen to it up at work, streaming it off of the Internet, but then when the FCC (or whoever) decided that stations could be double-liable for royalties, they cut that out. I always meant to get a portable radio for work but I never got around to it. Don’t guess I need to now.

Clear Channel Communications is a corporation which makes its money owning radio stations. Specificially, it owns a little over half the radio stations in the country. To put that in perspective, most of the other stations are independently owned or owned by small companies who own a handful of stations each, a dozen or so tops. This makes CCC a behemoth in radio, and it also makes them pretty much a target of the average person. It also has the one very important aspect that to get radio stations to play music, record labels now have to make one very large corporation happy.

CCC is likened to the “Microsoft of Radio”. They drew fire in the wake of 9/11 by sending out a list of songs to their stations that they “should” avoid playing (though there was no direct order). Tom Petty specifically lambasts them in his anti-establishment concept album The Last DJ. And to make it all the more interesting, the CEO of CCC is a member of the Texas A&M Board of Regents, the Govenor-appointed governing body of Texas A&M University. He recently went on record as saying that CCC is “not a monopoly”.

But it’s still kinda sad that KTSR wound up this way. Mainly it’s sad to me that hard rock has no place on radio. I loved heavy metal in the late 80’s (or as much as a 12-year old could), and I loved hard rock in the early 1990’s. I even loved grunge when it turned to that. But somewhere between there and here rock went away, replaced by rap music which formerly complained of no attention, teenybopper queens, and boy bands. If you want to know why white guys my age hate boy bands so badly, that’s why – they killed what we like. The final straw was the cancellation of Headbanger’s Ball on MTV. How ironic then that the most popular show in years has an aging Ozzy Osbourne.

Now rock is “back”, but it’s “Nu Metal”. Suddenly I feel old. I can’t stand most of it, and I think a lot of it sounds the same. That’s one of the things I liked about KTSR – they played the good old stuff, everything from Led Zeppelin to Nirvana.

Now I won’t go on some anti-corporate tirade about how the whole commercial world sucks, I understand all that. I get why hard rock doesn’t pull in the advertiser dollars but the squeaky clean pop does. I just don’t like it. Therefore, I’ve decided that once KTSR goes off the air, that’s it. I’m not listening to radio anymore in College Station. Not that this means much – I’ll be moving to Dallas before too long (in fact some of my prospects are moving in so quickly that I was wondering last week if I’d beat KTSR out of town), but I’m not going to listen to radio anymore before I move. Given that I have hundreds of hours of music I know I like in my car, this shouldn’t be an issue.

Which of course brings up the reason it’s almost nice to not listen to radio. No more annoying commercials (a statement which of course nicely sums up why KTSR folded), no more scratchy reception, no more listening to songs I don’t like. Plus, it’s not like I was going to listen to it much longer anyway. Still, it’s an interesting listen nowadays with the DJ’s confirming the demise, discussing it with callers, and it’ll be really interesting to see what that last day is like. I wonder what they’ll play for their last song. “The Aggie War Hymn” or “Stairway to Heaven”?

Still, Candy 95.1? Could they have found a gayer, dumber name? Almost like they’re trying to be ironic.

I have a modest proposal to PC game publishers. Since I’m not sure if many PC game publishers visit this page, if some of you could do me the favor of propagating this piece or its URL as far as you can (click on the timestamp above to get a static link), I’d appreciate it.

It used to be that PC game publishers put their games out in a variety of boxes, all sizes and proportions. Then in 2001, Wal-Mart requested that publishers release versions of them in standard smaller sized boxes for shelves, since their shelf space in their electronics section is limited. Given that Wal-Mart is the largest retailer in the world, the PC game manufacturers agreed, and for a time you could go to Wal-Mart and see smaller versions of the same games you could get in larger boxes at other retailers.

Shortly thereafter, other retailers decided they liked this idea (since it would help their shelf space, too) and PC game publishers liked the idea of potentially selling more, so early in 2002, they all pretty much agreed on the smaller box sizes, and now all PC games ship in them.

Being conservative, I was of course objected to this at first. But then I decided the packaging was irrelevant, and who was I to say screw environmental and economic concerns for my aesthetic tastes? Still, this meant no more cool PC boxes (remember Gabriel Knight?).

