Ocarina of what? Never heard of it. Hey, have you played Link's Awakening?

I have a strange sordid history with the Zelda franchise. Growing up my brother was always the one who got to lay hands on those gold cartridges, and being about four years younger I was only really able to play them well after the fact. My time with console Zelda games is mostly comprised of me playing already completed save files and aimlessly killing enemies. In fact, to this day I’ve still completed a relatively small amount of Zelda games in the main series, and I only just got around to finishing Ocarina of Time when the 3DS remake came out. Some Nintendo fans may cry foul at this and demand that I hand over my Nintendo Fun Club Card, but this lack of experience with the main entries in the series has given me untold appreciation for the portable entries. Some of my favorite gaming memories are when I first laid eyes upon Link’s Awakening.

It's hard to write a good article about your feelings when you're not entirely sure what they are.

This article was originally about EA’s securing of the Star Wars license. I intended to explore their internal development teams and try to find obvious opportunities for them to best use the Star Wars license. It was a fluff piece. I thought that if I hit a single prediction I could celebrate it as if I were Nostradamus, and if I missed entirely I could forget it ever existed. 

Shortly thereafter it morphed into an article on the chilling (or perhaps deeply frozen) relationship between EA and Nintendo. I wondered, "Would Disney allow EA to simply cut Nintendo’s home console out of the Star Wars pie? Would EA – could EA –  continue with statements that simply dismiss any plans for the Wii U? Would their investors allow it?" (Answer: No) The entire exercise seemed like nothing more than empty speculation; I, just like the rest of the media, simply don’t have the information to answer these questions, and as such I was incapable of contributing anything meaningful to the existing discourse.

A neglected handheld does not make a happy Neal, but this Wii U thing could work.

"To view a new installment of Nintendo Direct, which will provide updates about future Wii U games, visit http://www.nintendo.com/nintendo-direct on June 11 at 7 a.m. PT."

With that announcement, Nintendo confirmed to me that E3 2013 will be the Wii U show (part deux). We'll get our token 3DS mention, likely in the form of the recently announced Pokémon X/Y presentation, but for the purposes of what will physically be on the show floor, I expect Wii U, Wii U, and more Wii U.

Two Legend of Zelda LEGO sets are possibilities with your support.

Last year a fan-proposed Legend of Zelda LEGO set reached 10,000 supporters on the LEGO CUUSOO site, the level required for LEGO to officially review the idea. However, it was turned down for cost reasons (the Minifigure molds were too expensive).

Since then, multiple sets based on The Legend of Zelda have appeared, including two I want to share with you here. The first is based on The Wind Waker and has already received 1000 supporters.

Join the NWR Community this Monday, May 20, for a night of hunting. 

The staff at Nintendo World Report are holding yet another Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate Community Night this Monday, May 20.

As per usual, the hunt begins at 8 p.m. EST and 5 p.m. PST, so turn on your Wii U and have your best gear ready to team up with NWR staff to hunt some monsters. If all goes well, we plan to hold a MH3U Community Night starting at the same time every Monday night.

As always, the event will be coordinated through our chat room. You can also connect using a dedicated IRC client. Server: irc.browsingtheinternet.com Channel: #nwr

With Yakuza 1 & 2 HD hitting Wii U in Japan, could the rest of the franchise follow?

The beginning of the Japanese Nintendo Direct on May 17 was quite a surprise. It began with the good old “Seeeeegaaaaaaa” voice as it started out unexpectedly labeled as “Sega Direct,” with the special guest Toshihiro Nagoshi, a Sega CCO. Nagoshi may be best known as the producer of the Super Monkey Ball series, but in Japan he has been the icon and the producer of the Yakuza franchise (Note that real Yakuza executives don’t dress themselves like him; rather they always wear dark suits like Iwata, or a better example may be Yamauchi, nicknamed “Kumicho” (Yakuza Boss) by Japanese gamers). On top of a few other Sega titles, what occupied the majority of the “Sega Direct” segment was Yakuza 1 & 2 HD for Wii U. They showed a new trailer and did a short “Iwata Asks” style interview for several minutes.

Curt wants your suggestions!

Hey guys, I've been doing the Backlogg With CurtDogg stream for a few months here on NWR, and I feel like it's time to take some suggestions from the readers and viewers.

Is there anything you guys want me to do to improve the streams? Would you want me to move it to different times or days? Any specific game you want streamed? Just leave me a comment, and I'll address your concerns!

Note: Due to my current living situation, streaming between 4pm and 9pm PDT isn't currently convenient for me.

Some of our staff have joined together to play games for you to watch.

The NWR staff is once again meeting up for some great gaming action. The staff will play a wide variety of titles throughout the entire live stream. Tune in at 1 PM EST (10 AM PST) for the live stream. Details on where you will be able to access it will follow soon.

Some of the game we may play include: - Nintendo Land - Super Ghouls'n Ghosts - Injustice

If there is anything you would like to see us play, be sure to let us know in the comments below. We will surely try our best to accommodate any viewer requests.

Join the NWR staff this Thursday, May 16, for a night of hunting.

Nintendo World Report is holding yet another Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate Community Night, Thursday, May 16.

The hunt begins at 8 p.m. EST and 5 p.m. PST, so turn on your Wii U and have your best gear ready to team up with NWR staff to hunt some monsters.

The event will be coordinated through our chat room. You can also connect using a dedicated IRC client. Server: irc.browsingtheinternet.com Channel: #nwr

Server Information:

World: 07 Novices ALobby 7

Staff Information:

Curt's ready to take on the world in Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!

Hey everyone, Curtis (aka "CurtDogg") here, and I'm gonna be taking over the official Nintendo World Report Twitch channel every Monday and Friday night, at 9:30 p.m. Pacific Time. I'll not only be streaming/commenting on the various games in my backlogg, but I'll also be interacting with all you lovely readers out there, both in the chat and on Skype. I feel like these streams would also be a good opprotunity for me to get to know fans of the the site, and vice-versa.