Old-Wizard.com - Part 22

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Top 10 Video Game Heroes of All Time

Written by Zeromage 61 Comments
Last Updated:: April 13, 2008

Remember the first time you played Zelda 1 and realized that you wanted to be the green clad hero that was walking about the flat screen? Remember the first time you loved a game because you wanted to be the protagonist with all their abilities that you would never have in real life? Old-Wizard remembers all of these moments as we constantly reflect on what our favorite video games are, and in this case, who are favourite video game heroes are. If this list seems retro in its choices, its not without reason, as games within the newer market fail to focus on the personal qualities embodied by one figure trying to save the world. This sense of grandeur and intrepidness led to some of the most memorable characters in the video gamer’s life. Protagonists in novels that the video gamer would read at school would always pale in comparison to the 8-bit characters they always had full control over. The characters in a video game always had much more nobler tasks than modernity’s insistence for leveling out heroism to anyone who feels entitled to their pride. The heroes on our list were always on the most aggrandized of adventures battling only the most nefarious of antagonists. Nowhere was their repose when faced with doom on a universal level. To these dreams of large adventures and magnanimous characteristics we owe the protagonists on this list. The video game world would be nothing without them.

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Video Game Review: Paper Mario

Written by Zeromage No Comments
Last Updated:: April 5, 2008

Paper Mario for the N64 is one of the more colourful games that comes to mind when thinking of video games. It looked conspicuously different from most games in 2D and 3D format. Paper Mario was the successor to Mario RPG for the SNES which was a definite success in its own right. The game play and 3D style reminded you a lot of the original Mario 64. Let’s not forget the graphics though. This game was a site to be seen. The clarity and effulgent style went a long way for making the player excited to play this game. The dialogue between players was sophisticated and fun at the same time. Obviously, a Mario RPG is not going to have the seriousness and command of a “Squaresoft” RPG, but it had its own identity and entertainment value in a world where plumbers are heroes, and princesses like men with giant mustaches. The story line takes place as an actual book with its own chapters, expedient to its “dreamy”, effervescent quality. The game play was smooth and easy to learn, a palpable characteristic with all Mario games. Paper Mario serves as an incredible sequel to Mario RPG. It’s additions from the SNES predecessor to this N64 installment lose nothing in terms of creativity and enviability. This is not something that can be said about most sequels in a video game series.

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Top 10 Bands of the New Century

Written by Zeromage 22 Comments
Last Updated:: April 4, 2008

The passing into the new century was a landmark event for the popular arts. Critical reviews of their past forms became common place in their information mediums. Pop music specifically saw itself in need of a transformation into minimalized modes of execution. This insistence combined with the diminution of the major label as that which defined quality, led to more open ideas of what quality was. The two-edged sword of this phenomena created some great bands in the new century, along with bands who equated this new found freedom for an “anything-goes” attitude. This lack for a formal understanding of quality could lead bands into new sonic frontiers while at the same time leading these bands into below-average songwriting. As expression for the sake of itself became the only grounds for quality, anything and everything was fair game in being recognized as good. There were bands though who superseded this flexibility of quality by recognizing the power of songwriting, purely in itself. These bands who were able to combine the sonic territories of the new century with the invariable aspects of good songwriting are given a rank in this list. These next bands have the signature of the new century written all over them, although still imbued with the sense of traditional songwriting that leads to memorable melodies. With these next bands in mind, we will see that the sonic flow of history need not forget it’s invariable characteristics from the past.

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Top 10 British Bands of All Time

Written by Zeromage 87 Comments
Last Updated:: April 3, 2008

The British have given us much, from tea and crumpets, to Winston Churchill, to advanced naval technology, but their most conspicuous gratuity has been their pop music. Consistently, British music dominates pop music from other countries without ever seeming like they’re trying. Whether it comes to pure song craft, sonic innovation, or showmanship, the British always seem to know exactly about the modes of pop music. It’s not our intention to start a war of nations over who has the best music, and this is why our article is not a “Top 10 Music Countries”. Regardless of the caution in these preliminary remarks though, we do expect a certain amount of criticism from the most obvious omission. We asked ourselves what British music we listen to and enjoy the most and this became our list. If we were to base our list on more popular guidelines this omission would not be made, but as this article is focused on what we listen to the most, we could only answer honestly by what we listen to day to day. Here then are Old-Wizard’s top ten British bands of all time.