But then the real problem surfaced – these smaller boxes meant less space for things like manuals and – more importantly – disc packaging. Many games have flimsy manuals (like twitchy FPS games), so this wasn’t a big loss. Neverwinter Nights however came with a largish spiral bound manual, and as a result the three CD’s the game ships on came in paper sleeves – the ones with large circular holes with clear plastic windows so you can see what disc it is. If the CD’s were merely vehicles for the game to be on my hard drive, I wouldn’t care. However, most games require the CD to be in the drive, so what I wind up having to do is install the game from the CD’s, place the non-required CD’s in the box, then keep the required disc and its sleeve in the gateway folding on the front of the game box (provided the game box does this).

It works, but it’s really not stylish. I mean, for starters it means you have to keep your game boxes around. And since they’re made of cardboard, they’re going to get pretty sad looking before too long. And of course if you pick them up the little CD falls out of the gateway fold. Even this isn’t so horrible, since I usually hold on to game boxes for an unusual amount of time, but most people want to pitch them. So either your games are held in cheap paper sleeves, or you put them in jewel cases you buy yourself, or keep them in one of those CD carrying folders. None of these solutions are what I like.

And the main reason I don’t like the most practical solution – that of putting the discs in empty jewel cases I buy myself – is because it’s ugly. Either you put them in those ultra slim cases or standard sized ones, and unless you’re ultra creative, any labelling solution is going to look pretty crappy – and you shouldn’t have to do that. So you’re left with tons of unlabeled games you have to pilfer through every time you want to play a game. It sucks.

And then I look at my DVD shelf. I like DVD cases, or “keep cases”. I even let my DVD collection and my PS2/GameCube collection sit on the same shelf. DVD cases are perfect – you can put a pretty decent manual in there, you can put numerous discs, the packaging is durable (except for those evil “snapper cases”), and it’s just a handsome way to display what you have, as well as being useful. Plus, whereas jewel cases have a habit of breaking through casual use, DVD cases are pretty solid, since they’re usually one piece.

So you see where this is headed, right? PC game publishers, this is my proposal – you went to the smaller boxes to save shelf space, so I’ll do you one better – go to DVD cases. DVD cases are even smaller, and I can guarantee more people will like them. Well OK, I can’t guarantee, but here’s some perks.

DVD cases can hold multiple discs, so 3-CD games won’t be a problem. Sure. it gets cramped in there after 2 discs, but “double-wide” DVD cases are available. You can even cram four discs in there if you want to. Look at how the Cleopatra DVD worked. If your game covers more than 4 CD’s in 2003, you may want to rethink your strategy (it’s called compression). Plus this is a concern destined to go away – within five years I predict that all games will ship on DVD anyway, since any PC worth playing it will have a DVD drive anyway. It might be like the 5.25″-to-3.5″ days for a while, but it’ll get there.

With a little finagling, manuals can fit in DVD cases. In the case of FPS games they’ll fit anyway, since those games never have long tomes anyway. However, since any manual Master of Orion 3 ships with is going to displease people anyway, trim it down and make the “real” manual either a separate book shrink-wrapped on the box, or available with a send-in coupon (hint – they’re like rebates: not everyone will send it in). Make it a PDF on the disc in any event.

The only “real” problem I can think of this is that of confusion. Namely that people might get the games confused with console games. I don’t think anyone’s going to pick up a $50 DVD case and think it’s a movie, so that’s not a problem. And I don’t see too much conflict since PC games are separate from console games anyway. Plus, how many people buy the wrong version of a cross-platform game? People have noticed the difference between the “GameCube”, “Xbox” and “PS2” logos (though the green Xbox cases help, too), so they’re smarter than people might realize. But of course the PC doesn’t have its own logo, so either the lack of a logo will have to suffice, or a simple agreed-upon logo will have to do (there may already be one). Perhaps when all games move to DVD some variant of the DVD logo with the word “PC GAME” in lieu of “VIDEO” will work.

I already see some PC titles doing this – like when Sid Meir released Anteitam at EB Games only, and the Mechwarrior 4 expansion pack. It would be easy to do, may wind up being cheaper and more profitable, and since everything is attuned to DVD sized cases these days anyway (I even saw a vending machine of them for movie DVD’s at a theater the other day), then the retailers are already ready.

Plus they would look cool as hell on a shelf.

Anyway, that’s my proposal. Any thoughts?

The first day after a haircut, especially on a somewhat cold day, is always weird – it takes me a while to get used to the cold air on the back of my neck.

