Snow Levels: A Tribute to Winter

Winter. The last season of the year, and also the first. Among the things you may attribute to wintertime, be it the barren trees, the chill in the air, or a winter holiday like Christmas, snow is most likely on everyone's list. Most games have at least one snow level. It's become somewhat of a staple, from first person shooters, to RPGs and even racing games. Let's take a look at some of gaming's many memorable snow levels, and look back on our fond memories of them.
Super Mario 64 - Snowman's Land

Snowman's Land is the 4th course available in Super Mario 64. It's main feature? A large snowman guarding a mountain! Mario's only line of defense is a very big penguin! This bulky bird blocks the snowman's icy breath from blowing Mario off the mountain!



Banjo Kazooie - Freezeezy Peak

The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past - Ice Palace

The Ice Palace was the very first ice themed dungeon in the Zelda series. It is the 5th dungeon in ALttP. I can't remember much about the dungeon itself, but it leads to a boss battle Kholdstare, a mysterious one eyes creature that is at first suspended in ice.


The Legend of Zelda - Zora's Domain and Ice Cavern

When Link first arrives at the Zora's Domain, it has been frozen over by Ganon's magic, sealing off doors and trapping many inhabitants. Even after Link succeeds in rescuing the Zora's, there remains a cavern just outside their domain that is still frozen - The Ice Cavern. While technically a dungeon, albeit a small one, some do not count it as such. It only has one floor, which Link must explore in order to attain the heavy boots.

The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask - Northern Mountains

The Northern mountains consist of three areas - The Mountain village, a small area in the middle of the mountains; Snowhead, a gorge where the Goron race resides; and North Termina Field, the snowy entrance to he mountain. The blacksmith in the village can provide Link with the gilded sword, the most powerful sword in the game next to the fairy sword. In Snowhead, Link conquers Snowhead Temple for the second mask, and lulls the ghost of a giant Goron to sleep. This is also where Link attains his Goron mask.

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess - Snowpeak Ruins

Snowpeak Ruins is quite simply beautiful. At first glance, it doesn't even look like a dungeon. That's because it is indeed a mansion, and the inhabitants are there the entire time Link is exploring. They're just chilling on the couch when Link asks about the mirror he is after. They just tell him it's upstairs, and he can have if he get's the key. they even offer you soup! The boss of this temple is a real surprise...


Paper Mario - Shiver City and Crystal Palace

Mario and his partners arrive in Shiver City through the sewers, and go looking for a penguin named Heringway. When they enter the mayor's home, they find him murdered! and Heringway is a suspect! After solving this mystery, they move on the Crystal Palace - a frozen castle. After solving the many riddles of the palace, it's time to show the Crystal King who's boss!

Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door - Fahr Outpost

Fahr Outpost is the isolated home of many bob-ombs. It's quite literally in the middle of nowhere. Mario travels here in search of a canon that will shoot him to the moon! General White is missing, however, and his permission is needed. This sends Mario out on a wild goose chase searching for the general.


Mario Kart Series: Sherbet Land

This map has appeared in multiple Mario Kart Titles. It made its debut in Mario Kart 64, and has reincarnation in Double Dash, as well as Mario Kart Wii. Penguins, shyguys and Freezies are out to freeze your kart in its tracks on this snow map!

Mario Kart Series - Frappe Snowland

This is another famous snow track that also debuted in Mario Kart 64. it also has an incarnation in Mario Kart DS. This mountain trails has many snowmen that will freeze you if you hit them, as well as many beautiful snowy replicas of many Mario characters!

Ice Climber - Icicle Mountain

In the NES game Ice Climber, Nana and Popo scale Icicle Mountain, trying to reach it's many peaks. Once they reach a peak, avoiding toppies and polar bears, that leap from the cliff and grab hold of a condor's talons to be whisked away! This mountain i also a stage in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, serving as the home stage of the ice climbers, Nana and Popo, as well as being an area in the Subspace Emissary. Oddly, the stage has Balloon Fight crossovers. This mountain was also an upward scrolling stage in super Smash Bros. Melee called Infinite Glacier.


Pikmin 2 - Valley of Repose

The Valley of Repose is the first area explored in Pikmin 2. Olimar and Louie became seperated after a crash landing, and utilizing their 2 teams of Pikmin, they must reunite before continuing. it has been argued that this is actually the first area from the original Pikmin, The Forest of Hope, in the winter season. There are a couple of snowman within this area, which is actually very strange what with the game taking place after human extinction. Who built them, I wonder? Perhaps this area has no seasons, and is always snowy. If the fan theory is correct however, the snowmen really leave some questions to ponder...

