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

20. Boo (Baldur's Gate -- Megatokyo)

Giant brain-dead barbarian-man Minsc, a mainstay of the Baldur's Gate series of PC RPGs, is never without his pet mouse, Boo. He talks to Boo at all times, much to the creeping-out of all other characters. He asks Boo for advice, and Boo gives it -- or so he thinks. We, the player, never see Boo. We never really have to. We know Boo is real. It's just -- is this little mouse really telling this big guy what to do? No way!

This is a reversal of the story laid out in the James Stewart film Harvey -- where a small, weak man imagined he had a giant rabbit named "Harvey" helping him. Of course, we never believed this for a second -- until one very key moment, when Harvey saves the hero's life. So it is with Minsc and Boo -- a large man and his tiny imaginary friend, who becomes less tiny to us at select few key moments.

What's important here isn't his action in the game, however. It's what he's become outside the game. In the web-comic hosted at Megatokyo.com, Boo takes the role of a guardian angel to a pair of bumbling foreign guys somehow stuck in Tokyo, Japan.

This is, perhaps, what games should shoot for in the future -- casual and integrated references in other media. A fantasy character from a PC RPG could make such an important appearance in an online-comic strip is a good first step toward this goal.

19. Koffing (Pokemon Green)

I've said it before, and Lord knows I'll say it dozens and dozens of times, until you're sick of me saying it: if imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then revision is the sincerest form of imitation. Take something you like, and change it around for what you believe is the better. All these years, people have been trying to imitate Namco's Pac-Man -- little round mascots have been popping up here and there, and all of them are dismal in their failure. Anyone remember Snake Rattle 'N' Roll for NES? It was about a little round snake, who ate pellets, and grew segments. Which were little and round. Anyone remember Q*Bert? A little round thing with legs, he was. He hopped to the top of a colored pyramid in his very own game. Sure, the love of round, orange/yellow heroes was there; the gameplay viscera were lacking. Well, the freaks at Game Freak took it to the next level when they put Koffing into Pokemon Green. Where other round mascots were round for roundness' sake, Koffing was a round character who both contained studs, bore an attitudinous skull-and-crossbones poison symbol on his front, exhaled pollutants, and starred in a game with its own deep systems. He was a part of his game -- not merely the game itself. For that -- for that kind of revisionary explication, for that kind of supreme implementation of admiration -- Koffing, we salute your round self.

18. Bubsy

Even Americans were jumping into the mascot business in the 1990s. And could you blame them? Americans invented cartoons, only to see the Japanese perfect them. Americans invented videogames, once again only to see the Japanese perfect them. As if like a forecast of Disney's eventually trying to capitalize on the Japanese animation "craze" of recent years with their failures Atlantis and Treasure Planet, Accolade threw together Bubsy, a bobcat (an animal that hadn't yet been used by other companies) who wears a sweater emblazoned with an exclamation mark (I believe a Japanese mascot in the 1980s had taken the question mark). Careful attention was paid to minor details: Bubsy wears no pants, much like his American-style cartoon ancestors Bugs Bunny or Donald Duck, and he collects yarn balls, items which cats have been known to like, and also take place of coins or rings nicely. Bubsy's first game, Bubsy in Claws Encounters of the Furred Kind featured the feisty feline saying such quippy one-liners as "What could possibly go wrong?" It had stage titles like "Cheese Wheels of Doom," which got fat Monty-Python-loving girls in high schools in central Indiana excited. The game stood for something strong, yet failed. Its second sequel, the ill-fated Bubsy 3D, notwithstanding, its first sequel -- the stately Bubsy 2 -- was respected enough to garner profitable product placement from Nerf -- here, Bubsy could wield a Nerf ball-cannon-gun, adding to his repertoire of jumping on enemies' heads. This earns Bubsy the glorious title of first game mascot with in-game product endorsement.

We like Bubsy so much because of the little things, not necessarily the big picture. Electronic Gaming Monthly lays out the reasons why in their May 1994 issue, in which they show screenshots of all Bubsy's death animations. If he falls in water, he puts on a Navy hat and swerves side-to-side until he's gone. Or he holds up two fingers, then three, then dies. Or he touches an enemy -- the string-loving aliens known as "Woolies" -- and splits in half, or crumbles. So it is that a hard-as-rock game rewards us with something cool every time we die. And you know what? It keeps us playing, even until today.

Man, we just got to fit it in somewhere -- Bubsy in Claws Encounters of the Furred Kind has a great instruction manual. There's a part where Bubsy -- who narrates the whole thing -- stops to take out the garbage. That's good stuff.

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