Seven Great Places To Hide The Body

So you've made a bit of a mistake. The whore who was in the middle of dumping you suddenly tripped into mid-calibre seven bullets and got them stuck in her upper-right temple, and now her head is scattered across the floor of your breakfast room. Don't panic, man! Recently-released statistics reveal that over 46% of men will at one point have to deal with the trauma of accidentally killing that cheating bitch you thought was ready to settle down and move to the country. So you're not alone!

Wilftonville empathises with your plight. It's not easy to witness slut-brain spatter over the freshly-wallpapered apartment you just moved into and haven't paid off the final rent on. While we can only advise that you pour salt onto any patches of carpet which are soaked in claret, and dap with a wet cloth, we can offer much more advice when it comes to dumping the body. Why should your life have to end because you ended the life of that hooker? Jail is for criminals, not victims of emotional abuse, after all! Here are ten options for where you could smuggle the body, and expect it to never be seen again.


1. Uganda

If you've ever been to Uganda, then 1: I am amazed you made it out alive and 2: you'll have noticed that it is currently a barren landscape filled with the corpses of the poor. If you have a private plane, then it's simplicity itself to pack up the body in a roll of carpet and fly across to the other continent. Nobody will notice the one extra body, lying spreadeagled in a dusty pit of bones and scorch marks.


2. A Wheelie Bin

If you've seen any comedy-crime caper, you'll likely have witnessed a scene in which the protagonist has to throw a body off a bridge, so it lands perfectly onto a passing rubbish-barge sailing underneath. That is a nightmare of timing and precision, so it's far more convenient to simply take the body and stuff it into one of your recycling bins. Although the Government likes to make a song-and-dance about their commitment to the environment, binmen sure as hell don't check the bins to make sure all the papers and glass have been filtered seperately. In this scenario, you'll be relying on this inherent laziness to conceal the body. Nobody should look to see if there is a bloody arm hanging out the top of the bin (although you should attempt to hide this), and you'll be scot-free by the mid-afternoon.


3. Loch Ness

There is a monster living in Loch Ness. There's a relatively small lake and a giant monster. And nobody has managed to take anything other than a small fuzzy photo of it. Even if the monster doesn't eat the body for sustinence or kicks, it's a safe bet that the public won't find the body in that lake.


4. In the Middle of Your Lounge, During a Dinner Party

Dinner parties are an opportunity to show off your rare talent for subversive humour. Any guest heading to a dinner party are expecting a barrage of personality from the moment they come through the door to their final hesitant handshakes after midnight. What a superb chance to show your the new centrepiece of your household - an identical replica of your partner, albeit a replica which has had it's brains forcibly ejected via tiny metal shells. Nobody will think twice about the prop, which looks so lifelike and yet couldn't possibly be. No, of course not, there's no way that you'd be so bold as to kill your partner and then leave her body lying out in the open where everyone could see her.

Reverse psychology plays an important part in this scheme.


5. The Chinese Embassy

It will be difficult to make your way into the Chinese Embassy, which by all accounts has an alarm system on the windows and no other form of security. If you do trip the alarm, agents with guns will arrive within a tensely-plotted minute, so you'll have to be careful. For the most part, however, the poor lighting will keep you safe and hidden. If possible, recruit an internally-tortured MI5 agent who may well have had a former life as a foreign terrorist.


6. A Cannon Inside A Magical Painting of a Water-Spider

You can angle one of the cannons in Wet Dry World so Mario bounces off the invisible border around the edge of the level, hits the ground, and slides back into the cannon. This creates an endless loop of cannon-based Mario corpse shooting. Apply this principle to your deceased ex, and watch as hilarity ensues!


7. Inside Chris Langham's Career

We don't mean to be rude. But nobody would ever find it here.

Our Five Favourite Things About Ocarina Of Time

So what do we think are the best five things to happen/be found in Ocarina Of Time? A cunning question you have just asked, Sir! Allow us to answer in our own customary style: a top five list. (In fairness, it is hard to answer this question in any other way, so let’s ignore this mess of an introductory paragraph and just head straight for the list, shall we?) This one isn’t a countdown, just a list. It’s impossible to separate these five things.


The History of Hyrule Cutscene

We’re going to do this in order, which means that we shall be started with one of the first few cutscenes you see in the game. This cutscene slowly extends during the start of the game – you see bits of it at the beginning, then you complete part of the first few tasks and you are treated to more of it, and then you go back to playing. Once you’ve completed everything in the first area and leave the forest, you’ve learnt almost everything there is. It’s a great way to set up the mythos of Zelda for people, because at the start Link is trapped in a small area of forest where he lives. You are teased with points about the world you live in, which then leads up to the moment you leave the woods and actually find yourself in a staggeringly huge world with mountains in the distance – mountains you can actually climb up.

The cut-scene is wonderful not just for the timing of it. The main thing which drives the cut-scene into the memory is the sheer scale involved. It tells the story of how the world was created (naturally, super-powers and goddesses are involved here), and the driving force of the world is established as The Triforce. This becomes important later, as this is the power source that later gets stolen. A surprising number of games never take the time to explain the reason that the shiny is so important, but here the designers have taken a large chunk of time to detail what exactly the Triforce is, and why (oh, and how) it will come into play later on. It’s a strong, powerful touch, that sets up what becomes an epic, time-travelling saga.


