10 Weirdest Playable Video Game Characters Ever

I know my aeronautics. Did you know that, in StarFox/StarWing, when Peppy says “do a barrel roll”, you’re actually doing an aileron roll? It’s true. Peppy’s senile as hell.

Another thing people usually get wrong - helicopter propulsion. Helicopters stay aloft not because their rotors move incredibly fast, but because they move clockwise extremely sluggishly (rotating around a small orb housing a penguin creature), unless they hit a bouncy wall, whereupon their rotation changes. Seriously, guys, science - look it up.

Kuru Kuru Kururin, thankfully then, gets it right in this regard. Playing as a penguin alien... thing named Kururin (housed inside a glass orb with a slowly-rotating plastic rotor), it’s your job to pilot the craft through increasingly tight and tricky environments.

The thing is, Kururin’s gaudy craft is as brittle as my osteoporotic skeleton (seriously, try punching it, the cracking sound is well addictive) and two collisions with a wall is normally enough to explode the wee guy’s vehicle (and hopes) instantly.

As a launch game for the Gameboy Advance, Kuru Kuru Kururin was brutally overlooked in favour of the more obvious, Mario-flavoured choices, but it’s worth revisiting now - if for nothing else, its dedication to the principle of translational lift.