Competition: Mystery Picture - Hint #3

And here's the third hint which will help you obtain a chance to win a CDR copy of the Shadow of the Colossus Press Disc:

Hint #3 - "-13"

Send your guesses at: alexrowe@projectnico.net.

More about this competition: Here

Poll of the Day: Fumito Ueda inspired movie?

It seems most of you (67%) would prefer if Ueda-san didn't show interest in the PlayStation Portable. On the other hand, the other 33% of you would like a portable game of some sorts. Personally I'd like a game on PSP, as long as it keeps that kind of magic which only Team ICO is able to conjure.

Today's poll was inspired by the recent announcement of the Metal Gear Solid movie in production. Would you like to see a movie inspired by the works of Fumito Ueda and co.? Would you go watch it? Or not?

Put in your votes, the poll is at the top of the page!

The Castle of the Mist - Part 1 Chapter 1 Summary

For all those who wished to know more about the ICO novel, here's the first in a long line of chapter summaries, brought to you by Anithin.

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The Castle of the Mist

Part 1 Chapter 1 (Summary)

The Elder of Tokusa Village was standing outside the weaving house, waiting for his wife to start working on the poncho for the sacrifice. However, he heard only her sobs. At the same time, he thought about the special tradition of his village, which had been passed down in the Elder's family for many generations.

Once in every generation, a horned child would be born into a family in the village. The unfortunate family would be banished from the village, sparing them the pain of raising their child just to see him sacrificed thirteen years later.

The child would be taken care of by the Elder's family until his thirteenth birthday when the High Priest from The Holy Capital would come to the village and take him to the Castle of the Mist to be sacrificed.

However, as he raised the horned boy during his time, as his own grandchild, he and his wife had come to love the boy as their own and could not help but lament the child's fate. The only consolation to the Elder was that there was nothing he could do, for the sacrifice of the horned children was the only way the "Lord" of the Castle of the Mist would keep the village safe.

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These summaries are based on the Thai version of the book. Again, a big thank you to Anithin for doing these and for letting me host them on the journal!

Kotobukiya Figures Feature *Postponed*

I must apologise to all those who've been waiting for the feature I promised yesterday. I did not have the time to take the pictures and write the review but I'm planning on bringing you the feature within a couple of days. Thanks for understanding.

Still, I have to say the figures far exceeded my expectations. The amazing attention to detail and overall polishing make this a must have collection. Hurry up and get yours before it's too late!

Shadow of the Colossus *Unofficial* Novel

What a surprise! I was looking for some news and I stumbled upon an interesting find. A Shadow of the Colossus e-book, published by Denpan. The short novel follows the story of the game and tells the journey of a lone wanderer looking for a way to bring back the soul of his beloved.

Those who can read Japanese may find the e-book here. Those who cannot, don't despair: I'll be translating this straight away.

Link to Denpan page: Click

Picture of the Day: Artwork

Today's Picture: Some of the artwork from Shadow of the Colossus shows the extent to which the artists worked to create a believable world, rich in detail and emotions.

Interview Special: EuroGamer Top 50 Reaction: Shadow of the Colossus

More so than ICO ever did, Shadow of the Colossus has proved divisive amongst those who've played it since its American and Japanese releases. But like ICO, it proved hugely popular with our writers (placing third in our Top 50) and with Eurogamer readers as a whole. The latter's arguably more impressive given that it's achieved that entirely on the strength of imports, with the game only due out in Europe on February 17th.

With this in mind, the game's creator Fumito Ueda was high up on our list of "people to bombard with questions after the top 50". Fearing that it would take a while to get through the various channels that separate European journalists from Japanese developers these days, and conscious that we've already spoken to him twice recently (once in Tokyo, once in London), we didn't ask too much, but we did focus on the game as played, rather than the game as a prospect. We only hope it won't be another few years before we get to see Ueda-san and his team in action again.

Eurogamer: We've been enormous fans of yours since you released ICO, and it was lovely to see Shadow earn such a positive reception. What is your opinion of the game now you have finished development?

Fumito Ueda: Personally, there are some regrets, but I think that that was the best we could considering the team's resource and skills. I felt the same with the previous title, ICO, and I think I will feel the same with my future titles. Although I know that it is not possible, I always seek perfection...

Eurogamer: You seem to specialise in creating quiet characters who live through their actions. Why do you think that is?

Fumito Ueda: It is because it has to be like that currently.

I think that the hero is the player, so I want to respect the intention of the player and make sure that character won't act against the player's intention as much as possible. To make it happen naturally without showing strangeness, characters of ICO and Wanda [Shadow's Japanese title] were created that way. I would create some talkative characters if I could come up with a natural and accurate representation.

Eurogamer: Which was your favourite colossus, and what do you find particularly satisfying about it?

Fumito Ueda: That would be the first humanoid type colossus.

I think that this colossus can freely move around the most compared to other tetrapod and snake types, and you can feel that it is intelligent. I can put into various ideas as the colossus is available for different actions and the action that you see when player gets caught is big as well.