The Death of the Deku Tree

And nothing makes the game more epic than the Deku Tree. True to form, he is a gigantic tree who watches over all the children who live in Kokiri Forest, Link’s home. He is a master and commander who has been around since the dawn of the World, and as such knows more than anyone else. He is wise, powerful, and a mentor to Link. And he’s ill. Your first mission proper, then, is to go inside him and find the cause of this illness. It turns out, as ever, to be a mutated insect who you have to kill. Mission completed, you return to the Deku Tree and he tells you about your true parentage (you’re not really a fairy-boy! Oh no!) Then, having saved the Deku Tree, you expect to be given a pass out of the forest so you can continue your sacred quest to, uh, collect shiny stones.

But instead he dies. It’s powerful, because this is a character you expect to be returning to often during your quest as a source for information and help – turns out, he’s just there to teach you a hard lesson: things change. And for OOT, a game where days end and nights start, and one evil Jasper Carrot impersonator can destroy whole villages, that’s an important lesson to learn.


The Chicken Revenge Squad

Heavy, man. Mondo grievance! But it’s not all doom and gloom in Ocarina or Time – there are other things going on instead. Every Zelda game is interconnected somehow, whether through location or characters. As the first game chronologically, OOT therefore has to have a few nods in to the games which preceded (follow) it. One of these is the chicken revenge squad, a team of crack fowls on the lookout for anyone who dares to commit feathery injustices. There is a farm in OOT, called “LonLon Ranch”, which is where you find your horse, Epona. There are also cows and chickens at this farm, and you can interact with all the different animals as much as you may wish (interact, we stress, and not ‘interact’. Mind out of the gutter, please). The chickens, in particular, can be interacted with through the process of stabbing them with your sword. They are invulnerable to attacks, but they feel the pain. You can shoot them with arrows or run them over with Epona, or bomb them – but if you hurt them for too long a period of time, The Chicken Revenge Squad will attack you with extreme prejudice. They’ve done this in almost every Zelda game to feature chickens, and to see it in 3D is mesmerising and terrifying.


Sweet dreams.


The Song Of Storms Paradox

Near to one of the other areas which houses chickens is a windmill, which works and everything, and is run by a man whose life has been driven insane by two visits from someone: you. You first meet him when you are an adult, and he tells you about this song he was taught by a small fairy-boy called “Link”. He hated this song, because whenever it gets played it rains inside and he gets all wet – because of this, the song is called ‘the Song Of Storms’. As with every ocarina song you get taught in the game, this is an insanely catchy little ditty, and you promptly remember it and use it infrequently during the rest of the game. In order to keep it though, you need to send yourself back in time… to have a quick chat with the windmill keeper. During this chat you play the song to him and it rains inside, driving him mad, but he remembers it. Thus he is able to teach it to you when you grow up and need it in seven years time, because it had such an effect on him.

But… if you only learn it from him because you taught it to him in the past after time-travelling… who taught it to you? Where does the song come from? You can blow your mind figuring this out, but as the fantastic and much-mourned N64 Magazine revealed – Terminator 2 is one of Shigeru Miyamoto’s favourite films. He’d be the guy who is responsible for this game, by the way, And Mario 64. He’s the most important designer in games. And he loves paradoxes. Just trying to comprehend the way this Song of Storms comes into being now, so we could write this, has given us a headache. But we love it.


Leaping the Gerudo Bridge

Speaking of Epona, who we mentioned earlier and is our favourite character in the game… she has a number of moments all to herself that are spectacular. One of the best is when you visit the ranch as an adult and find it has been turned evil, so you have to escape there with Epona by jumping over the back wall. This is just the rehearsal for what is to come later. There is an area you have to visit, a fortress run by women (I know, I know – women running things? It is a computer game though, so you have to allow it these slight leaps of fantasy) which is at the top of a small mountain. You are told to go there, so you run over and find that… hey, wait, the bridge that leads over there hasn’t been built yet! What’s up with THAT?

Apparently the carpenters who were working on the bridge have been kidnapped by these femme fatales, and you have to rescue them, it transpires. But this still does not give you any way of getting over the broken bridge, does it? If you try and run across on your own, you find yourself plummeting downwards into the stream below, in another example of how large this world is. Many games would have this be a leap to the death, and you resurrect at the top again, but in Zelda this drop leads to a river which feeds into a lake you’ll probably have visited earlier. Tis genius, but this is digressive. You try to think of a way across, but nothing comes to mind. Until you think of Epona. You call her over to you and saddle up, and then step away from the ledge. You take a deep breath, give her a carrot, and race towards the drop.

And Epona jumps it!



Those are just five of the many, many things we love about The Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. It’s our favourite game of all time, and hopefully you’ll have been reading this week and nodding, because of the memories it’s stirred in you. Of course, you might have been one of those people who shunned the N64 and bought a Playstation instead because they were meant to be cooler. To you people, I say this: YOU LOST OUT BIGTIME.

