STAR WARS!!!!!!

Done with Zelda posts (for now). WHOO!

I've been taught that the best way to tell a story is in three parts. And logically, the best way to tell two stories is in six parts. But for some reason, George Lucas decided to tell his six part epic with part four! Star Wars is quite possible one of the greatest examples of cinematic storytelling of all time. Drawing heavily from themes in mythology and the hero's journey, Lucas constructed not only his own world, but his own galaxy with its own mythology. And despite the fact that these films are "sci-fi" they're just as much fantasy, the heroes use magic and swords!

Star Wars is so pervasive in our culture. If I say "A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away..." people instantly know that as the intro to Lucas' epic.

George Lucas is a personal hero of mine because of how many groundbreaking technological advances in film happened because of him. Digital video, CGI, and nonlinear editing programs all wouldn't be the same without George and Star Wars.

Enter Ganondorf

Again, you can't talk about The Legend of Zelda without talking about Ganon. Ganon is the main villain in the Zelda series and with good reason. He's a freaking pig monster who wants to take over the world and enslave all its people.
According to Hylian legend, Ganondorf was once a man, Ganondorf, king of the desert thieves. He became a powerful wizard and after gaining a piece of the triforce, became a monster.
Ganondorf is one of the most evil, badass villains in any video game. And he wont die! He keeps coming back game after game. In The Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess, he takes a sword through the chest and stands defiantly to the end. His signature greenish skin and bright red hair give him a very interesting appeal. He looks psychologically sick. Plus he can turn into a pig monster, giving me an irrational fear of pigs.

Princess Zelda

You can't talk about The Legend of Zelda without thinking about the title character. Time and time again, people have asked my "why is it called Zelda if you don't play as Zelda?" To this, I reply, "It's the story of how Link saves Zelda, plus, The Legend of Zelda sounds cooler than The Legend of Link."

So who is Princess Zelda? Well in different games, she plays different roles, but one of her main roles is to protect the Triforce, a relic of the gods. In some games she is powerful enough to break the triforce into pieces and in other games, she's just a young girl who is part of a quest bigger than she can imagine.

I think Zelda is a great character because even though she's always getting captured, a cliche in a lot of video games, I feel like she's actually worth rescuing. Throughout the history of the Zelda series, they've made Zelda more strong, more independent, and more beautiful. She's not just a pansy. In quite a few of the games, she's actually there fighting by your side in the final battle. She's definitely a princess I would try to rescue.

Link, Hero of Time

I can't write a blog entry about The Legend of Zelda series without writing posts about each of the main characters. I'm starting off with Link.
Link is a Hylian, an elflike race that inhabits the land of Hyrule. In every game in the series, he wears his signature green hat and tunic. He always starts his journey as an ordinary person, but as the game progresses, he gains new skills, abilities and weapons. Link uses a sword and shield to battle his enemies. Some of his other signature weapons include a Bow and Arrows, Bombs, and a Boomerang.
I think Link is one of the greatest game heroes of all time. His personality is almost completely up to the player because Link never speaks throughout most of the games. Link can be anyone, and I always feel like I am Link when I play the Zelda games.

The Legend of Zelda!!!

So, any of you who know me will already know this, but I LOVE the Legend of Zelda game series. I've been playing the games for years and know a whole lot about it!. I even have a Zelda tattoo, a symbol from the game representing my love for it and how the game inspired me to want to go into the field of game design.

So for those of you unfamiliar with the series, it is a fantasy action adventure sent in the mythical land of Hyrule. You control the hero, Link, as he journeys through Hyrule searching for pieces of the Triforce, the mystical symbol of the gods, so you can rescue Princess Zelda from the evil wizard Ganon.

There are certain qualities about this series that I will ALWAYS love: Immersive world, Interesting storytelling, Action, and the Music. The game world is HUGE compared to a lot of other games. There are tons of secret hidden ares to explore and things to find. This was one of the first games to give the players so much freedom. As far as storytelling goes, the games have always had interesting stories. Even in the original game, where dialogue consisted of things like "It is dangerous to go alone. Take this" and "Dodongo dislikes smoke," the game told you just enough so you knew what was going on and wanted to know what would happen but not enough to let you put your controller down before you finished the game. In more recent games, much of the story revolves around interesting new things like using a boat to travel the world, time travel, and traveling between two worlds.

Action is another huge part of the game and it's evolved so much. It started out just using your sword to kill monsters and other items like a boomerang and bombs to solve puzzles. In more recent games, they've introduced a targeting system so you can battle enemies while keeping them in your sights. This means that they could give us bigger badder monsters to fight.

And the music is phenomenal. Memorable themes for the "overworld" and "dungeons" have been a staple in all the Zelda games, and as time went on, there has been more and more great music from these games. I have every song from every Zelda game on my ipod and they total at around 600 songs.

Everything about the series is great.

Bowser!

Every hero needs a villain to battle and Mario is no different. And for reasons unknown, Mario's arch enemy is a... turtle? dragon? hybrid?

So what is Bowser? He is the king of the Koopas, a turtle-like creature that inhabits Mushroom Kingdom. Supposedly, Bowser was originally supposed to be an Ox-Creature but a designer working on the game thought it looked kind of like a turtle.

I personally love Bowser's character design. Its stayed virtually unchanged throughout the years, and why not? It works! He's part turtle, part ox, part dragon. He's a great villain. He doesn't get enough love in my opinion. So what if he's always capturing the princess, he's bad ass! I wouldn't mind if they gave him his own game.

Mario, A Character Design Analysis

So, I just posed an entry this afternoon about Super Mario Bros. the game and how it hasn't changed that much over time. Now I'm going to look at Mario as a character and how he has evolved over time. When Mario was first created for Donkey Kong, he was a construction worker named Jumpman. I don't why they didn't give him a real name until later but Jumpman kinda makes sense because he jumps around. And, given the setting of the game, it makes sense that he would be climbing scaffolding because he is a construction worker.

As far as his looks go, the reason that he was initially given a had and mustache was because those were easy to read in such a low resolution. With an 8-bit machine, you cant render much detail. But the detail of a hat and mustache really worked and that's how Mario was "born."

This picture clearly depicts Mario's character design progression throughout the years. Not much has changed in his costume, he still has his signature hat, mustache, and overalls. Really the only changes are the color schemes and the amount of detail rendered. And to better suit his creators love of exploration, Mario became a plumber. The idea of going down one pipe and coming out another, having no idea where you might end up, is actually something that would really happen to Mario's creator, Shigeru Miyamoto. As a kid, Miyamoto would wonder and daydream and get lost because he wasnt paying attention to where he was going. This translated well into Mario.