Creature Feature: Repugians

Hello happy Hallowe'eners! Samhain season is upon us and there is no better way to prepare for your night of celebration than running the Hallowe'en simulation game Costume Quest! Beware though, because just like the real-life Devil's Night, some houses you run across may be overrun by the candy-stealing capers of monsters from Repugia. These beastly baddies bogart your potential loot and must be defeated to send them running back to ol' Big Bones. Don't go into battle blind though; SHELPSHOT has you covered for a synopsis of these sneaks so you can get back to your Hallowe'en apples!

Grubbin
This grabby-Daniels acts as the forerunner of Repugia's sugar heist, invading your neighbourhood to pull classic snatch-and-run shenanigans. Hold tight to your loot-bag lest you knock on a door and wind up losing candy! A flashy costume is a pretty good defence.

Trowbog
Bigger and meaner, Trowbogs are harder to take down than your run-of-the-mill monster. They've been laying siege to suppliers of candy, cutting them off at the source (and skimming more than a little off the top). They have an insatiable appetite and have even been known to eat unsuspecting kids! Smack 'em with your candy pail to get the jump on them! They move slowly but hit deliberately.

Crestwailer
The bird-brains of the hallowe'en invasion operation, Crestwailers are overseers of sorts. They handle the things on outskirts of town, coordinating from the countryside. They're fierce and intelligent and but have a weak fortitude when it comes to working long hours without a break.

Are these all of the baddies waiting out in the world for you? Surely not! Try to seek your soul cake in groups, to be best prepared when you are least prepared. And remember: it never hurts to have a backup costume (or ten!)

Map Attack: Jumping the Flagpole

Plenty of other game magazines have shown you how to jump over the flagpole in Super Mario Bros. for the NES, but what do you do once you've achieved the one thing you've been dreaming about for all these years?

Only the vile servants of the Koopa turtle king would wander the fields of the once glorious Mushroom Kingdom without a map! That's why SHELPSHOT's hardworking Licensed Professional Video Game Counsellors have mastered the fine art of video game cartography.

Study the map below very carefully. That way, when you're ready to jump over the flagpole yourself, you'll know what's in store for you.

Please note: this map has been truncated for space reasons.

Letters Time!: Calm at Snowpeak

Dear SHELPSHOT,

I read your magazine all the time! My name is Ashley and one day I hope to write about the greatest and latest games too! I play games with my older brother Mike and usually tell him how to solve all the puzzles. We mostly like Xexyz and Harvest Moon, but our absolute favourite is the Legend of Zelda series. We’ve played every Legend for every system there is except for the ones on the GameBoy Colour. Every year, we go back and play through an old one just because they are just that good!

This last year, I found something while playing The Twilight Princess Zelda that I thought I should tell you about, since your magazine likes secrets and I think that this one is a doozy. My brother was busy at school, so I was playing on my own and got up to the Snowpeak ruins. I was just about to continue on with a quest when I moved to the edge of the mountain and the way the camera turned surprised me. I was shocked that I could see out over the mountainous horizon! 

Even though I played this game with Mike a bunch of times before he had never stopped to look out over the mountains like this. I had a quiet moment of reflection not just on the story of the Twilight Princess game, or really any other games I’ve played; but I reflected on the analogues of all games I’ve experienced with the life I’ve lived and the people I’ve lived it with. It felt like, for one moment, that I was really alone at the apex of the snowpeak, and that the mountain range I looked out over was made up of a myriad of possible pasts and futures--most of which I would never experience, but many of which I had the sudden understanding of how they were directly possible to achieve. I could almost plot a path across the pixels to some utopia of existence I had always suspected was there, but that I had never dreamed to know. There, atop the snowpeak, I felt my humanity laid bare--as though I were both completely empty and a compounded vessel of all things in the universe, simultaneously.

When Mike got home I showed him the level but couldn’t articulate the feeling very accurately. We kept playing though and beat the game in only one more sitting! Can your Expert Game Counselors replicate this secret? I’ve tried it again since, but the feeling is not as intense and seems fleeting. I’m going to try not to play the Twilight Princess again for a few years, and maybe when I finally go back through it, it will feel new and strange again! Love the new Magazine!