N64 is the best console ever, and had the best games ever. And the very peak of the Shiny Goodness? Ocarina of Time. We rest our case.

The Five Best Bosses In Ocarina Of Time

Ocarina of Time is filled to the fly-fishing gills with cool bosses. From giant mutants to viruses and ghosts and tentacle monsters (oh sweet lord, the tentacle monsters), OOT has something to satisfy everyone. As you now know he’s one of your favourite characters, it should come as no surprise to you that he dominates this list, with two (and a half) of the five entries being different versions of him. But is he the best boss? There are so many cool fights in there, perhaps something else might make it…?


5: Twinrova
Twinrova is the name of two witches who fly around above Link and fire down fire and ice on him as he tries desperately to avoid them. They are toying with him, and make this completely transparent to him as they soar across the screen, which adds to the fun of what is, admittedly, not the hardest of the boss fights. Link fights them by throwing their attacks back in their faces using a reflective shield he’s just picked up – how convenient that is, eh? When Twinrova dies – wait, there’s more here. Before we get to their brilliant death scene, let’s just go back to their start. Twinrova appear before, and kidnap a character that Link has just made friends, in a scary cut-scene that sinks the friend into quicksand and (at the time it’s presumed) killing her. There aren’t so many deaths in the game, so seeing the witches possibly kill someone is awesomely fearsome. Anyway, back to the death scene. I won’t spoil it for you, but it is so cartoonish that you won’t quite believe it as it happens. You should definitely Youtube it if you’re ever bored.


4: Bongo Bongo
This is such a bizarre boss that only Nintendo could ever have thought him up, those crazy Japanese fools. First, Link falls through a tunnel and onto a platform that floats in the air, for no discernable reason. Then a giant hand hits the ground next to him. And then a second hand hits the ground on the other side of him. Without warning, a strange eye-thing appears in the sky and watches him. The hands then start hitting the ground again, and you suddenly realise: You are on a massive bongo drum. Yes, friends – Nintendo realised the inherent dangers that would be presented to anyone who was shrunk down to miniature size and forced to live on top of a snare drum while someone was playing it… and turned it into part of their game. It’s so completely stupid that you have to applaud them for it. Sony never do anything as spastic as that!


3: King Dodongo
King Dodongo is a classic boss. Everything is present and correct – he is a giant dinosaur, you are an underdog, there is magma flowing round the centre of the room you fight him in – you can’t really need much more. Although if you do want more, then how about I tell you the way to kill King Dodongo? You throw bombs into his mouth. Now, I don’t know about you, but when a dinosaur is so strong that a magically sword isn’t good enough to hurt it, and you have to resort to throwing bombs into his mouth to kill him… well, that just reaches a whole new level of bad-ass, doesn’t it?


2: Phantom Ganon
This is the first of the bosses you face as an adult, and is just brilliant in most every way. This is a ghost on horseback who jumps out of paintings and hurls bolts of pure magic at you whenever he gets a chance, forcing you to parry them back at him using your sword. What lends this battle an extra layer of brilliant is that it is the only boss that Ganondorf himself sets on you during the game – once the phantom is defeated, Ganondorf sends you a message telling you how this was just a test, a rehearsal, if you will, for the real battle coming later in the game. Also; creepy. Very, very creepy. The music alone makes your spine tingle in ways that the Powers That Be never intended them to tingle.


1: Ganon
Easily the best battle in the game, because you can feel things are really at stake. Just when Link feels that he’s saved the day, Ganondorf jumps out of the remains of his castle and transforms into a gigantic pig thing with stupendously massive fire-swords. Yay! You are then stuck inside a circle of magic fire as Ganon rampages towards you and tries his damndest to kill the hell out of you – you can try hiding behind parts of the scenery, but Ganon is able to destroy them! There is seriously no escape here, for once. Add to this the sweeping music and Zelda’s worried scream from the sidelines whenever you get hurt (which, as we said, we love her for). And did we tell you that Navi has no way of working out how to kill Ganon? It’s completely up to you to work it out! That’s mind-blowingly great.

The Five Best Characters In Ocarina Of Time Who Aren't Link

Alright, so it’s always harsh when people make lists of their favourite characters and the winner is someone totally predictable. Like when someone says they like the main character in Doctor, or Alias, because… they’re the main character. At Wilftonville we only like to celebrate the underdogs, the B-List (more often, however, the C-List. Hello, Claudia Winkleman!) and those who usually don’t get a fair shout. At the same time though, you have to recognise that most of the characters in OOT are average and not excellence in any way. It’s a shame, but that does mean that none of the glory gets taken away from the good characters. So here is our list of the five best characters in Ocarina Of Time… who aren’t Link. Sorry we didn’t include the awesome snarkiness of Mido, but there just wasn’t room for him in our list. Maybe next time, nerds!

