I really like the difference between Light World and Shadow Realm in Zelda III. There is a game where the locations feel significantly different. Though I got rather tired of running through that hermit’s cave up on the mountain.

As far as the location in this and other games in the series, I think MM does a serviceable job. Its overworld is a cramped reminder of the rushed production cycle, though I wouldn’t say that about the reused art assets. They were used to subtle yet important effect. With that cramped feel came a kind of intimacy, to me anyway, with THE main location: Clock Town. No single locale really stands out like Clock Town does in any of the 3D Zeldas. The town is in the center OF the overworld, in a way being a part of it as opposed to another location in it.

Wind Waker, if you don’t like the sailing (which I loved), could drag on unnecessarily, even with use of warps since you needed to readjust the wind by playing a song anytime you wanted to change direction.

Twilight Princess was basically Nintendo saying “What if Ocarina of Time again?”, which made sense because it was figured into their early push for the Wii. That push was comprised of a million “core” titles exploding onto the scene one after another in a marketing measure as equally brilliant as the attempt to tap into the casual gamers in the first place: Get the core players to stand on line and buy the system, use them as viral marketing THEN all the moms and grandpas will buy it for themselves once they see it in action at their son’s/grandson’s house. This required a big early push of core games, and TP was simply a good fit. It really stands as little else, in my opinion, now in 2012.

@EP: Not Black & White 2, you dolt! D’oh!

I like the way Minecraft did things, with people who payed early and supported the alpha and beta builds getting the game for a cheaper price. That model of game sale should be used more often, I think. In fact, I seem to recall Square-Enix trying the same thing with a recent MMO release…

All this follows the burgeoning trend of publisher-less industry. In a world where marketing can be cheap and viral, and popularity and demand turn on a dime, you don’t want some multi-billion dollar dinosaur holding your IP back, locking it up, or making you beholden to uninspired rushed sequels.

There is a reason for this.

Sometimes I could, sometimes I couldn’t.

I get that they want to put gamers on a tighter leash with regards to dupeing and exploiting/hacking… but I doubt this will PREVENT this in the long run. We’ll see. Will it prevent pirating? Nope. Other games (the first Borderlands, for instance) allowed online/offline profiles without the need for always-on DRM. League of Legends has a login queuing system so that excessive logins don’t crash the servers and just deny access (and LoL has more players now than WoW).

The breakdown of it, from what I can see, is that these measures aren’t really helping THAT much. At least they’re not helping the consumer, and I’d argue that the trade off is questionably worth any security against cheating that this DRM provides. So if we assume this game will still be host to cheaters and pirates, then what’s the benefit of DRM? Most of that benefit goes to Blizzard and Activision. DRM allows them to track everyone’s progress in the game, see how far people get and when they get there. This data is invaluable when gauging the size and timing for DLC and even sequels to games. And this data is why games like Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed has always-on DRM for seemingly no reason.

All that said, I’m no hardcore Diablo fan who NEEDS offline play. But I sympathize with people who miss it as well as anyone who has an unreliable or slow internet connection. Blizzard has left those people with only one option to play this game.

Our eyes had teared up, and we laughed with a howl,
To the woes of the Aussie who was tight as an owl.
The missing food in his boozing he himself did misplace,
And henceforth we shall tease him: he’ll never save face.

So the lesson to learn here is not to get drunk,
And come on the podcast like a blotto-faced punk,
For when you say foolish things–along with headaches
You will find your nonsense preserved in outtakes.