The videogaming event of the year has touched down on European shores at long last. And boy, was it worth every minute.

The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker is, from the word go, pure gaming joy. Not since the heady days of Ocarina of Time have I been so entranced by a game. Miyamoto has been truly vindicated in his decision to go with the oft-discussed 'toon shading' graphical style that has given this latest incarnation of the Zelda series virtual notoriety in some corners of the press. But, coming back to my initial point, what a game it is. Everything about it is delivered with such beautifully practised precision and perfection. The music is superb, graphics in a league of their own, gameplay polished to sheer perfection. Thrown in the sailing and some surprisingly nifty GBA connectivity Most importantly of all though, it stands right up there with the best of the Zelda titles and by default, its on of the best games ever. I could rabbit on about the magnificence of this game for a lot longer- but I've got a week's worth of news to cover before I run back to my favourite game in a long, long time. With E3 just around the corner, it looks like Nintendo are as usual pulling out all the stops to again deliver at the event. For the last few years running, Ninty have been by far the most impressive of the three major console manufacturers at the show. Early indications suggest that this year will see another excellent showing.

The line-up so far for Nintendo is looking very promising. Among the highlights are: Video footage of Metroid Prime 2, the unveiling (please!) of the mysterious (but definetly in development) Super Mario 128, Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour, Mario Tennis (maybe) perhaps Too Human, playable Mario Kart for GC, Star Fox Armada from Namco, Pikmin 2, Kirby's Air Ride (most probably, in some form or another) , three Final Fantasy games (Crystal Chronicles for Cube, Mana and Tactics for GBA) and Metal Gear Solid: Twin Snakes. This was just officially announced last week- and shock, horror- Silicon Knights and Konami are co-developing it, under the auspices of Hideo Kojima and Shigeru Miyamoto. A match made in heaven if ever I saw one. Expect a bundle of hard info on all of these at E3, which promises to be a highly interesting affair. No doubt Nintendo's press conference will also yield another surprise or two (it usually does).

The above list certainly isn't either definitive or comprehensive- its merely a taster of what we can expect from E3. Cube-Europe, as ever, will be on hand with all the breaking news from the L.A Expo.

Finally this week, the news that Factor 5 just might be showing off Pilotwings for the GC fills me with excitement- Paradigms last incarnation of the excellent aviation series was marvellous- lets hope F5 (of they are developing it) deliver the goods. Apologies for the shortness of this week's digest- but really, haven't you better things to be doing this weekend than read this? (reaches for Zelda)

Until next week.

Mark Cullinane
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