Anywho, I’m going to devote another post here to Nintendo. Specifically, their current conundrum of being successful yet having problems succeeding conventionally.

Worldwide, Nintendo’s GameCube is selling a little bit better than the Microsoft Xbox (at one point at least it was 10 million versus 8 million). However, in North America and most of Europe, the Xbox is selling better. Most of the reason the GameCube is doing better worldwide is that Japan doesn’t like Xbox at all – and they’re 1/3 of the world’s gamers.

Still, it’s not like the Xbox is obliterating the GameCube (they’re both being obliterated by the PlayStation 2 – with 50 million units worldwide). Plus Nintendo recently instituted a system wherein people who buy a GameCube get one of four free games – one of which is Metroid Prime. That should help sales some more.

Nintendo’s problem, though, is not that the GameCube isn’t selling or hasn’t sold enough. In fact, Nintendo doesn’t really have a problem at all, really. It’s everyone else.

See, what tends to happen is this – people go buy a GameCube, then they get Metroid. And Mario. And they preorder Zelda. And if they’re feeling adventurous they go get Animal Crossing, Pikmin, Starfox Adventures or Eternal Darkness. The problem with this? They’re all Nintendo developed games (first party titles), or made by comapies Nintendo owns part of (or in the case of Starfox, owned) and published by Nintendo themselves (second party). Third party games (by companies with no Nintendo ties) are pretty much ignored by GameCube gamers.

As a result of this, some publishers are pulling support for the GameCube. Sega announced last week that they’re not going to publish any more sports games for the GameCube, and 3DO (who themselves just recently became profitable again) has decided to cut back their GameCube presence, plus EA is thinking about not releasing sports titles on the Cube (which would be a bad thing, as it would pretty much rid the GameCube of sports titles). The reasoning is simple – when they release a game on all three platforms, it’s the GameCube version that doesn’t sell so well, and when the stockholders start to complain about a lack of profit, something has to go.

So what’s caused this problem? Several factors, some of which are obvious and others which are less apparent.

The most obvious is that since fewer people in North America own a GameCube, there’s less sales for fewer consoles. However, if this were the only cause then they would just make fewer copies of those games. If your newspaper only sells 50 copies a day, don’t print 100. However if your newspaper sells zero copies a day then you go out of business.

So what this means is that it’s not just that third party games sell fewer copies, it must be next to no copies. So why then do millions of people buy GameCubes and then buy no third party games?

Probably the biggest part of the problem – and what a part to have – is that Nintendo games are simply too good. I seem to recall several places listing Nintendo as the best developer in the world, and I (of course) think it’s true. These people consistently make games that are so good people buy hardware just to play them. Think of the tons of people who bought a Nintendo 64 just to play Goldeneye (a second party game). People buy Nintendo systems to play Nintendo games.

Since Nintendo does so well with their first party games, they don’t really do all that much to try and ensure exclusive third party games – something that Xbox and PS2 thrive on. PS2 is the only place to get GTA3 and GT3, and Xbox is the only place to get Splinter Cell and Halo. But almost every exclusive GameCube game is by Nintendo themselves. The only third party exclusives I can think of are the recent Resident Evil titles, but Resident Evil was a remake, Resident Evil Zero was a prequel, and the game that people really want, Resident Evil 4, won’t be out until next year.

In some ways the developer reluctance is a holdover from the Nintendo 64 days. Developers didn’t want to do anything for that system, both due to market reasons (the PSX always sold better) and format reasons – cartridges were not only small in storage size but they were expensive as well – as much as $30 per cart. Now Nintendo has a nice disc-based system to develop for but the third party developers still aren’t going for it, and the ones who do are greeted with poor sales.

The Nintendo 64 legacy isn’t just being felt by the developers, it’s being felt by the consumers as well. Many people bought a Nintendo 64 and decided they didn’t like the fact that the games were few and far between, and at comparitively higher prices when they did come around (like the $60 and $70 games). Some let their system fall into neglect, in favor of the PlayStation, some sold their Nintendo 64’s or threw them away. Many came to regard the Nintendo 64 as a system that was good for the occasional Nintendo game and that was it.

So now many of these same people see the GameCube as a system for playing the occasional groundbreaking Nintendo game and that’s it. If they want a game that’s available on all three platforms then they’ll buy it on PS2 or Xbox.