Ashley Megan Hill
Melbourne, VIC

Dear Ashley: 

Good find! After a mini marathon of gaming, the Licensed Professional Video Game Counsellors here at SHELPSHOT have been able to replicate your secret! We can confirm a drawn out sense of euphoric wholeness when taking pause at the Snowpeak in Twilight Princess.  

The presence of moments of protracted melancholy or rapturous reflection can become pronounced around particular portions of certain games, creating unintended anchoring points that provide an influx of insight into the unconscious mind! Taking a fifteen minute break every hour is a good way to minimize this effect, which comes about through a state of mind similar to lucid dreaming.  

These pockets of epiphany usually come in the quiet moments after a particularly dark dungeon or in the calm quiet right before a new leg of a journey. The nature of intended actions in games actually integrates a sort of surrogate experience in your mind, so maybe you feel like you are in two places at once: on your sofa and on Snowpeak! Thanks for writing, and for the letter art!

Can you find other moments of elongated ephemera in your games library? Write in and let us know!

Creature Feature: The Cave of Monsters

On the surface, Bubble Bobble may seem like a cute game, but never forget that you are guiding prince brothers Bub and Bob through the Cave of Monsters! The two royal heroes have been turned into bubble breathing dragons and they find themselves in a mysterious cave labyrinth. The creatures they encounter there seem like friendly kittens, until Bub and Bob get close...

Fortunately, our Licensed Professional Video Game Counsellors, The Dentist Brothers have uncovered secret information about these abominations. If you hope to survive the Cave of Monsters and have a happy end, study the chart above, then learn about your foes below.

From the top left corner:

Clank-Clank - An automaton whose clockwork brain gives it dangerously benign orders to walk and dance forever.

Whale Head - A disembodied whale's head that searches in vain for its body. Legend has it that YOU have it, or so say the whisperings of your enemies!

Ghost Grab - A dark wizard who lurches forward in the darkness to tighten his magical grip on our heroes. Stop him before he stops you!

Hat - A flying, cursed hat.

Light Bulb - An enchanted lightbulb that uses its plug as a sort of spring. If he touches you, you're in for a nasty shock. Got any bright ideas?

Alien - It is possible that there are an infinite number of universes, inhabited by an infinite number of variations on the creatures we know. Alien is a Clank-Clank from a technologically superiour parallel dimension, so watch out for his laser beams. See to it that he never gets back through the inter-dimensional vortex!

Grungie - First discovered by Dentist Brother Jonah, little is known about the Grungie except that he lurks just out of the corner of your eye. Don't look!

Drunk - One of the most dangerous enemies in the game. He throws bottles of ketchup at you. Good thing he isn't bigger!

Moby Dick - an albino sperm whale that is obsessively pursued by Captain Ahab. Captain Ahab wants revenge on Moby Dick for taking his leg-- help him be avenged!

Creature Feature: The Face of Drancon

Wonder Boy has gone on many island adventures over the years, but one of the most severe circumstances he has ever faced must be in the Revenge of Drancon for your Sega's Game Gear. Having thwarted the over-reaching nobel Drancon in a previous journey, Wonder Boy is amazed to find that your efforts were for naught!

The evil giant Drancon is revealed to be a shapeshifter and is able to adeptly don to visage of his fallen foes! There are many powerful heroes who have fallen to this cunning facewalker, and whose abilities now serve the evil they sought to surmount. As Wonder Boy attempts a coup against the ruined holdings of fallen empires, Drancon reveals that stronger and stronger warrior beasts have had their faces stolen by his magic. Will the true form of Drancon ever be revealed, or is he in fact faceless? It is up to you and Wonder Boy to find the answer! 

Study close these faces, Islander, and dwell on their old masters' defeat, lest your own face be counted among their numbers!

Hot Help: A Mario Graffiti

In Super Mario Bros. for the NES, our hero Mario must overcome the evil Koopa turtle tribe and their dark magic. They have conquered the Mushroom Kingdom and transformed its denizens, the Mushroom People, into inanimate objects such as stones, horse-hair plants, and even certain bricks. 

