I'm convinced SOME part of the development process took place in an American studio. My evidence is LOOK AT IT. Everything about the concept and the art style screams "this was made by Cartoon Network".
Apparently 200 prototypes of this thing were made, but all were ordered destroyed when the deal fell through... but a maintenance guy kept one, and his son just posted pictures of it. There's no power cord, so until we see that proof I'll be at least a bit skeptical, but the article above adds a lot more credibility to the story than just the initial pictures (also in that article) do. Presuming it is real, I wonder what's on the cart and the CD...
Quote:IGN: So earlier, I brought up the similarities in the approach. The outfits remind me of gear-driven games like Monster Hunter and MMOs. Part of what ties into equipment-driven games is a player has a choice between choosing a male or female. I'm curious if, in this game, players will have a choice between a male avatar or a female avatar, especially since the story doesn't seem tied to a specific gender?
Hiromasa Shikata: I’m going to tell you a little bit about the story quickly and we'll circle around, here. There's this kingdom, an event happens, and the king needs heroes. So, he puts out a call for heroes to gather and one of those is this guy Link. He sees this audition, basically, ‘Heroes needed; apply here.’ And, that's the start of his adventure.
The story calls for this sort of legend/prophecy where heroes will come together to help solve a problem. And in that, they are male characters. So, because the game is set with that as the story background, you cannot choose a gender; you are a male character.
IGN: I guess I wouldn't be doing my job if I didn't express some slight disappointment with that, especially because there is a Zelda outfit Link wears in the game. It just feels like it's one step closer to giving the Zelda series' female audience the chance to explore that universe from another perspective.
Shikata: Understood. I understand what you're saying, and just as general information, we do have a lot of female staff members who are playing this game and enjoying it. It doesn't seem to be a big issue to them. They still are getting emotional investment in this game. And to be honest, Link isn't the most masculine of guys in the world, depending on how you want to project yourself into the character.
That's one weak, weak excuse, Nintendo. Has this guy ever heard of the concept of a female hero before? And it'd be REALLY easy to make a female version of the model, too.
My childhoods! I think it's great that they both seem to have such huge respect for each other, and then they both just goof off and pay some homage to Charlie Chaplin and then Miyamoto plays with a Star Fox muppet! (He's surprisingly adept at it.)
Seriously, he's always been an awful person, but now... now he's gone too far, to a crazy degree.
So, Paul LePage, Governor of Maine and just re-elected last November because the people in this state made some bad decisions in the voting booth, basically is throwing a massive fit right now. Fortunately the State House stayed Democratic, so while the Republicans picked up the State Senate, they don't hold all the power.
This most recent set of incidents started with him getting mad that the state representatives won't pass the tax plan he wants. The Republicans and Democrats in the statehouse worked together and passed a budget, without his regressive tax changes included. He vetoed it (back to vetoes soon), and they overrode the veto and passed it. This made him mad.
So, he vowed to veto every single bill that had a Democratic co-sponsor until the Dems cave in and give him his stupid tax plan. They refused, so the vetoes started mounting up. And when Republicans in the statehouse decided to support over-riding some of those vetoes, he ... promised to veto almost every single bill with either a Republican OR Democratic sponsor! Yes, that means pretty much everything. Wonderful. He also put 72 line-item vetoes in to try to change that budget to cut things he disliked; the statehouse overrode all 72. Now, some of his numerous vetoes of bills did hold up, but most have been overridden. This whole veto-everything idiocy made me seriously start wondering if he's lost it.
And then... then he did something worse than anything he's done before: He got the Democratic leader in the statehouse fired from his new job. Now, state legislators don't make nearly enough money to live off of that salary, so they need other jobs. This guy, Mark Eves, is a teacher, and got a job at a charter school for disadvantaged children. Charter schools are an idea the right love but liberals do not (basically, most charter schools draw students and money out of the public school system, hurting most students), and only were approved for the first time fairly recently. Eves opposed allowing charter schools when they came up to vote, but it did pass, and now he was going to work at one... until LePage decided that he didn't want that to happen.
So, LePage threatened the school, telling them that he would REVOKE THEIR STATE FUNDING if they let Eves stay at his new job, purely because of his personal dislike of Eves' politics. So, the school was forced to fire Eves, they don't want to be shut down. But this didn't stay hidden, and the news of this insane overreach has become something of a scandal. I hope it hurts LePage badly, you cannot get someone fired just because you dislike them for their political opinions, that's insane!
Some talk is starting up of impeachment, but that would require a 2/3rds majority in the Republican-led state Senate, so that'll be difficult. It sure would be nice if LePage would go, though.
Oh, in other news about LePage, he just made a hilarious joke about shooting a Bangor Daily News cartoonist who he disagrees with. Isn't he just a riot? :bummed: (He's said things like this before, too.)
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