Facepunch Studios appears to be a gathering for gamers with ambitious 3D projects, and the group yielding the most interesting results lately is the Twilight Princess crowd. It started when "??UnKnOwN??" ripped some of the 3D models from the game, but kept excited members in the dark as he or she cleaned up the 3D meshes and enhanced the quality of the character textures. Just recently though, member "DONOTWANT" came out of nowhere with 40 different character meshes ripped for download, and the fanboy floodgates have been unleashed.

What this all means, is that if you have 2D and 3D manipulation software, like Photoshop and 3D Studio Max, you can do whatever the hell you want to the Twilight Princess characters. Anything. I just opened up a few of them in 3D Max and checked out a few of their textures too, it's the real thing. And if you're into making mods, you could easily rig the models and animate them in Garry's mod. Ok, it's not that easy, rigging each polygonal vertex can be a huge bitch to do well, and coding always gives people headaches, but getting your hands on these kind of files is the hardest step in the process to making Link fight G-man or finally beating the shit out of Midna with the gravity gun. Expect some convincing April Fool's jokes to pop up next year! If I have some free time tonight I'll mesh around with the files more, but grab the winrar downloads before they disappear. If any of you are interested in pursuing this further, lemme know and I'll try to decently rig the models for you this weekend. Any Twilight Princess fight animation requests?

Update: We're all greedy little Zelda lovin' bastards, and I'm already getting a bunch of emails that the downloads in the other sites' forums aren't working anymore. Their servers must be getting slammed, keep checking back if the downloads aren't working for you. Or, feel free to upload the winrar files on another site and help point others to alternate download locations. Thanks for being patient.

Update 2: Just added over twenty pictures from the Facepunch Studios forums - you can see Link, Midna, and others in various poses below. People have the characters in rigging editors, are working on collision detection, and even throwing some of them into Garry's mod. And there's already a slightly NSFWish picture too, so be warned. Also, I'm being told you can also download the 3D files here.

Every good Zelda game has plenty of Easter egg secrets hidden in it, and Twilight Princess is no exception. I've seen lists in the past that have discovered many of the game's lesser known details, but it's nice to have them shown to you so you can recreate the tricks in your own game saves. Some are as simple as Mario references hidden in character art, and others are more helpful, like getting a free speed boost from Epona. The most obvious of them all was when we figured out that you could break Zelda tradition and take control of a cucco by attacking it repeatedly, instead of being beaten down by the birds like in the past games. There's a good suggestion for getting easy rupees, and a fun aesthetic tip for your sword use too. It would be cool if Nintendo made a Ganon game, where you start as a young boy and get to grow into your villainous future. I'd love to get more looks at Gerudo's past.

GoNintendo found some new screenshots of the upcoming Mario Party 8 game for the Wii. It's about a month away from its March 5th release, so more glimpses of this game should start showing up soon as Nintendo tries to continue Wii sales. How does it looks so far? Kind of like a Wii Sports expansion unfortunately - there's a baseball game, a lasso game, a snowboarding game, a jump-rope game, a space shooter game, and a gravestone graffiti game where you deface the burial of the dead.

This series is lucky the Wii came out when it did, some of the Gamecube ones were fun, but they were really starting to run out of material. The Wiimote's new possibilities should make this game benefit greatly, but I still don't see why a "Best Of" Mario Party game was never released that combined all of the funnest minigames from the series into one party game. To get an idea of what the Wii gameplay for this game will be like check out the Mario Party 8 footage here.

In other Nintendo game news - here's a list of dozens of Twilight Princess hidden easter eggs, and here's hundreds of fanboy of the game to go with them. They contain spoilers though so view at your own risk.

Hahahaha. See that picture above? Notice that prick in the bottom left? What a jerk, he travels around time stealing rupees and bringing spiders to extinction. I bet that Zelda bitch don't even like his elf ass. Thanks to Aeropause for noticing this Nintendo Wii typo.

GameVideos has finally completed their complete video walkthrough of the entire Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess Nintendo Wii game. If you don't have the game and want to watch the game from beginning to end, then you'll have to sit through 51, yes - fifty one, different clips. The one above is just the first of the many. It sounds like an insanely long walkthrough, because it is, but if you just watch the first clip you'll notice there's plenty of fast forwarding, making it the quickest speed run you can find. There's also 2 narrators talking you through each scene and talking about the puzzles, gameplay, and characters. If you're interested in watching them all, or bookmarking them for if you get stuck in the game, then you can find them all on the left column here.

In what might be the nicest thing IGN has done for readers in years, IGN has put up a free, complete walkthrough for the Nintendo Wii game Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess as a Christmas gift to all of us. It also includes the basics and all the hidden secrets you could ever need too. You can check it out here.

In Japan . . . wow. Granted it's just one week of sales we're talking about, but Twilight Princess isn't that old for a console that Japan really likes. I'm really surprised to see the RPG community in Japan shift sales this strongly for a console they statistically can't stand. Although Blue Dragon doesn't deserve all the credit, Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess has dwindled all the way down to number 17 on the game sales charts over there. That Japanese market is quite the fickle crowd.

In Game Informer's December issue there is supposedly information about a new Zelda game for the Nintendo Wii. The article mentions that the game has been in production for over a year, and should be released "sooner than later." So damn specific as always Nintendo. Game Informer stresses that two major Zelda games a year apart from one another is not likely, but that the next Zelda game isn't too far off.

Normally I'd be excited, since typical games take one and a half to two years to make from start to finish. But after waiting a good decade for a Mario 128 game I no longer trust Nintendo. I still love Shigeru Miyamoto at his best, even though his involvement in recent years has been minimal with his series, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's 2009 or later before we see another Zelda game on the Wii. Now if the direct Twilight Princess sequels/trilogies rumors from a year ago were true (mostly fanboy jibberish) then we could definitely expect it sooner. But even when Nintendo ripped apart Ocarina of Time and rearranged it to make Majora's Mask, it still took a while, so I won't get my hopes up yet.

Leave it to a Zelda game to sneak in a clever hidden mini game puzzle that utilizes the Wiimote motion sensing. To get the frog lure in Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess you have to look at one of the random objects in the room, that happens to be a marble mini game, with the goal being to get the marble to the end of the maze without letting it fall over the edges of the paths. This video shows you how to get the frog lure and also what it's like to use it. This game probably has plenty other small secrets in it, if you find any more be sure to let me know.

For those Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess players out there, make sure you do not save in the cannon room. The video above shows that for some people a glitch is occurring where you need to talk to a man before leaving the room, but the man has already disappeared from the room, leaving you stuck with nothing to do but look at a Biggoron sized cannon that you can't even use. I'm the type that saves way more than is necessary, so if you're a save freak like me then be careful, and tell me if you run into any game ending glitches of your own. I wouldn't mind playing this game more than once, but I'd be pissed if I hit a wall in progression.