Animal Crossing - Winter Season

Animal Crossing is the game that's always playing, even when you're not! In the game, your town, which you name, mirrors reality via the Gamecube's internal clock. If it is four o'clock p.m. on a Friday afternoon in August, it is the same for your town in Animal Crossing. This of course means that seasons are mirrored as well, from the rotting of foliage in the fall, to the frequent April showers of Spring, to the snowfall of winter. In winter, your town becomes blanketed with snow on a random date a couple weeks into December. winter perhaps brings more changes than any other season. Snow replaces rain, and has the same effect as rain on fish, so Animal Crossing fishermen like myself can still catch their coelecanths! On Christmas, a reindeer named Jingle in a Santa suit leaves gifts in mailboxes! Starting in January, snowmen can be built if you can find snowballs to roll around, and your townsfolk may occasionally build an igloo, in which you can get some very rare items. Winter is without a doubt the most magical season in this already magical game.

Halo 2 - Lockout

Lockout is a medium sized map set in a UNSC base in an arctic area. The outside area's are coated with a thin layer of frost, and a small amount of snowfall is visible. This map was extremely popular, and was re-released in Halo 3 under the name Blackout, though Blackout seems to be missing the frost texture.



Halo 3 - Avalanche

 Avalanche was a download map for Halo 3, and one of two snow levels in the game. Set in a UNSC valley outpost, this map is large and in charge. It consists of 2 bases, 2 open fields connected by a small cave system and a frozen lake. This map is big enough for huge online grudge matches while remaining small and open enough for split screen mayhem.


Metroid Prime - Phendrana Drifts

Phendrana Drifts is quite breathtaking, especially for its time. As soon as Samus enters the area, her visor begins to fog. The long you are in the Drifts, the colder Samus becomes, and the more her visor begins to frost. It was a very nice effect, and immersed you even further in the game. Phendrana drifts is also the first area of the game in which Samus encounters the Metroids on Talon IV.


Metal Gear Solid series - Shadow Moses Island

Shadow Moses Island is where the first Metal Gear Solid takes place. Shadow Moses is in Alaska, and thus it is always very cold. This is where Solid Snake shut down Liquids plan to use Metal Gear Rex as a nuclear weapon. It of course first appeared in Metal Gear Solid for the Playstation, but was remade in the Gamecube remake, The Twin Snakes. Snake also returns here in a very nostalgic chapter of Metal Gear Solid 4 on the Playstation 3. was it any surprise when it was included as snake's home stage when he was announced for Super Smash Bros. Brawl?

There are many, many, many more snow levels. In fact, there will continue to be new snow levels as long as gaming lives on, and it seems to have plenty of life left. There is absolutely no way I could ever pay homage to every snow level, or to every game with a snow level in it. Please, feel free to comment about your own personal favorites or memories of these levels or any I may have left out. I hope you enjoyed this article, and have a great winter, or at least what is left of it.

Top 10 Urban Legends in Gaming

Urban legends are something most everyone is familiar with. Some of them are plausible, and some of them are laughable. Some of them are local, and some of them are wold wide phenomena. In pop culture, there are many of these urban legends as well, and the gaming community is not exempt from this. Here are what I think are the top 10 urban legends in gaming.

10. Haunted Majora's Mask Copy

This one is actually pretty recent, and I hadn't even heard about it until fellow NFF member Rin mentioned it to me. After I found out about, I did a little research. The story is that a college student went out looking for old games at garage sales when a creepy old man gave him a gray N64 cartridge with "Majora" sharpied on it. He broke rule number one of not failing at life. you don't accept things for free from the creepy old guy. Anyway, after a long string of events, he comes to the conclusion the the cartridge is haunted by an entity named "Ben", who eventually infected his computer as well. Of course, most people probably knew it was all fake, but we all love a good ghost story. That being said, a lot of people found a way to believe in it. Although Jadusable, the legends creator, has admitted that it was all just part of an experiment, in which he tried to write a psychological horror story that would involve the readers in the plot, many are still trying to figure it all out and claiming that it is in fact true. The reason this is so far down on the list is that for starters, it is just so fresh, and it hasn't had time to really settle itself into gaming culture yet. you can read all about this haunted game on Jadusables site, www.youshouldnthavedonethat.com

9. Brutus

Animal Crossing was finally released to America via the Gamecube in 2001. Animal Crossing runs in real time, and has hundreds upon hundreds of items to collects, and around 300+ villagers that can move in or out of your town. With this much content, it is quite easy for someone to make up something while the game is still young. Someone decided to do just that in the form of Brutus. Brutus was said to be a male villager or the grumpy variety. He was a dog, but instead of using the model the other dogs in the game used, he used a model similar to that of Booker, a bulldog police officer. Not only is this impossible, his short, which is said to have a large "B" on it is not even in the games coding. Furthermore, it was said that Brutus was "evil" and would cut down your trees, leave trash in your town, and other such hateful deeds. This too is impossible, as NPCs can do none of these things. again, the game was young, and loaded with content. as such, it was quite believable. Brutus is one of several Animal Crossing rumors, but he is one of my favorites. I also found this on TV Tropes:

Quote:

Urban Legend Of Zelda: There was a rumor for the Gamecube Animal Crossing on some forums that a purple dog named Brutus, or Burtis, would move to your town and do weird things like talk and send letters in binary, have a house that freezes your Gamecube when you enter it, and would move out of town after staying for 1 day. There was also a (poorly) edited picture of him talking in binary, with the animal edited to be Octavian.