As Mario takes back each county of the Mushroom Kingdom, it's VERY important for him to leave messages of rebellion to the cursed Mushroom People. Each time Mario takes down a flag of the enemy, it gives everyone hope that the Great Koopa Turtle King will be overthrown, restoring peace to the land.

But did you know that there are other ways Mario can spread the spirit of resistance? It's true! Due to Mario's brave exploits he has become a symbol of defiance. Even a hastily made representation of his visage is enough to steel the nerves of the Mushroom People, and strike terror into the black hearts of the Koopa turtle tribe.

In the screen above, Super (big) Mario can carve the bricks into such an image. Don't worry! Not all bricks are transformed Mushroom people! Follow the diagram below to leave a picture of Mario for all to see; a message for your enemies, but more importantly for your allies.

Don't forget to grab the Power Boost reward when you free the Mushroom Person from the block that comprises Mario's eye.

Creature Feature: Punkers and New Wavers

The futuristic post-collapse world of Wasteland is full of mutants and cyborgs and automatons that provide an ultimate challenge for even the most experienced squad of Desert Rangers and conscripts. But this Creature Feature is not about challenge!

Punkers and New Wavers run rampent in the irradiated deserts of Nevada, but there is little to fear from theses fashion-conscious foes. More concerned with posturing and pumping their old-world jams than putting up a good fight, these punkers pack a pretty pitiful punch! Behind these meshed-muscle-flexing meatheads is little in the way of challenge for fully trained Desert Rangers. 

Punkers and New Wavers talk big and brandish butterfly blades, but this is a front to hide the fact that they are wasteland wanderers like the rest of the survivors in the world. If you were to remove their sweet shades you would be met by a weary stare and see the same sad-eyed gaze of a powerless person, adrift but not yet drowned in an ocean of happenstance. What events conspired to force them to be born into a world already claimed and destroyed by the overreaching greed of others who came before, now long dead? What choice do they have to lash out and attempt to claim the little that luck had left them? How many of their raider ilk perish while trying simply to make a living?

It almost makes you feel bad for blasting them to oblivion with your lasguns and meson canons.

Hot Help: I Spit on Your Grave

Teenage Mutant Turtles II: The Arcade Game™for the NES is a superior version of the popular coin-op. Not only is the screen less cluttered by all the superfluous turtles and Foot Clan™ baddies, but the game boasts two extra levels not available in the arcade version!

There's plenty of ninja action to be had, but sometimes the endless stream of Foot™ soldiers, rock monsters and the ghosts of deceased shogunate leaders housed in robot bodies can make a turtle want to recede into his shell. That's why our Licensed Professional Video Game Counsellors uncovered this Hot Help, which will make sure all you turtles out there have the heartened spirit to continue your Mouser™-mashing journey!

You've probably used "taunt" techniques in other great game paks like Super Smash Bros. "Taunting" is not only a great way to diminish the confidence of your opponents, but it's also a way to make your heart feel a little stouter.

In Scene 2 of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Arcade Game, the rad reptiles use whatever weapons they can find to defeat their foes. You can see in the above picture that Raph is clobbering his opponent by smashing a fire hydrant. But if you direct Raph to stand in front of the spurting hydrant, you get this effect:

It looks just like Raph is spitting on the charred metal remains of his dishonoured opponent! This is sure to enrage the Foot Soldier™'s remaining brethren, while simultaneously weakening their constitution and resolve.

If you are playing a two-player game, this is also an excellent way to "taunt" the other player when you reach a higher score than him!

In an upcoming edition of Hot Help, we'll show you how to find a secret hat for your turtle to wear. Think you can find it before us? Write us a letter and prove it!

A Ghostly Nightmare

A favourite character of Nintendo is Kirby the hungry ghost. It is doomed to forever live in an unwaking dream where, ever hungry, its meals turn to a hottest-burning flame in its mouth.

Flame and ash are all that remains of what the hungry ghost attempts to eat.

But still, it hungers and tries to devour even the good souls that wander unwaking.

No dreamer can escape its apetite.

It is a mystery, perhaps even to the ghost, why it must wander down familiar paths, wreaking havoc as it satisfies its own hunger and always attempts to awaken.

The hungry ghost confronts the Jack in the Green