MORTAL KOMBAT MAGAZINE COVERS

I never really took to the Mortal Kombat series, you know. I played it a bunch in my youth, especially Mortal Kombat 3 because a friend owned it so we ended up playing a lot of the versus mode, but it felt like a poor relation when compared to the likes of Street Fighter II and SNK’s fighting games. The gameplay always felt kinda stodgy and unsatisfying to me and the digitised graphics put me off. Sorry, Mortal Kombat fans. Please don’t take my lack of interest as a criticism of your preferences, and if you do like Mortal Kombat then here are a bunch of magazine covers featuring the slaughtertastic punch-em-up series!

Nintendo Magazine System

Starting off with a pretty straightforward cover in an art style that’s perfectly good and does a fine job of representing these famous Mortal Kombat… you know, for a second I nearly wrote it as “kharacters” but forget that. I refuse to replace hard Cs with Ks until the games’ developers realise their mistake and rename Scorpion to Skorpion. Consistency is all I ask for.
But yeah, this is a solid cover, even if I question the decision to put Goro’s crotch directly in the centre of the image. It certainly does draw the eye towards it. Oh, and Kano’s knives look way too much like those plastic glow in the dark “haunted murderer” knives you get at Halloween to be threatening. Or perhaps that’s the point. If Kano can kill you with toy knifes that come in a set with a Ghostface mask and a bottle of fake blood, imagine the damage he could do with the real thing!

Nintendo Magazine System

Speaking of Kano, here he is again, sporting a forehead so vast I’m amazed a Texan land baron hasn’t tried to purchase it for cattle grazing space. Guile doesn’t look impressed. Mike Haggar looks like he always looks – absolutely furious all the time, which is great for fighting street punks but probably less helpful when he has to cut the ribbon at Metro City Hospital’s new maternity ward.

Electronic Gaming Monthly

Guile and Kano – I didn’t intend for this article to be so Kano-centric thus far, I swear – are paired up again, this time as djinn who have swapped the magical lamp for a Sega Saturn and a PlayStation respectively. You rub the consoles and out they pop, ready to grant a wish as long as that wish is “I’d like to see some scowling, please.”

GamePro

At this point you’d be forgiven for thinking that Kano is Mortal Kombat’s main character. He really isn’t, although the decision to have a heart-removing criminal with a cybernetic face as the star would have been a refreshingly bold move. But who is Mortal Kombat’s main character? I always assumed it was Liu Kang, based on the usual fighting game hero metric of him being a boring kung fu man, but Liu Kang seems to get much less focus than Raiden the thunder god or the palette-swap ninjas, especially Sub Zero and Scorpion. I suppose it’s simply that Mortal Kombat doesn’t have a focal character in the vein of Street Fighter’s Ryu or Fatal Fury’s Terry Bogard.
As for this cover, it’s another perfectly acceptable comic-book illustration, and yet again Kano’s forehead has grown like the mighty oak. Sonya Blade’s spine is having a rough time at the (four) hands of Goro, and it’s those hands that interest me most about this image: are his nails black because he managed to accidentally slam all of them in a car door, or did he take the time to paint them before stepping onto the field of battle? Actually, painting your nails would be pretty great with four hands, you’d always have a pair free to use while you wait for the other pair to dry.

Sega Master Force

What do we think? Was the decision to have Goro cupping the “pull-out poster” blurb in a manner very reminiscent of a Street Fighter throwing a hadoken an intentional reference to Capcom’s fighting franchise, or was it merely a coincidence that I picked up on because I’ve wasted years of my life playing videogames and absorbing their ephemera? You decide!

Electronic Games

I would very much like someone to attempt to draw a picture of Ryu’s skull based on the physiology presented in this image. I was also interested to learn that Raiden’s lighting powers are the celestial equivalent of a joy buzzer. Neither of these two videogame titans really look like they’re into it, do they? It all seems a bit half-hearted, which is a good metaphor for the “Street Fighter versus Mortal Kombat!” rivalry – or the rivalry between any two similar videogames franchises or competing consoles. These things were endlessly talked up in the games media of the time, especially Sega versus Nintendo, and while I remember the occasional argument it’s my recollection that most people I knew back then were aware you could like both things. All the kids I knew would have killed to have a SNES and a MegaDrive and only didn’t because of the cost. Of course, in the case of Street Fighter II versus Mortal Kombat it’s absolutely no contest and Street Fighter blows Mortal Kombat out of the water.

VideoGames

In which Kano is extremely amused to see Sub-Zero skanking towards him like an over-excited teenager at their first Reel Big Fish gig. I can hear the trumpets while looking at this picture.

