the insert credit cold fifty: videogame icons: compiled by tim rogers -- with a foreword by chris kohler, fulbright scholar

5. Banjo-Kazooie

You've heard my spiel on imitation being the sincerest form of flattery, and revision being the sincerest form of imitation. Now listen to me tell you that vision is the sincerest form of revision. Banjo-Kazooie is vision. Rare took its long, sweet time in producing this game, in which a bear named Banjo with a bird named Kazooie in his backpack rescues a little sister named Tooie from a repulsive witch whose name I don't remember. The game was darker than your traditional platform adventure, for one thing -- and that's alright. It was what it was -- an excellent game that could have just been a measly little outing in which Rare found their feet before producing their "real" 3D platform games, Donkey Kong 64 and Conker's Bad Fur Day. Banjo-Kazooie didn't have a "64" in its title, nor did it feature a cartoon character imbibing alcohol on its box. What it has, however, deep within its honest-to-goodness item-collecting package, is reverence. The game aesthetically looks up to all that came before it, and comes off good, and simple. Banjo the bear's fur is one color of brown; his muzzle is a different shade of brown. His pants are yellow, his backpack blue, and his partner fiery red. These primary colors, combined with his ornamental fang necklace and his "Guhyuck!" voice: he is in balance. We trust him. We trust him even more as we witness his seamless, unified teamwork with the other half of his namesake, the red bird Kazooie.

Banjo also plays the banjo, hence his name. Anyone want to guess why he plays the banjo? Well: creator of Super Mario, Shigeru Miyamoto, plays the banjo in his spare time. The guys at Rare know this. That's what you call respect.

4. Kunio-kun

Any red-blooded American gamer is in love with Alex, star of River City Ransom. We love him because his story speaks to us: an average American young man, doing his best to make the grade at school, suddenly facing hordes of angry mobs in his quest to recover his kidnapped girlfriend. What most of us don't know is that Alex is actually called "Kunio" in Japan -- "Kunio-kun," to people familiar with him. ("Kun" is a familiar suffix) Kunio-kun, don't you know, is the star of a large basketful of games -- ranging from beloved titles like Super Dodge Ball, Kunio-kun Baseball Legend, and even the arcade classic Renegade. In fact, in Japan, Kunio is also the hero of Technos' flagship series, Double Dragon. Kunio-kun, in his Japanese incarnation, dresses in the traditional white school uniform worn by Japanese students of the 1970s. He has a big pompadour haircut, and looks mildly thuggish. The American version gave him blue pants, making him look just like any other Joe. Don't let that confuse you! Kunio is Japanese, through-and-through -- his all-white clothes mirror those of his partner's all-black attire, in accordance with modern yakuza dress code: "Kuronarakuro, shironarashiro." ("If black, black; if white, white.") He's even named after Technos' founder -- and at one point, the videogame Kunio was more recognized in Japan than even Mickey Mouse! Kunio, we salute you. (And make an honorable mention of Shenmue's Ryo Hazuki, another Japanese 1980s schoolboy-character named mostly after his creator, Yu Suzuki. 3D or no 3D, Ryo, you've got nothing on Kunio. Try again next year.)

3. Rygar

It takes nerve to make a comeback. A lot of it. Ask boxers like George Foreman. More than ten years after losing to Muhammad Ali, he came back to win the heavyweight title. So it is with Rygar, Tecmo's one-time mascot du jour, resurrected in 2002 -- when his last game appeared on the Nintendo Famicom in 1986!

Rygar maybe wasn't understood in his first game. Maybe people didn't get it. The 1980s were the time of Lord Arnold Schwarzenegger of the Beefcake Kingdom. A hero had to be a big, strong, angry man, and carry a giant sword a la Conan, or a giant gun like the Terminator. That Rygar attacked with a shield was enough to get the schoolyard kids labeling him as a "pansy." It didn't matter that the shield was on a rope, and that he attacked by tossing it out at enemies. It didn't matter that Capcom's Bionic Commando also was equipped with a grappling weapon -- he carried a gun in his other hand.

Well, years later, times have changed. Ever since Tom Cruise made his breakthrough performance as a secret agent in Mission: Impossible, the action hero's role has been revamped. Once labeled as a "fruitcake" by some of his audience, here was Tom Cruise, your typical sensitive male, muscular and kicking ass on the silver screen. Action heroes are now permitted to be defensive and strong at the same time.

Fast-forward to last year: Rygar makes a comeback, his slate cleaned, in Tecmo's Rygar for Sony's PlayStation2. The game pays homage to the heritage of its character without embellishing its title. And you know what? For a game about a guy attacking with a shield, it delivers an ass-kicking performance. Writes Tokyopia's Justin Keeling:

"Rygar is the ultimate man's game. It's utterly hardcore. It's just dripping with testosterone. Men should play Rygar while chomping cigars, downing shots of flaming fighter jet fuel, using their women as footstools."

Oh my, how the times and the games and the tables have changed and turned. Raise a shot glass of flaming fighter jet fuel and chomp that cigar, manly gamers of the planet earth -- there's a new man in town, and he's brought to you by a real man -- Dead or Alive Extreme Beach Volleyball producer Tomonobu Itagaki. Let's just not have to wait sixteen years for the next sequel, alright? I've got too many cigars left, and not enough good games to play while smoking them.

[the king and queen crowned]