Five: Ganondorf

There are a lot of great baddies in the world of computer games – Albert Wesker, Bowser, Gruntilda, Dr Robotnik. Ganondorf is better than all of them, because his only reason to be around is so he can be a complete dick. Ganondorf is clearly having a ball during the course of OOT, flouncing around with his big cloak and chasing WOMEN around with a glee not seen since Richard Harris died. As Link reaches his tower and dismantles all the power he has, before running up a long corridor to reach Ganondorf, what is the ginger-haired badass doing? He’s practising on his organ, of course! He turns round to face Link, and then seals away Zelda in a prison and prevents Navi from getting involved. Quite simply, Ganondorf is the balls. Most baddies go through the motions – Ganondorf is having the time of his life. He mocks, he cackles, he makes snarky comments. And then at the end as he circles the dimension he is forever to be imprisoned, he makes death threats against Link’s descendants. Classy!

Also, he looks like Jasper Carrot.

Four: Saria

Saria is the heartbreaking character in the game. She is Links’ best friend when he’s a child, and they live in the woods together amongst all the other fairy-children (stop laughing). However, once Link is given his quest he has to leave the forest forever, saying goodbye to Saria as he does so in a moment which will forever remind us of that scene in Return of The Jedi, between Luke and Leia. They’re on a bridge, and Saria gives Link her ocarina, which he then goes off and uses until the next floozy to come along with an ocarina (Zelda) gives him a better one, and he starts using that instead. Talk about being fickle! Link then grows seven years older, only to find Saria and realise that she hasn’t grown at all, being a fairy-child (Stop. Laughing.) and all. She has to accept the fact that she’ll never end up with Link, thus forming the first of approximately five unfulfilled love interests that Link will get during the course of the game. That dude must be feeling frisky as hell by now.

Three: The Great Fairies

The Great Faires are excellent entertainment, because they are easily the most fabulous divas the gaming world has ever seen. Throw away Lara Croft and Joanna Dark, because these long-legged nymphets have more style than both of those contenders combined. There are five or six of them in the game, all vastly freakish and yet coquettish when they see Link, and they give him varying powers as he goes off on his quest. They always appear out of a fountain, jumping up with a manic giggle before floating in the air in front of him and subjecting him to withering scrutiny before eventually giving him powers. The great fairies are absolutely awesome, and you know it.

Two: Adult Zelda

Yes, unfair. She’s got her name above the titles and all, but we still really like Zelda. You don’t see her in her adult form until right before the end of the game, and until then we have to make do with her child form, which looks like a disturbed block of pink cheese tucked into a gown. It’s not good. Thankfully, when we do finally get to meet the ‘real’ Zelda, she then becomes ace and helps you in the final fight. When you get into the ring for this final match, our favourite touch from the entire game is implemented: whenever you get hit by Ganon and go down, she shrieks for your safety. It’s rather touching, all things considered, and the way Nintendo animate the final cut-scene between the two is astounding, Zelda getting one last peek at the guy she (presumably) loves, before he’s taken away forever. It almost makes you forget that she doesn’t really exist and is a fictional construct created by the Japanese. Almost.

One: Epona.

It’s true: our favourite character in the game just so happens to be the horse. Sure, Epona doesn’t say anything, and she’s not exactly pivotal in the grand scheme of things…. But dammit, that horse has got soul. From the way she runs away from you at the start to the way she faithfully appears when you call her on your ocarina, you can’t go wrong with Epona. She’s responsible for at least two of the best moments in the game, one of which is when you free her from the ranch she’s being held in, and escape by jumping over the back wall. That is a scene where you truly feel the freedom that OOT has to offer, and also? You can fire arrows while on her back. Brilliant.

The Five Worst Characters In Ocarina Of Time

Not everything about Ocarina of Time is brilliant. In fact, there are many things which are completely frustrating and hateable. Most of them are characters. While there are some cool character concepts and personalities present in the game, there also happen to by many characters that are completely horrible. Worst thing? None of the characters die during the course of the game (technically). Damn you, Nintendo!

When you start the game you go are asked to find your weapons and then solve a dungeon, all on your own, with no help, and things are good. It’s dangerous and startling, all up until you leave your home and reach the rest of the World, only to be stopped in your tracks by a giant owl who proceeds to tell you a load of boring crap about himself and what he thinks about you, giving a few subtle hints about what you should do next – “GO TO THE CASTLE, ELF-BITCH”. Creepiest of all, it does this whilst swivelling it’s head 360 degrees in a circle, vertically. See, the owl has two faces, each of which is more disturbing than the other. As you go through on your quest, diligently killing every animal that you meet on the way, this damn owl keeps popping up to give you his thoughts and opinions on how well you’re doing. You can’t even skip his dialogue! It’s insanely irritating.

At least the owl has the manners to not butt into your thoughts every five seconds with these opinions of his, however. As your fairy guide, Navi is constantly with you, updating you every five seconds with her useless knowledge and sense of direction – walk towards ‘Goron Mountain’ for example. Don’t take your time, though! If you are too slow, then Navi will jump up and confront you, telling you that ‘maybe we should go to Goron Mountain?’ She’s even more useless than the owl, in that respect. However, she does help you with your targeting system, which is fair enough.