GamePro

Moving on to Mortal Kombat II, and this cover is almost arranged in the formation that Warhammer 40,000 fans would call a “battle pile” - everyone clumped together in a large mound of furious rage and dangerously impractical bladed weapons. I’m mostly thinking of Kung Lao and his razor-brimmed hat. All the Shaolin monks sitting around, watching Goldfinger and saying “you know, I think that Oddjob chap was on to something.” Now that’s an origin story.

Nintendo Power

Most of the covers so far have been goofy comic book fun, but then Nintendo Power comes out with a genuinely disturbing take on Scorpion. For once the undead assassin looks like a creature raised up from hell rather than a Halloween costume with another Halloween mask under the ninja costume. It’s the eyes that do it, clouded and blank. It’s such an effective look, in fact, that it took me a long time to notice the very ugly dragon at the top of the cover. The dragon is probably upset that Milky-Eyed Corpse Scorpion is hogging all the attention that dragons usually get.

Electronic Gaming Monthly

This is definitely my favourite cover of the lot. Three serious-looking warriors, plus the sword-armed wasteland mutant Baraka, who is throwing said sword-arms around his pals as they have a their photo taken in a gesture of camaraderie so pure and wholesome it makes you overlook Baraka being a sword-armed wasteland mutant. “Man, this vacation has been the best,” says Baraka, “I love you guys. I can’t wait until next year’s trip!”

GamePro

A wide variety of Mortal Kombat characters (plus Sonic the Hedgehog) appear on this cover, from familiar faces like Johnny Cage to… a buff tiger man? I don’t remember there being any buff tiger men in Mortal Kombat, although to be fair I haven’t played a Mortal Kombat game since MK Trilogy so there’s probably at least a couple of buff animal men in the roster by now. Intrigued, I looked up this issue of the magazine and found that the tiger-man was originally intended to be a playable character called Kintaro who was later cut. According to the magazine feature, the reason he was cut was that “a costume of this magnitude simply wasn’t feasible,” which seems odd when you consider Mortal Kombat II did have a character called Kintaro and they’re another hulking brute with four arms.

EGM2

See? There’s Kintaro now, looking extremely unimpressed by M. Bison’s punches. I’d have thought “extra limbs” would make a costume much more infeasible that slapping a tiger mask and some body paint on an actor wearing a robe, but then I don’t know anything about the complicated process of creating videogames.

Tips and Tricks

I saw at least four magazine covers that were nothing but this image of Raiden, which definitely wouldn’t be enough to get me interested in Mortal Kombat II. On the whole I find MK’s characters to be a fairly bland bunch (although, again, I haven’t played the modern games so they might be more interesting) and Raiden is one of those that never really did anything for me. I’m not saying all Mortal Kombat characters are boring – obviously I can appreciate a skull-headed assassin from hell as much as the next kid who grew up watching eighties horror movies – but I think part of the problem is the digitised graphics. When I look at a Street Fighter or Tekken character I see the character, but when I look at a Mortal Kombat fighter I see person in a “mid-budget television show” costume and that doesn’t do much to create mystique.

Mega Force

I will say this for MK’s cast, though: they do their own thing. How many fighting games of the time did you see with karate-gi-wearing Ryu lookalikes or Brazilian beastmen? Mortal Kombat’s fighters are a unique bunch, at least, and that’s to be commended. On this cover we can see a few of them in a hand-drawn style that’s much more appealing to me than any number of publicity photos of Raiden. It took me a while to realise what Shang Tsung was reminding me of, but eventually it clicked that I’m sure I saw a very similar design on some of the graffiti / “hip-hop” t-shirt of the kind a lot of kids used to wear when I was growing up in the early nineties. Except on the t-shirt that character would be holding a spray-can and wearing a baggy t-shirt rather than a vest, of course.

Great Dragon

Russian mag “Great Dragon” now, and stark, abstract weirdness is the name of the game. I’m sure the Mortal Kombat dragon logo is familiar even to videogame fans who haven’t played the games, and here it is floating near two orbs that might be… planets? Moons? Is this because the magazine also covers Dune 2 and this was the artist’s way of combining the disparate elements of grand interstellar saga and gore-drenched punchathon? Mortal Kombat X Dune, now there’s one hell of a crossover event for you to ponder. “My name is a killing word, but if that doesn’t work then Jax here has powerful cybernetic arms, they should get the job done.”

