So at this point we know that most of our childish, geeky pursuits can easily be twisted into something far less innocent and far more sinister - TV shows, cartoons and comics have all gotten the chop - but at least we've always got a save shelter in the form of video games, right? Right?? Sorry to be the one to tell you this reader, but nope. Part of the genius of the Ben Drowned legend is that it begins with a game that's already pretty unsettling on its own. Majora's Mask was the sequel to Nintendo's phenomenally popular and universally praised The Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time, and players wanting more of the epic adventuring from the previous Nintendo 64 title were a little disappointed. The game opens with the heroic Link, having ended the last game by defeating the ultimate evil and saving the world, being mugged by a weird kid who transforms him into a diminutive, powerless wooden boy. That nightmarish concept and the spooky music were enough to creep us out as sprogs sat in front of the TV, and Ben Drowned takes that idea and runs with it. The story goes that a guy found an unlabelled Majora's Mask cart at a yard sale, took it home, started a new game rather than selecting the "BEN" save already there, and noticed some weird stuff. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6D2XCJUJHY Despite not naing himself that, all the non-player characters he encountered still called him "BEN". The game seemed to have been hacked or otherwise broken, too, as the familiar jaunty music was played backwards and the game world around him began to collapse. More dialogue was replaced, too, with the phrases "You shouldn't have done that" and "You've met with a terrible fate, haven't you?" culminating in the reveal - after being kicked back to the main screen - that "Ben Drowned". So, presumably, the kid who owned this copy of Majora's Mask beforehand had died, and was haunting the cartridge. Maybe blowing on it will shift him? No?
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