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DK v. Mega Man

Written by Zeromage 2 Comments
Last Updated:: April 2, 2008

Look what we found.
Top 10 Video Games of All Time

Written by Zeromage 54 Comments
Last Updated:: March 1, 2008

The Old-Wizard staff spends much of their time contemplating what the greatest games of all time are from every system in all ages. Whether it’s a drunken night, a sober night, a math night, or even a romantic night with our girlfriends, we at Old-Wizard can’t keep our minds off what the greatest games of all time are much to the dismay of our significant others. After long hard work narrowing down our top 100 favorite games, we finally became settled with what our top 10 video games of all time were. These were not chosen lightly as there were obvious omissions that made us question even defining what a top ten list of video games would look like. Would half of the list consist of Legend of Zelda games? In order to make sure that didn’t happen, we decided to include only one game from any franchise. We weren’t dismayed by this problem though, and put down what we thought were the ten best games ever. We think our descriptions of our favorite games of all time will speak for themselves in defense against other suitable choices. We know there will be games on this list that readers will agree with. We also know that that there will be games on this list that will make readers want to send viruses over to our server in hopes of never having to read these choices again. Regardless, we feel these next ten games will be remembered for years to come.

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Doomsday!

Written by Weekday Warrior 5 Comments
Last Updated:: February 26, 2008

Jesus Christos! Corpus Christi!

It is official; the Norwegian government has excavated the former apartment / love nest of Superman, and is now using it to store seeds.

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HD DVD is Dead!!!

Written by bug No Comments
Last Updated:: February 19, 2008

Today marks a day of a new technology crashing to the ground. Toshiba Corporation, the brainchild behind the glorified new movie media known as High Definition Digital Video Disc, or HD-DVD for short, pulled the plug on their so called superior technology. The ongoing and bloody battle has been raging for months where Sony’s technology known as Blu Ray was going head to head with HD-DVD. This was known to come to an end at some time, as the differences in the two mediums were virtually unnoticeable. The Blu Ray discs hold a bit more amount of data on them, which makes them technically superior to the HD-DVD medium. The only fall back that has been mentioned about the Blu Ray is that the protective coating on the bottom of the disc is mere fractions thinner than the protective coating of the HD-DVD discs. Users have to be more gentle and show more care for their Blu Ray Discs when handling them, which can be seen as a downfall. These are the main differences in the two mediums, and both of them offer the same exact high fidelity and the difference can’t be noticed by the human eye. When it really comes down to it, the amount of movie companies that were choosing HD-DVD were dwarfed by the amount of companies who chose Blu Ray. It was always a disappointment when a new movie came out to DVD, and the company chose HD-DVD instead of Blu Ray. Well now that has been laid to rest, and in the 34th round of fighting, HD-DVD is down for the count. Blu Ray is now the king of media, and improvements will be made to this technology to offer its viewers an even more intense viewing experience.
Legacy Weapon Deck

Written by Zeromage No Comments
Last Updated:: February 17, 2008

Ever since I first saw the Legacy Weapon in a friend’s five coloured deck I’ve always wanted to make my own deck based around it. Here’s what I came up with (It uses the colourless mana from Urza’s Lands and converts it with the Crystal Quarries in order to power the Legacy Weapon):

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Video Game Review: Quake 4

Written by Zeromage No Comments
Last Updated:: February 2, 2008

Made by Ravensoft, the classic franchise returns, and as usual, it’s Quake’s multiplayer that saves the day and will keep this game on your hard drive for months to come. Quake Four’s campaign itself isn’t as good, but it’s worth playing through anyway. The Quake 4 storyline picks up where Quake 2 left off (Quake 3 Arena didn’t have a single-player storyline): with the Space Marines fighting the Strogg (an alien race who are much like the Borg from Star Trek, only more Goth), this time on their home planet of Stroggos. You take on the role of Corporal Matthew Kane, a member of the elite Rhino Squad, as the Space Marines attempt to annihilate their alien nemesis. Unfortunately for you, your landing craft gets shot down in the middle of trench warfare, and you’re separated from your unit. Afterwards, it’s off to the races as one superior officer after another sends you off to retrieve someone, destroy key locations, and infiltrate deep behind enemy lines. Sometimes you’ll be accompanied by game-controlled team members – usually a technical officer who can repair your armour, and/or a medic who can heal you up to full health.

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