GamePro

“First look at the new Sub-Zero” is the big draw here, and I assume it’s like the cliche about a dowdy woman taking off her glasses and letting her hair down. Why Sub-Zero, you’re beautiful!

Super Game Power

Here’s Mortal Kombat antagonist Shao Kahn. He’s a brutal warlord who crushes his enemies – that is, pretty much anyone who’s not Shao Kahn – with his incredible strength and a bloody great hammer. He has a vague samurai feel to his design, a Darth Vader-style helmet made of bones and yes, okay, I’m skirting around the obvious problem here. His skull-mask’s lack of a lower jaw means I can’t help seeing Shao Kahn as having a severely pronounced overbite. Once I’d seen this image I was unable to stop imagining Shao Kahn shouting “Hyuk hyuk!” like sodding Goofy. Like, there’s nothing wrong with the technical execution of this artwork but it’s hard to take a character seriously when they’ve got the maxillary structure of a lost Beavis and Butt-Head character.

GamePro

Back to some less giggle-inducing artwork, with Scorpion and Mileena (I think?) engaged in a gruesome battle to the death. A death that’ll involve one of the fighters swaying around on the spot for a while before collapsing into a heap because I couldn’t remember the button input for a Fatality, if my MK-playing experiences are anything to go by.
The artwork’s good, even if Scorpion’s weapon looks less like a harpoon and more like the world’s most useless shovel, but it did send me on a little quest. I thought the art style looked familiar, which is weird because I am terrible at picking out a particular artist’s look. So, I looked up this issue of GamePro, found out that the cover artist is called John Estes and then spend a wasted half an hour looking for my Hellraiser comics because I was sure Estes had done some work on them. That’s just the kind of exciting, fast-paced life I lead, folks. Anyway, it turns out it was actually the much more famous Alex Ross in the Hellraiser comics, and also I can’t find my Hellraiser comics. You should check them out some time if you like the Hellraiser movies, some of them are rather good and definitely a lot more fun than watching the later Hellraiser movies. Then again, so is rolling around in a bottle bank with live centipedes in your underwear.

Gamers

Another cover with artwork that I’d describe as – and I mean this completely without negative connotations - “charmingly amateurish,” this time from Brazilian mag Gamers. I’m sure I’ve seen Sonya’s kicking pose somewhere before, and my brain’s screaming “Cynthia Rothrock movie” at me so maybe that’s it but as we’ve established I’m really bad at picking these things out. The evil queen Sindel is also here, with an outfit that looks like it’s be very uncomfortable on the ol’ bosoms and a hairdo that seems almost toned down from the games, where she sports a barnet that you could confidently slap on a character that was a parody of either Elvira or a washed-up country-and-western singer. Reptile is here too, but based on his expression he hasn’t got a clue why he’s here.

GamePro

Finally for today, I’d like to close out with a lame joke that I’m always happy to reuse. Ready? Ahem…
“He’s behind me, isn’t he?”
Thank you, thank you. I’ll be here all week.

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RESIDENT EVIL MAGAZINE COVERS

A couple of years ago I wrote about a bunch of videogame magazines with Silent Hill games on the cover. A recurring theme with those covers was that they kept comparing the Silent Hill games to the Resident Evil series, which I sort of understand – they both started out as PS1 survival horror games about people getting in way over their heads, after all. So, in the spirit of synchronicity I thought now would be a good time to look at magazines with Resident Evil games on the cover. I promise I won’t spend the whole article comparing them to Silent Hill, except to say both series are precious and wonderful and I love them. Well, as long as I keep pretending that the Silent Hill games after number three don’t exist.

Maximum, Resident Evil

Let’s begin with a cover that celebrates one of the most iconic moments in the entire Resident Evil series. It’s from the cutscene that plays when you encounter your very first zombie. The hideous creature is distracted from its meal of human flesh, and slowly turns to show the camera its rotting features. You probably remember it well if you’ve played the original Resident Evil. I know I do. I remember it well enough to realise that the image on this cover isn’t taken directly from that cutscene. It’s the same scene, the same zombie in a pose that screams “hey, buddy, keep it down, I’m tryna eat here,” but it’s a completely different CG model. Unless Capcom were handing out unseen concept art to magazine for promotional reasons, that means that someone at Maximum went to the trouble of recreating this famous zombie just for this cover. That’s a level of dedication to the Resident Evil games that I can definitely appreciate, and it’s a good enough model to pass undetected at a glance. When you compare the two zombies side by side, however, the differences become apparent. The one on this cover has no ears, for starters. The big difference is the eye, though. In the game, the zombie has a beady yet inquisitive eye sunk deep into its mouldering eye socket. This zombie’s eye appears to have been accidentally connected to a bicycle pump.