Eurogamer: What was your favourite game of 2005, and why was it special to you?

Fumito Ueda: Although it is difficult to pick one as there were many great games in 2005, I would pick "biohazard 4". Overall quality of the game such as graphic, interaction, and sound, etc. was high, so I liked it. My other favourite games include "God of War", "Ryu-ga-gotoku", and "Peter Jackson's King Kong The Official Game of the Movie".

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Source: EuroGamer

Interview Special: Wired News: Behind the Shadow: Fumito Ueda

Fumito Ueda, the director of Shadow of the Colossus, is one of the game industry's artistic geniuses.

With a background in fine art and painting, Ueda was the creative force behind Sony's critically acclaimed Ico, which was a particular hit with women for its romantic tone and soft visuals.

One of Ueda's signatures is dispensing with game chestnuts like meters and levels, instead showing players' progress by personifying the information in the characters' personality or movement. In Shadow of the Colossus, for instance, the scale of the massive beasts that must be slayed shows the "level" reached by the player.

A measure of the man's stature in the industry is that even designers with major game credits of their own want to get near him to express their appreciation for his work. Wired News recently interviewed Ueda, as games producer and industry veteran Kenji Kaido sat in. But Ueda answered all the questions -- the games, as everyone knows, are Ueda's babies.

Wired News: Is there any connection between the worlds of Ico and Shadow of the Colossus?

Fumito Ueda: There's no specific connection as far as a timeline. But, both games exist in the same world.

WN: But you've said the baby we see at the end of Colossus is the first "baby born with horns" referred to in the backstory of Ico.

FU: Yes. I wanted to give some idea to the player, after you complete the game, that there was a connection to Ico. That's why I put in the baby with the horns. If somebody goes all the way through the game, I wanted them to be rewarded.

WN: Have you worked out the timeline of this world for yourself? What happens between the two games?

FU: In the beginning, I didn't have a complete picture of the storyline. But I did know what I wanted the game design to be. I try to match the game design with the storyline, so the story followed from the mechanics. (At an industry conference recently, Ueda was asked why Ico, the main character of the first game, had horns on his head. The designer said that in early play tests it was difficult to tell which character you were controlling, so they put horns on his head. Only after that did it become part of the game's story.)

WN: In 2002, before anything about Colossus was revealed, you were asked about your next project. You said while Ico was one big challenge, your next game would be many small challenges. What did you mean by that?

FU: The big challenge of Ico was that it was my first game, and I was inexperienced. And so was the team; they didn't have the experience necessary to create this kind of unique title. It isn't a video game -- a conventional video game has things like a life meter or other icons on the screen. Ico doesn't have these things.

So, after finishing Ico, I thought we would have a lot of even better ideas for the next project -- those were the "small challenges." But looking back, I don't think they were small.... The team knew what they were doing at that point, and thought they could easily overcome any challenge.

WN: When you say Ico isn't a video game, it makes me think of the animator Hayao Miyazaki, who stresses that his work is not anime. It's as if he wants to distance himself from the connotations of that word.

FU: Yes, he always says that his films aren't anime, they're manga movies. But I think it's different -- I think Miyazaki is shy, and he'll never praise his own work. That's why he says that. But for Ico, at the beginning of the development period, I thought that the games industry had a negative image for many people. If I called my work a video game, people would think, "Well, this is just a video game, so I don't want to play it."

WN: Colossus, though, had many of those traditional video-game elements added back in: strength gauges, life meters. So would you say Colossus is a video game?

FU: When we said ... Ico is not a conventional video game title, we set limitations on ourselves for the development of the game. We had to eliminate everything that made it look like a video game. But for our next game, we wanted to remove those artificial limitations that we placed on ourselves. We wanted to just make a game that was fun. If a limitation made the game less fun, we weren't going to restrict ourselves. And yet, while we were developing Colossus, it became similar to the Ico style. We don't know why.

WN: You've said you thought about having smaller enemies in the game, not just the 16 colossi, but you took them out because it would be too similar to other video games.

FU: We thought if there were a lot of small enemies that a lot of players would actually appreciate that. But I wanted the team's focus to be on the colossi. If we added other elements, the team would have to put their efforts into those elements, and the quality of the boss characters would go down.

I really like boss fights in video games, and I wanted to create high-quality ones. When I start playing a game, I want to get to the boss fights quickly. Fighting a boss is a really fun element in games, and I wanted to have a lot of that.

WN: What about the final game do you not like?

FU: There are a lot of things, but I don't want to talk about them. It's too soon.

WN: What's next for the team?

FU: (Ueda hands the question to Kaido.) Yeah, what are we going to do?

KK: I couldn't tell you. Fumito has a couple of ideas, but we don't even know what the platform is going to be. I want to create a game that takes full advantage of the format it's on. If we made a PS3 or PSP game, we want it to take special advantage of the abilities of that format.

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Source: Wired News