A few days ago we made reference to a level where Link has to look after a young girl whilst battling through a dungeon. That’s a level set inside a whale’s stomach, incidentally, and the girl in question is called Princess Ruto. She owns a mystical gem that you need to complete the game, but she just so happens to accidentally get eaten by Lord Jabu-Jabu, said giant whale, before you can take it. Then you have to follow her in and rescue her from her own pet whale. Now, nobody likes to have to do the ‘rescue the useless character’ section of any game, but the worst bit is that Ruto is doing this ON PUPOSE. She sits down halfway through, crosses her arms, and refuses to go any further unless you carry her. And then she tries to make out with you at the end? Dude!

If there is any character that creeps me out, then it is The Happy Mask Salesman. His coked-up antics as he talks to you about his mask are the stuff of nightmares, and in the subsequent game he got even scarier. I hate him.

Of all the monsters in the game, however, there aren’t that many terrifying ones. Down the well are some completely retarded things that grab you and don’t let go, and there are some shocks, but nothing really terrifying. Oh, except for the Re-deads. These zombielike things which are presumably the zombie remains of the nice civilians you meet early on in the game wander round uselessly, until you go near. At which point they frickin’ scream at you. It’s horrible! For nothing more than the petrifying screams they make, the re-deads are the worst enemies in the game.

Ocarina Of Time Week!

This week, during my glorious absence from the Internet as I travel the world in search of a country that makes really, really nice cakes, we are going to be celebrating ‘The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time’. Over the next five days – unless I mess up the tech and it all arrive at once – we’re going to explore the good sides of Zelda, and the bad sides of Zelda. It is almost unquestionably one of the best games ever made, and I’d suggest it is in fact THE best. But whilst it’s very easy to say that; it’s even easier to offer top five lists that back up the claim without any evidence given. So that’s why today we’re going to look at the five games that most live up to the majesty of Ocarina of Time.

If you don’t know what Ocarina Of Time is, then this week probably won’t be for you.


Five: The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening

This game appeared on the Gameboy, and is one of only three games to feature the ‘original’ Link in them, if we’ve get our timeline correct. Link’s Awakening comes just after Ocarina chronologically, as Link goes off on a boat journey and gets blowed up by a storm and wakes up on a beach. Happily though, the beach just so happens to be part of an island which is plagued by monsters what need killing and people what need saving, and so Link goes off on a quest to kill off the nightmare that rules the place. It’s a great, epic, and poignant story – like Ocarina of Time! Both games feature several of the same characters (and, happily, keep Tingle out of the equation) whilst putting in new features to the Zelda mythos. The ending is bittersweet too, and you can see the influences that blend the two games together stylistically. Link’s Awakening was perhaps one of the best games to come out on the Gameboy, ever, and lasts bloody ages.

Why Ocarina Of Time is better:
Horse-riding.


Four: Resident Evil 4

Leon S Kennedy, after surviving a load of zombies/mutated people in the second Resident Evil game, returned to the series for part 4, set in a creepy European village (is there any other kind?) As Leon explores the village he finds out that there be monsters afoot, and is promptly attacked by mutated whales and trolls and – worst of all – a creepy albino kid who thinks he’s Napoleon. The game serves both as an exciting adventure, and as a warning to all Americans not to go to Europe. RE4 borrows a lot from Zelda, despite being set in a more modern time and featuring guns instead of swords as the main weapons. Both games wind down the player so that events get more and more tense as they go on – in Zelda because the baddie is consolidating his power even as you try to stop him, and in RE because you’re starting to show traits of being infected by that darned zombie virus everyone is talking so much about. Atmosphere are very important for both games, to provide shocks and create new challenges with old areas. Resident Evil 4 turned out to not only be the best of the series, but one of the better games to come from the past few years.

Why Ocarina Of Time is better:
There is only one level where you have to protect a useless girl.


Three: Sim City

Sim City is a game where you create your own city and then try to destroy it in the most hilarious way possible. Well… you’re not ‘supposed’ to destroy it, as such, but that’s what everybody does anyway, by setting fires and then “forgetting” to build a fire station, or by unleashing a monster on the city. Devastation is fun! Zelda is similar in that it gives you an entire world to play with, which then gets destroyed over time – just like with Sim City! Okay, we admit it; we couldn’t think of five games and so we threw this one in as an afterthought. So sue us. (Note: do not sue us)

Why Ocarina Of Time is better:
It is a good game.


Two: Grand Theft Auto

Grand Theft Auto is the closest any game has got to the vast scope that Zelda gives the casual player. Here; you are given a town to muck around in, and you can fly helicopters of drive boats, cars, motorcycles, all whilst trying to kill innocent bystanders and jerk the police around. So, uh, a little less moral than Zelda, then. But much of the gameplay is the same, so long as you swap the police with giant spiders (in your mind, dude) and the pedestrians with little fairy children. It sounds very different, but really both games give you a world to play in at your leisure, and you can do whatever you want, when you want to do it. In Zelda you can rescue the nice farmyard from the dictatorship than gets forced upon it right at the start, or you can leave it possessed. In GTA games you can pick your missions whenever you want. Both games feature simple, clever gameplay which conceal a storyline that stretches out into more cinematic territory. Really, they have quite a lot in common, in their own decidedly different ways.