Game Informer, Resident Evil

The first zombie returns on this cover, expect this time he’s a drawing rather than a CG model. I really like the milky white eyes it has here, I reckon they’re even creepier than on the original. As for the rest of the cover, it’s mostly taken up by official art of the STARS members you’ll encounter in the game. I’d like to take this opportunity to say how much I like the STARS acronym, because “Special Tactics and Rescue Service” really does sound like the name of a police branch that might conceivably exist. The only problem with it is that it’s usually the members of STARS who need rescuing.

Gamers, Resident Evil

Blimey, that zombie doesn’t half get around. However, this time he’s fuzzily shoved into the background so we can focus on the real stars: these trace jobs of Jill Valentine and Chris Redfield. I say “trace” but that’s not quite right. The drawing of Chris is definitely a copy of the game’s US cover art, but I’m not sure where that Jill is from originally. They’re not bad drawings, though. Certainly better than I could manage, and I know that for a fact because when the first Resident Evil came out I did little else but draw pictures of Jill and Chris.And Wesker. Okay, mostly Wesker. The most notable thing about this drawing is Chris’ especially veiny forearms, especially when you consider this is from long before the musclebound, boulder-clobbering version of Chris we got from Resident Evil 5 onwards. My theory is that his arms look like that due the sheer amount of elbow grease he must have used to polish his gun so much it glows.

Game-X, Resident Evil

Now we’re talking. Chris drops into an extremely uncomfortable-looking combat squat as he shoots near – but not at - a zombie, while Jill is so shocked by the attacking mutant dog that she reflexively throws a karate chop at it. Of course, the real star of this cover is the zombie, who has become overwhelmed with ennui. It is “so done” with this allegedly elite police unit’s antics, as the youth might say. You know how sometimes you look at a character and you can hear the voice they should have in your head? Yeah, there’s no way that zombie doesn’t have a slightly camp British accent. I’m imagining a cross between Kenneth Williams and Boni from The Trap Door saying “oh,  the humanity!”

Official UK Playstation Magazine, Resident Evil

Hang on, that’s not Resident Evil. That’s a Deadite from the first Evil Dead movie! See?

Okay, glad we got that settled. Now I’ll look forward to the inevitable Resident Evil Dead crossover event. You might think Ash wouldn’t make for a good fit with the well-trained special forces police unit that is STARS, and you’d probably be right. However, I guarantee Ash would have figured out that Wesker was evil as soon as he saw him mysteriously disappear while wearing an all-black outfit and indoor sunglasses.

Computer and Video Games, Resident Evil 2

Maybe I should have included some kind of gore warning before starting this article. Mind you, it’s about Resident Evil so I imagine anyone reading this would have been expecting gore. Not so in 1998, when this issue of CVG was released – as I recall, the magazine received some complaints from people who didn’t want to see a rotting corpse with exposed brain matter hanging out of a body bag while they were browsing in WH Smiths. Personally, I think it pairs up rather nicely with the festive sprig of holly adorning the CVG logo.
I actually had this issue as a kid, and even if I hadn’t already been incredibly excited for Resident Evil 2 after playing the first game, this artwork would have definitely drawn me in because I was kind of a morbid kid and I’ve always thought this image finds that perfect balance between revulsion and fascination. If you’ve ever seen people talking about how they used to see horror movies at the video rental place and their covers were so horrifying yet fascinating that the actual movie could never live up to the promise of the artwork, then for me this is the videogaming equivalent. Except that Resident Evil 2 did live up to my expectations, much to my teenage relief.

Hyper, Resident Evil 2

Another cover that’s little more than a truly disgusting zombie, and what an excellent drawing it is too. There’s just a hint of sadness in its eyes to offset the sloughing flesh and necrotic skin, although I think the worst part about it is the nose-hole. I don’t know why that should seem more unsettling to me than the rest of the zombie, but the gaping sinus is definitely making this cover quite hard to look at… until you look a little further down and there’s Yoshi, offering an oasis of cuteness at which you can take a mental rest and compose yourself. Then you look back up and see Gex 3D being referred to as “the king of the PSX platforms” and suddenly you’re cast back down into a mire of disgust and misery.

