Perhaps it’s a bit late to revisit the Zelda 25th Anniversary train, but it’s still the same year so I’m saying it’s alright.
What you see above is a DeviantArt amalgam of over a hundred different artist’s representations of Link over the years. He’s an iconic character, and one that’s seen a ton of different iterations in animation style, even in his official game canon. Here we see even MORE renditions of him, and there are a few that I would definitely like to see make it to a game.
Click on the picture to blow it way up, and hunt through all the awesomeness it has to share.
I'm not the biggest fan of flash games, but I do love everything about Mario. When a friend sent me a link to Super Mario + Tetris flash game, I was hooked and wanted more. These are the best versions of Mario in Flash I could find. Enjoy! :)
Play Super Mario Bros as Bullet Bill. You control a Bullet Bill with the arrow keys through each of the 8 levels, hitting either Mario, Luigi or the flag at the end. If you like this game, check out Bullet Bill 2.
Probably the most awesome Flash Super Mario ever created. "Super Mario 63 is a fan-game inspired by Nintendo's Super Mario 64. Many levels and features are based upon it and other of Nintendo's games, but a variety of them are completely original." Warning: This game may take some time to load (it's a 14 MB file)
Despite being simply the background music to video games, the themes to Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda are about as recognizable as any song to appear on the Billboard Top 100. Anyone born in the 1980s or later will instantly recognize those themes, along with countless others from the days of 8-bit gaming. I still can’t decide whether it’s because the themes are really catchy or because of the endless repetition, but Nintendo themes seem to have an uncanny ability to lodge themselves into your head for days. I still find myself humming the music from the one-on-one “versus” part of Trojan.
Anyway, some people have actually taken the time to learn and play Nintendo themes on the guitar,and some of them are pretty damn good. I put 10 of my favorites below.
Nintendo classics will forever have a place in the gaming world. As new technologies emerge, the same legendary games seem to resurface over and over again. With each iteration of these games, new concepts are created and storylines take comedic or tragic turns. Check out this collection of great Nintendo remakes for flash:
Super Mario Bros.
One of the most ideal game franchises for the flash platform, Mario has spawned a multitude of great spin off flash games. The 2d scroll style game play and friendly character animation makes Mario a flash game developer favorite.
In the world of action RPG games, Zelda is a juggernaut we just cant forget. The franchise has been a huge success spawning multiple award winning games over several consoles. It almost seems as though Zelda and flash were a couple made in heaven. Some of these remakes are truly entertaining!
Donkey Kong, first released to the American public in 1981, has been captivating audiences for generations. If you ever get the urge for some classic DK barrel jumping goodness, then this game should do the trick.
One of Capcom’s most prolific franchises, Mega Man translates very well to the flash platform. Simply put, Mega Man is AWSOME!!! Check out these great remakes:
A mega classic, Metroid is loved by all. Flash game developers have really gotten creative with their renditions of this game, crating 3d originals, space invader style remakes, and of course classic style action adventure shooters.
It is a pink, round, ball, coming from a place called Dream Land on the planet Pop Star. It can walk, run, jump, float, slide, inhale, spit out, and devour enemies. Sounds like my ex girlfriend…jk. Kirby is an obvious winner in the flash game world.
The Nintendo 64 was Nintendo's third home console and featured one of the most baffling controllers of all time.
Charles Darwin would be proud of this evolutionary discovery
Just The Facts
The Nintendo 64 was Nintendo's first console to feature 3D graphics.
Many classic video games were developed for it.
The controller is one of the worst-designed things, ever.
Seriously, how the fuck do you hold it.
Cracked on Nintendo 64
Released in 1996 after the big success of 1991's SNES, the Nintendo 64 was actually late to the market. Most consoles do have a lifetime of around 5 years, but Nintendo was late to the game when Sega's Saturn and Sony's PlayStation hit the market in late 1994. It did make up for late time by featuring such classics as:
PIctured: Super Mario 64, Ocarina of Time, Banjo-Kazooie, Donkey Kong 64 and... wait, what the fuck is that? Glover?
However, the Nintendo 64 featured an all new, revolutionary controller interface: the analog stick. Yeah, you know that little stub that moves around? You saw it here first. While developing 3D game environments, Nintendo found that the traditional D-pad (also invented by them) didn't allow for precise control, so they decided to forever change the course of gaming history to allow for slightly more accurate movement.
Even though the new analog stick was quite a step forward, it also had the distinction of being "first," meaning it was shit compared to later analog sticks. Because it was made out of hard plastic, using it too much could really hurt your thumb and after playing a lot, it would become loose in the socket. But come on!
Nintendo's controller seems to be designed for an octopus.
The analog stick has since been featured in pretty much every other major game controller that has been released since. In fact, the analog stick was so revolutionary at the time that many game-publications rewarded Nintendo's games such as Super Mario 64 and Majora's Mask some of the highest praise ever received, by anything. You thought Dark Side of the Moon was a good album? That Goodfellas was a great movie? Super Mario 64 was way better. The game was recently listed by IGN was the fifth greatest game ever created, surpassed only by other Nintendo games and Tetris. Super Mario 64 was heralded for its tight integration with the analog stick and for staying true to the series roots, even though it made the transition from 2D to 3D. Super Mario 64 was also the first time millions of gamers heard their beloved Mario speak:
The pure magic of seeing Mario in glorious 3D with an actual voice was actually too much for some fans to handle, and they became victims of Shitmypantsilitis; a condition that befalls people that get too excited about Nintendo-related products. It was still a really fun game.
Another one of the Nintendo 64's bizarre features was that it ignored the CD-media trend. So, unlike the more-successful Sony PlayStation, which had its games written onto a disc, Nintendo decided to stick with the extremely dated cartridge format after this lengthy corporate discussion:
Ex-Nintendo President Hiroshi Yamauchi's most successfull business strategy
Sticking to the cartridge format was seen as a mistake by others. Cartridges were more expensive to produce than CDs and held less storage, meaning they could only accommodate shorter games or worse graphics. The upside to cartridges is that games load faster and you'll look like a jackass in front of your friends when you have to blow on the bottom to get it to work properly.
Other innovations the N64 offered were then-state of the art 3D graphics. At the time, the 64's 64bit (yep) framework allowed for more precise polygon counts to shape 3D models more effectively than Sega's Saturn and Sony's PlayStation. But remember, this was 1996. These were considered amazing graphics:
Wait, that's not... oh never mind.
The Best Nintendo 64 Game
With the Nintendo 64's legendary five year-run, many classic games were released for the system and many consider the console to be home to the single-most amount of great exclusive games ever. Some games were so well received by fans that they simply stopped buying new consoles after the Nintendo 64 and continue to play them to this day. These people are referred to as fucking losers. Anyways, the contenders:
Super Mario 64
Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Nerdgasms
GoldenCock 007
You know what? Fuck those games. They may have been great and all, but there is one clear winner here. A game that transcends fun into an entire new realm of enjoyment and redefines immersive experience. This isn't just a game, it is a shining example of why mankind was put on this earth. This game is perfection.
.
All you art collectors out there. Here is a chance to get a Giclee copy of some of Ian M Sherwin work. Ian is planning on doing a whole series of Marblehead, Massachusetts paintings. His work is amazing.
.
Posts