Another part of this thinking is the perception that the GameCube is a toy system and that Nintendo is a kiddie games company. It doesn’t help that the GameCube is tiny and has its own handle – not unlike small 45 record players many of us had as children – and that Nintendo releases Animal Crossing with low-key childish graphics and the Zelda game will look like a cartoon. Of course people also lambast the Xbox for being too large and heavy. Why it occurs to no one that all game systems are in fact toys and that portability concerns mean nothing when you rarely if ever move the systems I don’t know. So what winds up happening is that people don’t want to buy a “serious” game for the GameCube (and many take the sports games very seriously) since it’s a “toy” system.

Plus some people just don’t like the GameCube controller. The game Soul Calibur II is coming out on all three platforms with the twist that each version gets its own bonus character – PS2 gets a fighter from Tekken, Xbox gets Spawn, and GameCube gets Link, probably the most popular of the three (mainly because people are ambivalent about Tekken and Spawn hasn’t been too popular since the movie came out, plus its coming out in close proximity to Wind Waker). But despite this many have stated they won’t buy the GameCube version of SC2 since they can’t stand the GameCube controller – they don’t like the stick/button layout for fighter games.

And another thing which I believe sticks in people’s minds is the small size of the GameCube discs. They’re 3″ DVD’s that hold 1.5GB per layer, so for a 2 layer disc it’s 3GB, which is still less size than the 4.7GB a single layered 5″ DVD can carry (the outer portion has more space than the inner portion). Many people believe that their games must be cut down or scaled back to fit on these smaller discs – another holdover from the Nintendo 64 days, and one I’m not sure is entirely incorrect. Others think the discs are too puny and when you’re talking about sports and fighting games, an inferiority complex is a bad thing. This goes back to the “toy” perception problem. Finally, some games – like Resident Evil Zero – have already spread to two discs. Many gamers figure the reason they moved to DVD in the dirst place was to avoid disc switching (though in RE0‘s defense the multiple disc thing is also a function of how the game works).

Finally, few people have a GameCube as their lone system. Again, this comes back to the “toy” problem. Since most people have multiple game systems, when a game comes out for multiple systems they have to decide which system to get it for. In previous generations, when there were huge and obvious gaps in console power, theseb decisions were easier. Actually, when the gaps in power were bigger, the developers made the calls. If you wanted realt fast action, go Genesis (Sonic), if you want lots of colors, go SNES (256 vs. 32), if you want storage space, go PSX, etc. However these days the three dominant consoles are pretty much the same. Sure, they have different architectures and different programming techniques and such, but when a game comes out for all three consoles, it’s pretty much identical. The publisher doesn’t want to spend the additional cash to come up with minute differences. Plus in the case of movie tie-ins, they want the games to be simultaneous (i.e., the three Spider-Man games available at the movie launch). Finally of course they don’t really want the games to be competing with themselves.

In the N64/PSX generation this easier – there were only two consoles. You made tons of copies for the PSX, and then came out with enough N64 copies to sell, making more as needed. Publishers don’t want to go back to the monopolistic NES days – Nintendo was simply draconian back then with licensing policies as they were the only game in town. So what the publishers would really like is a duopoly again. Of course PS2 is set with the number of consoles out there, so that leaves Nintendo or Xbox. Many would like Microsoft to win – but Microsoft is untested in this area, and they keep dropping hints about the next Xbox (so does Nintendo, but less frequently), as well as having really crappy policies on online usage (imagine how pissed many gamers were when they found out that, despite having broadband built-in, they had to pay more to play Xbox online. Nintendo actually could capitalize on this, and I kinda hope they do).

But Nintendo isn’t going anywhere, and they’ve even confirmed that a GameCube successor is in the works. Plus Nintendo has billions in the bank. They could take tons of losses on GameCube and more than make up for it with whatever Pokemon GBA title they’ll unveil. I can really see why the publishers are pissed that millions and millions of people own this inexpensive video game system and yet don’t buy anything other than Nintendo games for it. It’s not because people are tied to Nintendo per se, it’s just that Nintendo makes really good games.