Why Ocarina Of Time is better:
You care about if your character lives or dies.


One: Super Mario 64

Super Mario 64 is also the greatest game of all time. Both Mario and Link appeared on the N64 once in their own series, and both of them gave us a contender for the best gaming experience of all time. Whilst Mario was the first game to go properly 3-D in a way which was awesome, quirky, and completely fun, Ocarina of Time did the same thing but added a storyline to proceedings. Again you have the individual world that the character lives in, dominated by references to the past and innovative gameplay. Both characters go on their quest to save the Princess (when will the princess get to do the saving, Nintendo? When?) and ultimately save the day, if the player is good enough. These are computer game masterpieces, right here, and neither have been bettered yet – not even by their sequels.

Why Ocarina Of Time is better:
Toad isn’t in it.

The Best Of Rareware

Who are Rareware? Oh, you poorly-read fools! Rareware happen to be the greatest second-party video games company of all time. Their first notable series of games came in the 1990’s when they helped Nintendo on the N64, creating several of the best games for the system, as well as a few which many claim to be ‘the’ best. After Nintendo moved on from their brilliant, underappreciated console and moved to the Gamecube, Rare were bought out by Microsoft and moved to the X-Box, where they’ve stayed in hiding for many years, releasing barely anything. The games that have come out from the Rare umbrella have traditionally been poor in comparison to their golden run on the N64, with only Perfect Dark Zero standing out at all to anyone. Their most anticipated title, Banjo-Kazooie 3, has not been seen by anyone since a short trailer released a few years ago, and generally it is accepted that Rare have gone downhill a little. Their Glory Years live on, though, and as I have a lot of love for the Twycross-based company I’ve decided to celebrate them for the ingenious, hilarious company that they were (and could be again!) Here, then, are the five games which represent the best of what Rare have given to the World. These are the top five Rareware games of all time (although only games from their period with the N64 are mentioned, because Battletoads was godawful).

5: Jet Force Gemini
Jet Force Gemini was a third-person shooting game where you took control of either Juno, his sister Vela, or their yellow space dog Lupus and went around killing giant bugs who had terrorised a planet inhabited by cute teddy bears. The fun comes not just from the ludicrous levels of gunge that spurts everywhere when you kill the baddies, but also from the easy gameplay, the brilliant weapons that were on display – including homing rocket launchers, machine guns, and (oh yes) cluster grenades – and the fact that if you wanted to, you could screw the “kill the bad guys” ideal and shoot the teddy bears instead. Rare seemed to anticipate that gamers would want to kill the teddies, as they were animated to have many more different death sequences than the giant space ants that made up the majority of the baddies. You could kneecap them, decapitate them, blow them into bloody chunks… it was fun. You just don’t get that sort of violence nowadays, and I think that’s an almighty shame.


4: Goldeneye 64
Known by many as the greatest first-person shooter of all time, in Goldeneye 64 you got to BE James Bond, running through scenarios similar to the film of the same name as you fought to kill off Sean Bean before he did something dastardly but ill-explained. The gamer was given the option for the first time, really, of choosing either to run through the level shooting everything, or instead holding back and using stealth to progress through the game, which slowly became more and more essential as you advanced through levels. The fun is from the weapons and baddies, again – this was one of the first games where you could shoot humans that looked vaguely realistic, and again Rare answered our more sadistic instincts with throwing knives, explosives, and a tank. Oh boy, the tank. You got to drive round St Petersburg in a tank! Genius. The multiplayer too, thrown in as an afterthought by the designers, has been the single greatest influence on shooting games ever since. It’s yet to be beaten, really.


3: Donkey Kong 64
Nintendo had a history of lending out their Donkey Kong license to rare, which resulted first in the good but tremendously irritating Diddy Kong Racing, which featured almost every annoying Nintendo character ever created in one game (Slippy Toad from Starfox was absent, thankfully), and then this. Donkey Kong 64, a superb, visually stunning platformer that picked up from where Mario 64 left off and was one of the few games to come close to matching it. No game ever will though, of course. With Donkey Kong 64 you took on all five of the characters above as they fought against the evil King K. Rool (the plot was mostly played for laughs, a characteristic of many of Rare’s games) whose giant weapon of destruction had broken down. To fix it, he stole all the bananas from Donkey Kong’s island home, thus motivating a truly bizarre plot which culminates, I kid you not, in a boxing match. So much is packed into this mammoth game, including but not limited to: jetpacks, guns, swordfish, rapping, ghosts, and a fairy. How could anyone not love it?


