Zelda expansion, Death Stranding and other titles hyped at The Game Awards

The Game Awards, an event that’s exactly what it sounds like, took place shortly ago and, like any gaming event, it was shot through with trailers and announcements. What’s the biggest announcement, you ask? It’s probably a tie between the sudden release of a new expansion for Zelda: Breath of the Wild and a teaser for the next project from From Software, the creators of Dark Souls and Bloodborne.

Well, let’s be honest – a new Zelda expansion, available now, is pretty much the only thing that matters in the world. Everything else can wait.

The Champions’ Ballad appears to be a follow-up to the original story, with the four champions working to defeat “the beast” once and for all. More importantly, there’s new horse armor that lets you teleport your mount to your location instantly. New weapons and armor await, and it also looks like there are a number of new shrines and larger dungeons. Oh, and you get an “ancient” motorcycle. I’d be playing it now if I hadn’t left my Zelda cartridge in the U.S. when I crossed the pond for Disrupt Berlin. What was I thinking?!

Less immediate but perhaps ultimately more intriguing is From Software’s minimal trailer for its new game, which has no name but does have a tagline: “Shadows Die Twice.” Some speculate this is a reboot of Shadow Tower, one of From’s earliest games, but others point out that not only is this a line from venerated ninja series Tenchu, but the music and writing suggest a Japanese theme. No one is quite sure what the gruesome hardware on display is, though my guess is it’s a grapple made from a bone.

Next on the hype train is Death Stranding, the next project from Hideo Kojima, of Metal Gear fame. In the longest and most substantive look at the game so far, which really isn’t saying much, we see a space-suited-up Norman Reedus attempting in vain to hide from invisible and enigmatic pursuers that seem to be attracted to… suffering? Life? Anything but the baby in bottle that later turns up inside Reedus.

We’re really no wiser than we were before, but Kojima’s eye for the uncanny and dramatic is clear. He may be rather off the rails, but often our most interesting artists are.

Some other trailers of note: The developers of The Vanishing of Ethan Carter, a creepy mystery, show off their latest project, Witchfire.

But if you were expecting another somber, slow-moving affair, the developers would like to remind you that they were also behind the excellent Painkiller and underrated Bulletstorm. It looks like a high-energy shoot-em-up in a strange, arcane world.

I’m particularly interested in Campo Santo’s In the Valley of the Gods, in which it appears you and a partner (likely computer controlled) infiltrate a tomb not to raid it, but to document it with an old-timey movie camera.

Perhaps you’re not as much of an antiquarian as I am, but this looks like it should be a very interesting little adventure.

Some other things worth noting: Bayonetta 3 was teased as a Switch exclusive, along with remasters of 1 and 2. This should please hardcore action fans who might not be satisfied with the console’s otherwise great selection of games.

And the soul still burns: Soul Calibur 6 was announced, though honestly I’m still happy to play the original on Dreamcast.

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At Pearl Harbor luncheon, all but a few veterans are gone

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Sandra Anderson Mathis sat at the head of the table in the Barn Door restaurant as the clock struck 11:55 a.m. and the guests bowed their heads in silence to mark the moment America entered World War II.

Mattis sat where her dad, retired Air Force Maj. Richard Anderson, would have been if he’d lived to see another Pearl Harbor Day. But a part of him was here — his Pearl Harbor Association cap, a framed photo and the memories.

“This is a wonderful way to celebrate his legacy, his life,” said Mathis, who described Anderson as an amazing father and a humble, noble, hardworking man who loved his Pearl Harbor comrades. “He would never seek recognition, and he was always very quiet about his war experiences, but he loved the camaraderie here because these men went through this together, and they were boys, not men.”

Blind and using hearing aids that amplified words but often made them harder to understand, Anderson was failing at last year’s luncheon, part of an ever-shrinking group of men who were on the ground floor of World War II.

The San Antonio chapter of the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association had a robust roster of 64 members a quarter century ago. Now it’s down to four.

Most of the 42 people at the Red Barn on Thursday were family and friends of Pearl Harbor veterans who’d come to salute their loved ones. Just two veterans of the battle were there. William St. John, 96, and retired Tech Sgt. Kenneth Platt, 95 were in fine spirits, more so than usual in a year where both have struggled with illness.

Veteran John Buchanan was at another event while Gilbert Meyer, who served aboard the USS Utah, was thought to be observing the 76th anniversary of the attack in Hawaii.

Retired Army Maj. Virgil Lee Ward, who isn’t an association member but was at last year’s luncheon, wasn’t on hand.

Anderson and Leo Wally died this year, while another veteran, Bill Hayes, has moved into a nursing home. Attendees were unsure if he was alive.

“The thing is, it’s part of life, but you develop a relationship with these men and unfortunately you only see them once a year, and the only other time is when the family says he’s passed,” said Irene Hernandez, who coordinates the luncheon.

“So that’s why it’s important to keep the memory of the attack alive with all the children and grandchildren. We always put on our invitations ‘Lest we forget,’ because we don’t want to forget about it.”

The waves of Japanese warplanes that roared over Pearl Harbor killed more than 2,330 American sailors, soldiers and Marines. It was the first of a string of Japanese victories across the Pacific. When the Philippines fell, Tokyo’s brutality to U.S. and allied prisoners was so horrific it led to war crimes trials after V-J Day. The tide of the war changed after the Battle of Midway in mid-1942.

Platt was sound asleep in his bunk at Schofield Barracks when Japanese machine gun bullets crashed through a window four feet away. He quickly crawled underneath his bed.

“I still think about what they done,” he said, but added there is no anger. “None whatsoever.”

A radioman first class, St. John had just gotten off work with a fellow sailor, Woodrow Strauss, at a newly established air station on Kaneohe Bay surrounded by three towers that stood 180 feet when the attack began. They saw plane after plane drop their bombs in the distance.

“I was coming off midnight shift, so I was up and about, and was eyeball to eyeball with one of the Japanese pilots,” he recalled. “The only reason he didn’t shoot me was he had a tower he had to go up and over, so he didn’t have a shot at me. And he would have ripped me in half.”

Johnnie Singleton was drinking coffee and making cinnamon toast in the officers’ pantry aboard the USS Maryland when bombs hit his ship and the nearby USS Oklahoma. He’s gone now, but his wife, Rosa, and sister, Della Elam, sat at a table to honor him.

“It was luck,” Rosa Singleton, 76, of San Antonio said, “that he was here.”

sigc@express-news.net

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