So we have three companies, each entrenched with money, none of which are going anywhere (if Microsoft leaves, it’ll be because they’re bored – not because they’re going broke). So this leaves the question – if third party development for the GameCube goes away but Nintendo sells millions of units of hardware and tons and tons of their own games, does this mean that the GameCube is a success or a failure? Hardcore gamers won’t limit themselves to this console and they’ll speak highly of the Nintendo-authored games, but they’ll generally dislike the lack of games on the console. But if Nintendo sells a ton, makes a ton, and people who do play the games and buy the system love it, will it matter? Sure, you won’t be able to swing by Wal-Mart on the way home and pick up a Dukes of Hazzard game, but when the next Pikmin comes out then you’ll get more out of it than a roll in the hay. Is this a bad thing? I can see why people got mad when Nintendo 64 games slowed to a trickle, and then the new game was something like A Tigger Adventure, but will the GameCube situatiuon ever become that dire?

SNK’s Neo Geo system lasted for a long time based almost entirely on their own games. They carved out quite a niche for themselves for a long time, before it all caught up with them in 2001. Could Nintendo do the same thing – last a long time selling their own hardware and their own games for that hardware? It would be one hell of a huge niche. Oddly enough this is the same thing that PC gamers like myself make fun of the Macintosh for – the Mac only has a handful of games, and they tend to be the ones that worked well on the PC – but as a result the Mac games have a better chance of being good, since the sorting has been done already.

If nothing else, this pretty much cements the fact that the console market is one with a huge barrier to entry which is going nowhere fast. We’ll never see a 3DO or Atari again, much less an Indrema. This is kinda sad, since it’s hard to really pull for Microsoft or Sony – meaning Nintendo’s the last “true” game company out there. Perhaps this is why I root for them so much – they’re the last of a breed. If they go away it’ll be two major non-game corporations competing, until the next major corporation tries to get in. So if you’re like me, you’ll be buying all your third party games for the GameCube from now on. It’s just a thought.

A really good article explaining Web Services, and specifically why it is that despite the fact that all the different companies have their own plans for them (Microsoft has .NET, Sun has J2EE), they’re taking great pains to get along with each other.

Favorite quote: “Trying to do the job of a mainframe with PCs has been likened to harnessing scores of chickens to pull a carriage”

The next (tenth) game in the long-running Legend of Zelda series is The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, which will be released on March 23rd in the United States. The game is controversial, mostly because unlike other games which evolved from the days of the NES (like the recent Metroid Prime), the creators decided to go with a cartoon look and feel, and the result is decidedly anime.

The vast majority of early legitimate critics who have sampled the results are unanimous – the game is the best Zelda yet, and the look serves the game well. There is still a vocal Internet section which still has skepticism, even disdain for the look of the game. Some even go so far as to admit it will probably be an excellent game but they still refuse to accept the new look. Part of this is due to the fact that some Zelda footage was shown in 2000 when Nintendo unveiled the GameCube for the first time and in this footage Link & Ganon look realistic, not cartoonish. Perhaps part of the disdain is the shock of the change.

Personally, my take is this – the creators of the original The Legend of Zelda for the NES in 1986 (many of which, including Miyamoto, are still with the game’s development team), always wanted Zelda to be a cartoon. They even tried to make the Nintendo 64 games a cartoon, but it didn’t work out too well with the capabilities of the hardware. They might lose some customers with this move but I for one think it’s great that they have the resources and backing to even try anything new.

And they’re using cell shading, which has been used to some degree in games recently. But personally, games like Jet Set Radio and Dragon’s Lair 3D never looked all that much like cartoons to me – they looked like Daria or Clerks, a very exaggerated thick-lined style. I’ve played a short demo of Wind Waker and it looks like a real cartoon – and we’re talking top notch Disney Animated Feature stuff, too.

This got me thinking – when a movie like Treasure Planet tanks and Ice Age does well the pundits start thinking that traditional 2-D animation is dead and 3-D computer-generated animation is the way of the future. I say why can’t we do both? Just do the traditional 2-D animated Lilo & Stitch stuff with the engines like Wind Waker runs on. And who needs Pixar’s render farms? Wind Waker runs on a stock $149 GameCube. Hell, wouldn’t that be cool – an animated cartoon you can watch in different ways in your living room since it’s being rendered on the fly.

The other way this release is noteworthy is due to its preorder bonus. I’ve preordered mine and if you haven’t yet you might want to get on that. The preorder bonus, which ships on February 17th, is a GameCube disc which has two games on it – The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time Master Quest. There’s some confusion on this, so I’ll clear it up.

The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time is of course the 1998 Nintendo 64 game which won pretty much every award in the world which Half-Life didn’t win.

