The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker
Game Cube

I remember when I was small, and my dad bought The Legend of Zelda for my brother and I. This was 1987, so I must have been in 3rd grade or so. If I recall correctly, my dad, my brother and I each would chip in a third of an NES game's price.

My father was very generous in this respect since a) All of our income was derived from him, and b) He hardly played most of the games we owned. The exception was the first Legend of Zelda. Created by the most influential game designer of all time, living deity Shigeru Miyamoto, Zelda was something different; something special; something my dad became totally addicted to.

My dad played relentlessly. He wheeled the full weight of his intellect into mastering and understanding every aspect of the game. He understood Leevers' burrowing patterns. The spear range of Moblins. He tested walls for bomb-able areas by tapping them with his sword, listening for the tell-tale "Kachink!" of a weak spot.

I do not lie: My dad took out graph paper and graphed every single square of the Zelda overworld, set fire to every tree to uncover every secret lair, bombed every wall to find every passage, and created a color pencil-rendered map of everything.

You may say this says something about the nuttiness of my father, but that is not really it. Shut up about my dad. This is not about my dad's nerdliness, but about the immersiveness of Miyamoto's games.

The Zelda series has offered up several staggeringly good titles. The first was the game culture equivalent of Shigeru powering up his fist into some huge glowing ball of energy, and then slamming it into the ground, causing glowing cracks to extend out from the point of impact and incinerate his foes.

The second game, Adventures of Link, baffled and frustrated. The Super Nintendo's Link To The Past was extremely solid, but it was with the Nintendo 64's Ocarina of Time that Miyamoto truly crafted another completely essential game. Anyone who has gone horseback riding over Hyrule as the sun sets, preparing for an evening of ghost hunting knows what I'm talking about.

The strength of the video game medium is its ability to render an entire world for you to interact with. With the exception of some puzzle games, the success of the game ultimately depends on how included you feel in its world.

The new Zelda offers up a world to enter. Using very controversial (I picture two nerds, both pushing each others' foreheads, preventing either from landing a pathetic windmill punch on the other), cel-shaded graphics, you basically feel as if you are creating a cartoon as you play. Many touches of the ultra-immersive game Animal Crossing are prevalent, including a mail-delivery system, and even the kicking up of little leaves and flowers as you run through foliage.

Animal Crossing, also for the Game Cube, is my dad's current addiction, as it grants its players the ability to collect fossils for the museum, arrange furniture endlessly and do chores for sassy animal villagers. The game runs on real-time, so you have to play every day, to keep your villagers happy.

So I brought the new Zelda game over to my dad's house, and he dropped it into his Game Cube. I went into the kitchen, had a Coke, made some calls, ate some quiche. Eventually, I wandered back into his computer room. The game was already off.

"It was pretty" was his only real comment. My dad had already fired up Animal Crossing again. "Check out this new furniture I've got in my house — It's a giant stone coin that actually rolls!"

What happened? Where was the freaking out? The intense addiction? The graph paper?

In Wind Waker, the world is incredibly intricate. There is sailing. Treasure hunting. Letter sending. Dungeon delving. Monster totem collecting. Picture taking. Seagull baiting. Sword fighting. Strange Asian Man In Tights who lives on your GBA interacting. Figurine making. Hang gliding. Music conducting. And this is all in the first few hours of playing. Seriously.

The world is too much. Games don't need to offer a total reality experience, with the ability to do anything. They need to streamline that experience, boiling it down to a fun, easy-to-grasp package.

Animal Crossing also has a laundry list of activities, but not to the point of absurdity. More importantly, Animal Crossing is immersive purely as the primary game device. You play to be immersed. There is no story arc. No evil bad guy. No ending. No pressure. You can explore, take or leave whatever you like and suffer no consequences. Wind Waker offers three times the immersion, but with a driving story line, you sort of get this feeling that you may be wasting Link's time.

Any derisive snorts out there about feeling like you are wasting a fictional character's time are being totally ignored.

Wind Waker is like a million microgames tacked onto a Zelda game. Animal Crossing is a beautiful little village of interaction and exploration. Wind Waker intimidates, Animal Crossing invites.

I think I'll bounce this idea off Quetzal the eagle in Mantodea, my Animal Crossing town. Maybe I'll get a new wallpaper for my house, if he likes it.

— Dan Norton)