Mount Rushmore. The Sistine Chapel. The Sir. Alex Ferguson statue. Great things have always inspired people to make tributes. Even the 90s band Steps had a tribute act called Stairs. And video games are no different, creating the desire in people to make their own work in homage to their favourite games. Before the internet you were restricted in where you could display your masterpiece, and it usually involved sending pictures up to NMS or GamesMaster, hoping they'd get published. Now, of course, the world is your lobster, and as we'll see, it's full of very, very, clever people. (It's also full of some very very stupid people, but we're not going pay any attention to them. That's an article for another day...) So come with me, and let's see the best tributes the internet has to offer.
7. Majora's Mask HD
We'll start with one that most people will have seen. It was a couple of weeks before E3 2012, and as usual the rumour mill was whizzing round at 1000rpm, trying to second guess the announcements. Then, out of nowhere, this hit the net. Nintendo fans across the world fell off their chairs in delight. This was beyond our wildest dreams! The internet's favourite Zelda game, with stunning graphics! Sadly it turned out to be a hoax. But what a hoax! Created by Pablo Belmonte and Paco Martinez, it's an amazing piece of work. The detail, the direction, the reimagining, is all worthy of Nintendo themselves. While they keep faithfully to the original scene, there are some excellent little touches, such as the triforce lens flare, or the use of
Sp0ntanius' Song of Healing remake (which could itself feature in this article). I love what they've done with the Mask Salesman too, capturing that mix of fun and sheer creepyness perfectly. While it turned out that the HD Zelda game was actually Wind Waker (a good thing), people across the world are now calling for Nintendo to hire Belmonte and Martinez so that we can have an HD Majora's Mask too. Me included.