EGM, Resident Evil 2

Is it just me or do the heroes of Resident Evil 2 look like porcelain figurines on this cover? I think it’s a combination of the skinny arms and their smooth, pale faces. In a different, better universe, this is the kind of thing you see advertised on the back of a newspaper’s Sunday supplement. “For the low price of £99.99, you can be the owner of the exquisite, limited edition “Raccoon City Nightmare” porcelain diorama. Once this finely-detailed creation is “resident” in your home, you’ll be the envy of your friends and neighbours! £35 p&p, payments in monthly instalments available, no refunds.”
It’s that licker I feel sorry for, though. It's clearly trying to give Claire a hug, but her look of disgust has stopped it in its slime-drenched tracks. We’ve all been there, buddy.

Total Play, Resident Evil 2

You know, I bet there were a lot of Resident Evil 2 fans out there who really did want more of a focus on Leon’s backside. Well, this magazine cover is the one for you, then. I feel like it’d also work as the cover for the lo-fi dreampop album that Leon and Claire have been working on as a duo that plays up the "are-they-aren't-they" nature of their relationship.

Official Australian Playstation Magazine, Resident Evil 2

“Don’t miss,” says the cover. I have some other suggestions for “don’ts.” Don’t close your eyes while you’re firing your gun, Leon. Don’t tie your holster to your left leg so tightly that it cuts off circulation to your foot. Don’t ask Claire why she thought red denim cut-offs and cycling shorts were a good look because she’s got a knife in her hand and her facial expression suggests she’s not afraid to use it.

Official US Playstation Magazine, Resident Evil 2

Bloody typical, one of the covers I was most interested in taking a close look at and it’s the one I can’t find at a decent resolution. That might be for the best, however, because these zombies look deeply unpleasant. The one at the back especially. Don’t let his jaunty hat fool you, he has the look of a zombie that’s gone beyond “undead” and into “physical manifestation of the concept of disease” territory. It took me a while to figure out what memory was tickling my brain while I looked at this zombie, but eventually I realised it reminds me of the Hellraiser comic books, and even for the Resident Evil series that feels a bit much in terms of raw horror. In fact, these magazine covers being more grisly and disturbing than the RE games themselves has been something of a theme here, huh? If you’re worried it’s all going to get a bit much for you, just take a look at the face of that zombie between Leon’s legs. He’s got absolutely no idea what’s going on, does he?

Great Dragon, Resident Evil 2

You know earlier when I said I spend a lot of my youth drawing Resident Evil characters? What I didn’t know is that one of my drawings had been picked up and used on the cover of a Russian games magazine! I’m kidding, of course. My drawings were both substantially worse than this one and also contained more gore. I mean, what’s the point of drawing fanart of a series where someone gets pecked to death by crows if there aren’t crows ripping out eyeballs in every subsequent picture?
I’m not sure about Claire’s face, though. You might expect her to look scared or intense, but instead she just seems really, really sad, like she’s just remembered that scene from Up.

PSM, Resident Evil 3

“The monster’s behind me, isn’t it?”
You know, I never realised just how many belts the Nemesis has on its arm. Angling for a role in an upcoming Final Fantasy game, are we? As for the artwork itself, yeah, I think it’s pretty good. It’s not the artist’s fault that I don’t like the makeover Capcom gave Jill for Resident Evil 3. If you want to imagine I’m using the most stereotypical, extreme nerd voice possible while I say this then go ahead, but are we meant to believe that Jill, a highly trained combatant with both police and military experience, would wear a leather miniskirt during her attempt to escape a city full of zombies? Ahem, ahem, I think not. The very concept is laughable! She doesn’t even have her combat beret!

Computer and Video Games, Resident Evil 3

There’s not much to say about the artwork here, what with it just being a couple of renders from the game, so instead I’ll draw your attention to that headline. “The only reason to fill your pants,” huh? I’m afraid I’m going to have to disagree with you there. I know the intention was to communicate that Resident Evil 3 is so terrifying it’ll make you lose control of your bowels, but that’s not how it comes across. It might just be me, but it sounds like your saying the only way to play Resident Evil 3 is is to intentionally soil yourself. Once you’ve done that, a Capcom representative arrives, presumably performs some kind of underwear check and then gives you a copy of the game.

Playstation Power, Resident Evil 3

Looking at this cover, I can only think of this scene from Mystery Science Theatre 3000.

Super Gamepower, Resident Evil 3

Much like that RE2 cover with Yoshi, this one has the rather entertaining contrast between the dark, menacing (and really well drawn, in my opinion) Resident Evil parts and a cuddly Pikachu toy exploding out of a starburst. Clearly, they represent the angel and devil of Jill’s conscience. Pikachu says “pika pika, you should burn down this orphanage, Jill!” and the Nemesis says, well, it says “STAAARRRSS,” but you can tell it also wants you to burn down the orphanage.