In 1996 when development began on the game the largest cartridge ROM size was 8MB (8 Megabytes, 64 Megabits). Nintendo was in the unfortunate spot of unveiling a cartridge based system in a CD-ROM based world, so they quickly announced that a CD-ROM drive add-on for the Nintendo 64 would be forthcoming. Shortly thereafter they changed their tune and announced the 64DD, a removable disk-based storage device which used large magnetic disks (think Zip drive) that were 64MB (256 Megabits) in size. Nintendo decided they needed a killer app for the system, and they decided that the Nintendo 64 Zelda game would be a good match, so development of the title started with the 64DD in mind.

The 64DD, in addition to having more storage capability, also allowed for the writing of data on parts of the disk, had an internal clock, and came with a 4MB memory upgrade. However, as time went on it kept being delayed, to the point where games which were formerly for the drive were being repositioned for cartridges. When Nintendo lost out in 1997’s Christmas buying season, the heat was on for Zelda to be delivered on time for the 1998 season, so it was squeezed onto a cartridge.

At the time the biggest cart was 32MB, so this meant that a certian amount of the game had to be cut out. In addition, changes to the existing game were made for various reasons of clarity. The plan was then to program the cartridge game with 64DD “hooks”, so that a 64DD add-on disk could be released later on and the removed portions restored, and both the Japanese and American cartridges were released with these hooks programmed in. When the cartridge was teamed with the 64DD add-on disk, which was to be called Ura Zelda, the original game was playable.

But the 64DD was repeatedly delayed. In Japan the device didn’t make sense since the Nintendo 64 never sold all that well and in America it didn’t make sense since it would segment the user base. In addition it had the same problem which plagued the Famicom Disk System in the days of the Famicom/NES – eventually its main draw (that magnetic disk space was cheaper than solid state media) was rendered obsolete by technology advances. It was released in Japan in 2000 with eight titles, didn’t sell, and was declared a dud. I’ve read conflicting reports on wheteher or not the Ura Zelda disk was actually released, but I don’t think it was. The 64DD was never released in America.

So what then is The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time Master Quest then? Simple, it’s Ura Zelda. Consequently, anyone who preorders The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker in the United States will finally get to play the original uncut Ocarina of Time.

This move isn’t unprecedented. The game which was released in America as Super Mario Bros. 2 for the NES was a modification of a Japanese game called Doki Doki Panic (which was why it was so radically different than Super Mario Bros. and Super Mario Bros. 3). The Japanese version of Super Mario Bros. 2 was basically the Super Mario Bros. engine with different levels, released for the aforementioned Famicom Disk System. I’ve heard various reasons over the years as to why Nintendo did this (everything from the levels being too hard for American kids to the idea that Americans might not want to pay for another game made on dated technology), but it saw the light of Eastern shores when the SNES title Super Mario All-Stars featured upgraded versions of the SMB trilogy, along with the Japanese SMB2 under the title The Lost Levels.

Switching gears back to Zelda, the series is an odd one for continuity. Essentially, there isn’t any. The general crux is that the player controls a character called Link who lives in the Kingdom of Hyrule and he either needs to rescue the Princess Zelda from the clutches of Ganon, or he gets transported to a mysterious faraway land (usually shipwrecked or somesuch) and must right some wrong before he can go home. Half of the games are Link saving Zelda from Ganon, the other games involve Link mysteriously transported. Some believe (as I do) that the games are essentially retellings of each other, eschewing things like upgrades in favor of simply keeping the basic elements in place and redoing the rest. Others believe that the series is in fact a long series of continuous events, meaning that either Link and Zelda continuously pretend as if they didn’t just get finished with this “save the princess” routine, or they’re descendants of the other Link & Zelda (and of course Ganon’s a descendant, too). One theory I read was that there are in fact three Links and three Zeldas.

My take is the former, that these games are simply “timeless” characters and the story is simply being retold. Why not? It still works. No one questions why the characters in Soul Calibur need to get back together and fight (though in the GameCube version of Soul Calibur II, Link is a playable character). Some say that every Zelda game is essentially the same thing – but it still works. And so what if the basic gameplay mechanic is unchanged from the Nintendo 64 Zelda games – those worked, too.

Anywho, I’m going to go home and play The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask, the second (released) Nintendo 64 Zelda game which I never did finish…