2: Perfect Dark
Superior to Goldeneye, the sequel to one of the most beloved games of all time managed to prove itself even in the face of staggering expectations. Perfect Dark is, quite simply, the best first person shooting game of all time, taking you on an extraterrestrial adventure that starts off on Earth and ends on a far-off planet populated by lizard aliens. The Goldeneye gameplay engine returned, but was vastly advanced, creating more baddies and weapons, hoverbikes, blood, and conversation. This enhanced the need for stealth, because if you got caught by a guard he would invariably run off and tell his mates where you were. Perfect Dark took everything that was good about Goldeneye, and everything that the public demanded it have, and put it together in a game that feels as fresh and entertaining now as it did when it was first put out. And in the process, it helped men across the World access their feminine side – your character is called Joanna. Also, you have a boss with a Scottish accent. Brilliant.


1: Banjo Kazooie
A left-field choice for the best Rare game of all time, Banjo Kazooie squeezes more creativity and fantastical humour into the opening scenes than most games can muster in the whole of their existence. A witheringly sarcastic bird and a dumb, lazy bear team up when the bear’s sister is stolen by an evil witch (who only talks in rhymes). They’ve aided in their mission by a wise mole who has an intense hatred for Kazooie, the bird, and a shaman called Mumbo Jumbo, who’d rather be sleeping, really. In the course of their journey the heroic duo fight giant ants and crabs, steal oranges from a monkey, visit a haunted house whilst disguised as a pumpkin, and free a giant mechanical shark from his job as a recycling machine. Through every step of the journey, Rare punctuate things with irony and sarcasm, usually from Kazooie, and deliver gameplay that equals that of Mario 64. You get to fly, and actually fight a boss whilst doing so. The enemies are varied and brilliant, making fun of you even as you kill them, and towards the end the game gets seriously difficult, but never too hard for it’s own good. The music and visuals complement proceedings perfectly, the background music changing slightly as you run through the level select area (a castle) depending on where you are. As you visit the entrance to the beach level, for example, the music turns into a hula, whilst an accordion plays the tune as a sea shanty when you reach Rusty Bucket Bay. Everything about Banjo Kazooie is entertaining, and it more than earns it’s place as Rare’s greatest achievement… thus far.

The Five Best Ways To Kill Mario

The Best Ways To Kill Mario

Mario is one of the quintessential heroes of the modern age. Alongside a hedgehog, an elf, a bear/bird combo and... uh, Rayman, the plucky Italian plumber is one of the ‘elite’ computer game characters, someone who is utterly untouchable as far as heroics go. He fights giant dinosaurs and saves Princesses, and he doesn’t even need a shotgun to do it! (take that, Bob Peck in Jurassic Park!) Many people, if pressed to choose their most beloved computer-game hero, would go for Mario, making him not only powerful, but popular too.

But what about when he gets a little too powerful and popular?

Well obviously, we have to kill him off before he starts developing an ego, and in Super Mario 64 there are many, many ways to do this. You can drop him in lava, electrocute him, make him fall off a cliff because a penguin pushed him – the possibilities, if not endless, are at least varied and highly entertaining. Because we know you people don’t have time to get out your N64 though, we thought we’d list out five favourite ways of killing off the red-hatted Italian for you. We’re so good to you.


5. Squashed
I don’t know how many levels this can be done on, but if you go to Tick Tock Clock, there are these platforms that float up into the air and then drop down, and you’re meant to climb onto them to reach new levels. Don’t do this though, kids. Instead, wait until they lift off the ground and deftly manoeuvre Mario underneath, and then cackle malevolently as the block proceeds to squash the feller. Interestingly, sometimes his body vanishes when this happens, which suggests that when this happens he is squashed completely flat and sticks onto the underside of the platform as it takes off again. In any case, there isn’t any blood, rendering the realism of the game sketchy at best.

4. Drowned
There are many, many situations where you can drown Mario like a rat in this game. Which one you like the most is up to you, although I have a particular fondness for the aquarium bonus level, because there is no air in the room at all. The whole building is just one watery death-trap, thus rending the death of the plumber inevitable. There is literally nowhere he can escape to! By killing him in this room, you also learn a valuable lesson about curiously walking into ill-lit areas to see what are in them – because all you’ll find is certain death, kiddies. In fact, even when you win the area and pick up the star, that in now way automatically brings Mario out of the room. Every time you win that level, he presumably dies! Damn, Nintendo, but that's dark.

3. Flown Into A Building
This is probably only possible on two levels, being the mini-area where Mario is granted the wing-cap and the outside of the castle, once you’ve completed the game. In both cases, you should knock Mario down to very low health before flying him directly into one of the big buildings. His bonce will bounce off the building and he’ll fall downwards, either landing in the courtyard and promptly collapsing, or falling into an infinite sky. In both cases, the fun comes from the dozy “mmmph!” noise Mazza makes when he crunches into the building, as you can audibly hear his nose crumble upon impact. For more fun, give him a long build-up of flying fun before splatting him against the side.

2. Eaten
On the Tiny-Huge Island (I don’t think that is the actual name of the level, but I can’t remember everything, can I?) there is a giant fish floating around one of the levels for no reason. Whilst all the fish on the tiny part of the island are, indeed, tiny, only one of them is actually inflated in size when you go to huge island, which must mean it ate all the others. This fish also wears a pair of outlandish sunglasses, despite having no ears, which is undeniably amazing. Anyway, if you swim Mario out to where this fish lives, then instead of it leaving the guy alone to enjoy a peaceful swim in his dungarees, it will instead eat Mario whole. Even though Mario is proportionally as big as the fish, the thing will swallow him whole and risk simultaneous organ failure just so the plumber dies. Clearly, this biker-fish is the greatest thing ever.