N64 Magazine, Resident Evil 0

“’Cause this is thriller, thriller night, and no-one’s going to save you from a zombie on a train.”
Hang on, how are those zombie even standing up atop a moving train? Have they got magnetic boots? Is that it? Do Umbrella make magnetic boots for zombies now? It might sound like a stupid idea but let’s not forget Umbrella once tried to make a great white shark into a remorseless killing machine, having a) sorely misunderstood what a great white shark is and b) grossly overestimated the usefulness of an undead shark. Magnetic zombie boots don’t seem so ridiculous in that context.

Official Sega Dreamcast Magazine, Resident Evil: Code Veronica

Again, there’s not much say about this one other than I really like the picture of Claire in Power Stone’s art style and I thought you might like to see it too.

Fun Generation, Resident Evil

This one is just weird. It’s one of Resident Evil’s part-human part-fly Chimera monsters posing with some of Tekken 2’s female characters for a swimsuit photoshoot? I think? Whoever put this cover together went to the effort of making it look like the Chimera has its arms (well, appendages) draped around the bikini-clad ladies so obviously your first thought is going to be that the person responsible has some weird sexual hang-ups. Look, I’ve been on the internet for a long time, and these kinds of image are almost always about someone’s weird sexual hang-ups. However, I’m going to save you all from thinking about this by pointing out that hey, there’s nothing in Resident Evil that says the Chimeras are male. With that in mind, let’s assume that this monster is actually one of the girls, and they’re all hanging out together and having a great time during their beach holiday.

ToyFare, Resident Evil toys

Finally for today, an image that invokes nothing but jealousy in me because it means someone once got paid for posing their Resident Evil toys to look like they’re having a battle. If only I’d known that was a viable career option as a kid. I could have made a fortune by now.

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10 GREAT LEGEND OF ZELDA REMIXES / COVERS

Previous remix compliations:

Mega Man - Castlevania - Final Fantasy - F-Zero - Chrono Trigger - Classic Sega

Everybody loves the Legend of Zelda games, right? I love 'em, you love 'em, Robin Williams loves them so much he named his daughter after 'em. Not content with filling the Zelda games with some of the finest dungeon-exploring, princess-rescuing gameplay ever found on a videogame console, Nintendo capped them off with some of gaming's most memorable musical tracks and today I've gathered ten remixes and covers of classic Legend of Zelda tunes to hopefully cheer up your (pointy, Hylian) ears.

Jack Fliegler - Majora's Mask - Medley

Ah, Majora's Mask - the creepy Zelda, the sinister sibling in a family of cheery children. The growling guitars and solemn drums are a great fit for a metal medley of MM's themes, with the Song of Healing and the Deku themes sounding particularly macabre.

Satoshi Aikawa - Wind Waker - The Great Sea

More guitar, but on the opposite end of the hard-soft spectrum, with a lovely solo acoustic guitar version of the ocean-faring Great Sea theme from Wind Waker.

ProtoDome - Oracle of Ages - Overworld Theme

A hyperactive chiptune take on Oracle of Ages / Seasons' Overworld Theme, itself a reimagining of the series' famous Overworld Theme. A great sense of energy and the addition of some lovely piano work make this one stand out as well as making me wish for a remake of the Oracle games.

Yoshiyuki Ito, Masumi Ito - A Link to the Past - Kakariko Village

There's only one world for this, and that's soothing. Okay, so there are plenty more words for it, like peaceful and charming and downright beautiful, but however you want to describe it this lullaby-like take on the sleepy village theme from the best Zelda game (there, I said it) is a joy to listen to - preferably underneath a large duvet in a comfy bed.

Diggi Dis - Ocarina of Time - Gerudo Valley

Diggi Dis gives Gerudo Valley's Latin-inspired, almost Spaghetti-Western-ish theme a hip-hop flavoured beat to go with its excellent flamenco guitar, and the whole track comes together to great, head-bouncing effect.

BrentalFloss - The Adventure of Link - Zelda II Medley (With Lyrics)

YouTube famous type Brental Floss is best known for his videos recreating famous game tracks and adding lyrics, and with good reason because they're actually really good. You can't go far wrong with Zelda II's Temple theme, one of the greatest tracks in the NES's songbook. Plus, a shoutout to the awesome power of the Game Genie is always welcome.

Duncan2069 - Ocarina of Time - Song of Storms

A nicely gloomy take on the theme of a weirdo in a windmill, this version sounds like it could be the title music to a Tim Burton-style movie about evil puppets and I can definitely get behind that. I'm particularly fond of the music-box sounds that come in at about 1:17.

