Weekly News Roundup: 07.03.2011

For those of us in the States, the Fourth of July is on Monday– and that means lots of video games fragfests barbecues, fireworks, and, uhm … whatever it is those non-video-gaming plebeians do on national holidays. And for the most part, there’s plenty of cause to celebrate here in Videogameland. Read on for this week’s top stories!

id Software director calls Wii U “slam dunk”

John Carmack hasn’t decided anything yet, but at least he’s considering Wii U.

While this certainly does not guarantee anything, id Software’s co-founder, John Carmack, has had some very positive things to say about the Wii U this week. Carmack noted that despite id Software’s statement that it would release no games for Wii, this was mainly because the console “hasn’t been the right fit”; however, because Carmack now plays mostly Wii and DS games with his young son, he’s apparently more inclined to develop games for those platforms. Here’s an excerpt from the full interview, linked below:

I think there may be more good uses of that [Wii U tablet] than [there are for] the current generation with Kinect and Move… there’s clearly a subset of games for which things like that are appropriate for. We’ve been going on with how can we use those types of motion things with Rage and it’s hard to take a game that’s fundamentally designed around a controller and get value out of doing some of those other things, while adding extra touch interfaces there, that seems like something that almost every game could make some use of without it being just like, “Oh, we have to do something like this.” Because if you remember, when the DS came out, there was a lot of talk about how, “Isn’t this going to be just a gimmick?” But really it did turn out to be quite a good interface to build on.

id Software, known for its Commander Keen, Doom and Quake franchises, also plans on releasing a 3DS version of the 1992 PC shooter, Wolfenstein 3D.

Source: Industry Gamers

Veterans Yoshiaki Koizumi and Eiji Aonuma talk Wii U– Koizumi less informed

Mr. Koizumi’s a Nintendojo favorite around these parts (or just Hsieh’s favorite), and it’s for reasons like these that we still send valentines to him on a yearly basis happy vibes to him all too often. Tech publication Wired recently interviewed Koizumi about Wii U, and it turns out Koizumi may have more on the mind than using the Wii U as an extension of the screen (read: just another handheld).

“We’re always asking ourselves questions like this as we’re researching new games, about the opportunities presented by the hardware,” he told Wired. “When I think about the two screens being used at the same time, it seems like an interesting opportunity to allow us to create a console game where two people are playing at the same time but can’t see each others’ screens. It’s certainly an interesting approach, but I have to clarify that it’s not something that we’re working on just yet.” Since much of the hype for Wii U has centered around this more competitive-slash-stealthy point of play, Koizumi’s reluctance to take this approach (or at least, his reluctance to talk about what he’s working on) just provokes our curiosity. Especially with a passing mention he made of his experiments that connected The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask with old-school Game Boy systems.

Meanwhile, Aonuma warns that we shouldn’t take the Zelda HD demo too seriously, noting that the introduction of the GameCube came with a realistic Zelda demo as well, even though his development team had already been hard at work with The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. According to Aonuma, the Zelda team did not make the Wii U’s Zelda HD demo, though Satoru Takizawa, art director of The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, led its production. Nevertheless, Aonuma says that while he and other Wii U collaborators were developing Wii U, they “would use Zelda assets quite often to examine, OK, how real will we make this look?”.

Finally, Wired asked if the inventory and map features so often seen with the Zelda HD demo would be a Wii U Zelda’s defining features. “I’d like to do things that are more surprising than that,” Aonuma replied.

Source: Wired

Professor Layton and the Eternal Diva slated to hit U.S. shores

Fall 2011 should be an exciting time for Professor Layton fans, as they’re hit by a double whammy of puzzling adventure. Not only will Professor Layton and the Last Specter, the first of a trilogy of Layton prequels, arrive outside of Japan, but so will Professor Layton and the Eternal Diva, according to Viz Media. Unlike Last Specter, though, Eternal Diva comes without much audience participation, considering it’s a feature film– unless, of course, you count our fangirlish screaming whenever Layton solves a puzzle a form of audience participation.

While the film has already been released in the United Kingdom, the United States has not had a chance to experience Layton’s leaps of logic on the silver screen. Eternal Diva promises, much like Layton’s games, plenty of puzzles (tidily numbered, as usual) and a plot involving everything from body doubles to unearthly voices to eternal life. Viz Media has not yet specified specific release details, but promises it’ll be by fall 2011. If you can’t wait, there’s always the UK Blu-Ray release— or YouTube.

Source: Anime News Network

Also: Operation Rainfall, with whom our own Joshua Johnston conducted an interview, still needs all the help it can get! Check out our interview and then check out their campaign site. We want those Wii RPGs, don’t we?