1. Swallowed In Quicksand
Easily the best way to kill Mario, take him to Shifting Sand Land and enter the pyramid, which is inexplicably filled with metal structures and electric monsters which I can’t imagine are ever actually found in Egyptian structures. Those people were clever, but not that clever, dude! Anyway, jump over the barrier and stand in the sandy floor, and you’ll notice Mario very slowly get sucked downwards. Mario himself realises what’s happening quite slowly, until he gets up to his chest and starts trying to wade out. There’s no way to survive though, not when we have control of his body functions – sit back and crack open a cool beer as you watch him vanish before your eyes, sticking out one hand in the air in silent salute before the ground claims him back. You can do this in a number of different poses too, and I recommend experimenting with the different positions you can suffocate him in.
In all seriousness though: don’t stand in quicksand, children.

Why Goldeneye Makes Halo Look Like Frogger In Comparison

Every time some crazed bastard says that Halo is the best first person shooter of all time, the collective soul of the nation is corrupted a little bit more. Let us state this clearly: Halo is no match for Goldeneye, which is the best shoot-em-up game of all time, and has never been bettered. Reports suggest that even before Goldeneye was created, it was in fact already the best FPS around, as the doddery Quake was the only thing which could come close to rivalling it. And as we all know, Quake has only one good thing, and that’s the railgun. Goldeneye doesn’t have said weapon, but it makes up for that with bucketloads of awesome. Here are five of the most obvious reasons why Halo doesn’t even come close to beating Goldeneye.


1: No aliens.

In Halo you have to shoot at aliens and stuff with big tentacles with stupid names, meaning that in any conversation about Halo, you have to make some mention to “killing the Flood aliens”. It’s just not as cool as saying “yeah, so I snuck round the back of the building and shot the guy in the back of his freakin’ head with a silencer.” The main thrill of FPS games is that you get to shoot people, because this is somewhat frowned upon in the real world. The chance to get rid of stress by shooting a whole bunch of evil guards in stupid green hats? Who could resist such fun. Goldeneye has no aliens in it at all, which is also what distinguishes it from the otherwise slightly superior Perfect Dark. You can shoot someone in the leg and they start limping! Shoot an alien in the tentacle, and… who cares?


2: Exploding tables

In tribute to the Bond series, just about everything explodes in Goldeneye. Take your rifle into a room of crates and start shooting, you’ll create an explosive chain reaction that blows up the whole room. Likewise filing cabinets explode, for whatever reason, when you shoot them. Don’t get that in Halo, do you? Best of all were the exploding tables and chairs – boy, them Russians really do live a different life to us, don’t they? In what context would inventing a table that explodes when you shoot it seem like a good idea, Russia? Those guys be crazy.


3: Knee sliding

Ducking to avoid gunfire is a standard convention in shooting games, but Goldeneye went around things differently. Instead of having the characters bend over and crouch, they would instead get onto their knees and start sliding around magically, unencumbered by friction or gravity. This was video game gold, right here, a glitch that became a legend. I still don’t know why other games don’t have knee sliding, or why it has yet to be recognised as an official sport, because it looks brilliant. The best thing is to get down on your knees and start spinning round, shooting wildly in all directions. This manoeuvre is called “The Jerd”. But, uh, only by me.


4: The RC-P90.

The greatest gun in the history of video games, ever. And nobody can quite say what it is that makes the thing so god-damn-awesome-awesome. Perhaps it’s the way it can shoot 90 bullets in each magazine without reloading, or perhaps the zipping noise it makes as it unloads said bullets, or the way it tears through each guard you hit. Then, it could be the way that when you describe the RC-P90, you sound like a total badass. There are very few guns you can drop into a conversation and not be ridiculed as the uber-nerd to end all uber-nerds (and there’s strong competition for such a title), but the RC-P90 is one of them. It doesn’t even shoot explosives, but it’s still way better than anything that Halo could offer. So good in fact, that it returned in Perfect Dark under a different name – and it was STILL the best gun there (and that game had a rocket launcher where you could control the missile after you fired it!)


5: James Bond

How can we put this lightly? …. YOU ARE JAMES BOND IN GOLDENEYE. More specifically, you are Pierce Brosnan, in a game based on one of the very best Bond films ever made. You get to jump off the dam in Russia, drop down into the toilets and shoot guards on the crapper, and meet Robbie Coltrane and Sean Bean! In a manner of speaking. Bond travels the world, from jungles to underground caverns in Cuba, the streets of Russia… Siberia (not the best thing, admittedly), gets with girls, and cracks off witty one-liners at random. And during this whole thing, you control him! And then let’s compare this to Halo. In Halo, you play… wait, I forgot who you play. Nobody cares anyway, it’s a random guy in a suit of armour. Compared to Bond – doesn’t stand up. Bond is Boss.