Benjamin Briggs - A Link to the Past - Forest Theme

Who knew the mysterious and serene forest theme could sound so good as a techno-dance number? Great use of the "you're almost dead" alarm beeping away in this one, and the way it drifts into the Fairy theme is handled really well.

Virt - Various - Blood of Ganon (Medley)

I've saved the best for (second to) last, as Virt (AKA Jake Kaufman) once again blows my mind by being some kind of videogame-music-covering-god. Just listen to "Blood of Ganon" and prepare to have your ears thank you profusely for it. It's difficult to single out any one bit as being the best, but if I was pushed I'd have to go with the amazing version of the Zelda II battle theme. Quite possibly the best videogame cover ever.

Joe Pleiman (and definitely not System of a Down) - The Legend of Zelda - Main Theme

To end this article, a relic from my teenage days and the internet's formative years that will always hold happy memories for me. You remember Napster, internet filesharing forefather? I know I do, and in the late Nineties I was merrily using it to download music over a painfully slow dial-up connection, mostly videogame music that I didn't have any other access to short of holding a TalkBoy up to the television speakers and pressing record. If you ever searched from Zelda music on Napster, or any early filesharing service, this track would appear. It would be described as being by the metal band System of a Down. It isn't. It's by a guy called Joe Pleiman, although I can see where the confusion comes from as he does have a similar vocal delivery to SoaD frontman Serj Tankian. No-one really knew who it was by back then, though, and it spread across the web, always attributed to the wrong band, causing arguments about its true origins wherever it went. It's a snapshot of the early days of the internet, before everyone was online and when I was just realising there was this huge sea of information, files and like-minded people out there, and every time I hear it I'm taken back to being a happy teenager again. Sappy, but true.

Right, there you go then. Ten Legend of Zelda remixes and covers that have hopefully delighted your ears and made you yearn for adventure on the plains of Hyrule. Personally, I think I might have to go and play A Link to the Past for the eight-thousandth time.

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REAL SONGS IN RETRO VIDEOGAMES PART 2

A few months ago, I wrote about various retro games that eschewed specifically-composed music and incorporated "real" music into their soundtracks, be they the King of Pop's hits appearing Moonwalker, Konami's presumably unlicensed Beatles covers in Mikie or the patriotic strains of the Colonel Bogey March from Gremlin Graphics' Wanted: Monty Mole. That was just the tip of this harmonious iceberg, though - long before the current age of fully licensed soundtracks from major artists, games were taking their musical cues from real-world sources. So, here are a few more examples of real songs in retro videogames!

Gyruss (Arcade / NES)

Let's start with something classy, shall we? Konami's tube shooter Gyruss may have a standard spaceship-shooting-other-spaceships-in-space setting, but what's less common is the use of Johann Sebastian Bach's "Toccata and Fugue in D minor" as the game's main musical theme. Even if you don't recognise the name of the piece, the first few seconds quickly reveal it to be "that spooky music" so often used to give things a sense of foreboding.

Of course, it then goes into a high-tempo techno remix of JSB's famous piece, but this is a Konami shooter, after all. I said in the last article I'd like to travel back in time and show the guy who composed the Tetris theme the digital version of his work, but I think if I could do that with anyone it's have to be Bach and this. I just want to watch Bach play Gyruss, if I'm being completely honest.

WWF WrestleMania (NES)

From high culture to a place about as far removed from the refined world of classical music as you can get, here's "Real American", Hulk Hogan's insanely, almost self-parodyingly, patriotic signature theme.

Somewhere, an eagle sits atop a mountain, wiping a proud tear from his unblinking eyes. Of course, there have a been quite a few WWF games, but (as far as I know), the first to carry the name was Rare's WWF Wrestlemania for the NES. Hulk Hogan is present, of course, and so is his bombastic theme in a chiptune format.

That eagle is now a robot eagle from the eighties, wiping away his tears with his giant shoulderpads. A personal story: I sent a friend a video of "Real American", and she replied that she'd heard it before and thought it was a satrical comedy track about the Vietnam War. I think that says it all, really.

Rainbow Islands (Amiga)

A game with a rainbow theme, huh? There must be a rainbow-related song that we can... adjust to fit the game, right?

Okay, so it does it's own thing too, but the influence of "Somewhere over the Rainbow" is definitely strong enough to justify its place here. Plus, it's sweeter than a sugar-coated puppy with biscuits for eyes so I have hard time disliking it.