I was unable to find this image. Sorry, you guys.

8. Michael Jackson Composed Sonic 3's Soundtrack

Now, this one isn't completely unreasonable. SEGA did produce the Michael Jackson's Moonwalk game, and Sonic 3 does have some pretty awesome beats. This one could be true, or it could be false. We may never know for sure.

7. Marilyn Manson voiced Voldo in Soul Calibur II

It isn't all too unbelievable. Voldo is basically a zombie, whose voice consists or grunts, moans, and snarls. The voice actor is uncredited, so for all we know, it could truly have been Manson, but I somehow doubt it. In fact, I don't think any human being, even one as inhuman as Marilyn Manson could come close.

6. The Truck

Quote:

Once you defeat Misty, trade with someone a Pokémon that already knows cut from another game. Then continue the game without going on the SS Anne and get HM02 (fly) and HM03 (surf) as you go. Once gotten both fly and surf, go back to where the SS Anne is. Go right to where the screen switches and you see the ship itself. You will be on the boardwalk that leads to the ship. Surf off to the right until you see a strip of land with a truck on it. People have said that if you move the truck with strength, you will find Mew.

Oh, how we wished it were true. Even though the only ways to obtain Mew were to hack your game via cheat device, cause a glitch, or go to an officially sanctioned event, a lot of us still tried aimlessly to find Mew this way. But ya know what has always bugged me? Why is the truck even there?! It is just alone an an island with no roads or anything! Was is placed a as test for something, and simply forgotten? Perhaps it was simply a remnant of what would be some sort of side quest that got trashed. We'll never know, but it is fun to ponder.

5. Curse of the Tails Doll

Yet another ghost story. In the game Sonic R, a Sonic racing game for the Saturn, you could unlock a character named "Tails Doll". This creepy little bugger was to tails was Metal Sonic and Metal Knuckles are to Sonic and Knuckles. Not only was he somewhat disturbing in appearance, his stats are abysmal. In the game was a mode called Tag, in which the goal was to tag all of the other players. I'm not sure how it all got started, but someone started spreading a rumor around that the game was cursed. Allegedly, if you chose Tails doll, played Tag and won(a whole lot harder than it sounds, trust me) the "real" Tails doll would kill or otherwise harm you that night. I've tested the "curse" personally, and I'm still here writing this article. But hey, who knows. Maybe the Tails doll is just biding his time...the official site can be found at the following link. http://www.quackerandbowen.com/sonicr.html

4. Aeris/Aerith can be revived.

Final Fantasy VII was an extremely popular game, and also a very good one. Now, we all hated Sephiroth anyway because he's just so easy to hate, but when he killed Aeris/Aerith it somehow made the grudge personal. Many gamers got wind of this rumor and began trying every little thing they were told to revive their fallen ally, but i was all for naught. The only way to get her back is the hack your game.

3. Mario is a Communist

Let's take a moment to analyze Mario, and see just where theorists got this one. Mario's signature color is red. You can't deny he kinda looks like Stalin. Furthermore, his enemy is a King whom he will do anything to overthrow. I somehow doubt there is any connection, but you can't help but grin thinking about it.

2. Sonic and Tails unlockable in Super Smash Bros. Melee

Everyone loves a good April fools joke, and the one pulled by Electronic Gaming Monthly has always been one of my favorites. Supposedly, this duo would be unlocked after defeating 20 of more opponents in cruel melee. Now THAT, my friends, is a challenge. a couple of players managed to go above and beyond this requirement, all for nothing. Ironically, Sonic is now a playable character in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, and there is always a chance that this rumor is what sparked the idea.

1. Polybius

Polybius was an alleged arcade game said to be found in a few arcades in Portland, Oregan around 1981. The game was said to feature insanely trippy graphics, and induced black outs, memory loss, nausea and other more serious effects like seizures, insomnia and horrible nightmares. Supposed players also said that occasionally men in black suits would come and collect data from the game. Polybius may have been a government experiment of some sort. some even say it could have been a form of mind control. To this day, there are no know Polybius cabinets in existence.

There are a lot of gaming related urban legends out there. These are only a few. even though a lot of them are probably not true, I still appreciate urban legends. If there is no mystery to anything, it just isn't any fun.