Neuromancer (Commodore 64)

William Gibson's seminal cyberpunk novel received a well-regarded adventure game makeover for the home computers of the time, complete with a score based on the song "Some Things Never Change" by synth-punk electrowizards Devo. Each version of the game has a different score due to the differing sound capabilities, but my favourite of the lot is the C64 version. This is because it features vocals. Terrifying, robotic, trash-compacted vocals.

It's a mightily impressive sound to hear coming from a C64, with the garbled sounds fitting perfectly with the dystopian cyberpunk setting. As a big Devo fan, (and I'm sure that comes as no surprise to you,) I'm a little embarrassed I didn't know about this sooner, but hey: I know about it now and Mark Mothersbaugh's electronic gravel-tone words will accompany my nightmares for a long time to come.

Crüe Ball (Megadrive / Genesis)

While some bands like Guns 'n' Roses and Kiss got actual pinball tables based on them, poor old Mötley Crüe had to do with having their name slapped on a Megadrive pinball game, a license which was apparently added quite late into the development period. Oh well, at least there are a few nice Megadrive recreations of some of Crüe's hits in the game, like this cover of "Dr. Feelgood".

As nice as that is, despite being a licensed Mötley Crüe product Crüe Ball only contains three tracks by the band. The remainder were composed by Brian L. Schmidt, who also wrote the music for the SNES Madden NFL games.

Ninja Gaiden (Arcade)

Ninjas are cool. Undisputable fact, that. Unless you've seen any of Godfrey Ho's ninja movies, but you'd never admit to that in public, would you? So, ninjas = cool, but that's not to say they can't be made cooler. Common ways of jazzing up your shadow warrior include cybernetics and demonic powers, but a much better way is to make a game about ninjas and add an extremely thinly-veiled copy of Black Sabbath's "Iron Man" to the soundtrack.

The track is even called "I Am Man". Black Sabbath retaliated by writing a song called "Ninja Guy Dan", ostensibly a song about a normal guy satanic wizard called Dan who becomes a ninja - however, when played backwards you coud hear Ozzy threatening to bite the heads off of various Tecmo employees. Sadly it was never released, mostly because it's not real.

Journey Escape (Atari 2600)

Journey, America's premier supplier of tunes to Glee and other media franchises based on copying other people's songs, were the stars of their own videogame. And yet Aqua didn't get so much as a handheld LCD game by Tiger Electronics. Shameful. Anyway, I know you're only interested in one thing here: is there a version of "Don't Stop Believin'" featured in this game?

Yes, of course there is. It's the intro music, and, um, that's about it for the Journey music in Journey Escape, apparently. I guess the developers realised that was the only track anyone was interested in.

Spy Hunter (Arcade)

Do you remember Peter Gunn? No, me neither. That's because I'm British and not in my sixties. You'll recognise his theme tune, though - a jazz standard that just oozes international espionage, shadowy figures and cars driving into the back of lorries.

Yes, it's that one, the spy music. It was written by Henry Mancini, who seemingly wrote every piece of memorable music ever. "Baby Elephant Walk"? Mancini. The Pink Panther theme? Mancini. "Straight Outta Compton"? There no real proof, but I'm pretty sure Mancini had a hand in it somehow. The Peter Gunn theme, then: Bally Midway obviously knew a good thing when they heard it, as they made it the main theme for Spy Hunter, an arcade game about - get this - hunting spies. It really is a very good fit.

NARC (Arcade)

For the final game in today's round-up, I'm turning the tables with a retro game track that escaped from the confines of the arcade and onto an honest-to-god record. Here's the second stage music from Williams' 1988 gory crime-doesn't-pay-em-up NARC.

It was composed by Brian L. Schmidt, the same guy who I mentioned in the Crüe Ball section. It's a rather nice bit of high-octane eighties game music, particularly the driving bass and drums. Just the sort of thing you want to be hearing while blowing drug lords away and aggressively high-fiving your partner. Someone else who enjoyed NARC's musical stylings was Charles Thompson IV. He's better know as Frank Black or Black Francis, singer / songwriter and founder of alt-rock greats the Pixies. In fact, he enjoyed it so much that the Pixies recorded a cover of this track and released it as a B-side to their 1991 single "Planet of Sound".

I love Frank Black, I love the Pixies and I love this. That's really all I have to say on the subject.

There you go then, a few more tracks from retro games who roots lie in "real-world" music. Did I write this as a self-indulgent excuse to listen to Devo and the Pixies? Possibly, but I also had to suffer through that terrible version of "Bohemian Rhapsody" last time I did this, so I think it's only fair.

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