
If you’ve read all you can, you don’t want to go to the movies, and you have hours of aimless time ahead of you, may I suggest playing this online version of the original Legend of Zelda game?
I don’t play video games anymore, but when I stumbled across this, I lost an entire evening or two trying to remember all the old hidden chambers and secret passageways and so on. I wasn’t very good at the game when I was a kid, but I eventually won Legend of Zelda through sheer tenacity. I think, from my completely biased opinion, it is the best video game ever.

Link to the Past. Best.
This might just be the best website ever!!!
I’ll be the cliche nerd who espouses the virtues of Ocarina of Time.
For 8bit, though, this one rules~
Zellllllda.
* If you’re taking the illegal route of running old games through an emulator, there’s plenty more Zelda to waste a few days with. Zelda: Link to the Past on the Super Nintendo is a masterwork of pacing, puzzles, twists, humor, and ease of entry. Unlike the original, you didn’t need a strategy guide to figure out which random bush to set on fire to get through the game. (There’s also Zelda: The Minish Cap, a years-old release on the Game Boy Advance in which Zelda shrinks to the size of a thumbtack and, somehow, whoops an ass anyway. ‘Sgood.)
Or you could look up the most shameless Zelda clones of all time, Neutopia 1 & 2, which hit the ol’ Turbo Grafx 16 in the long, long ago. Could even try Beyond Oasis on the Sega Genesis, but purists like Paul may poo-poo it.
* Playing NES games on a keyboard isn’t right. Call me a crabby old man, but if you have a Wii, $5 gets you a legit copy of the game, and then you can sit on your couch and tear through Zelda with a real-deal controller (and wirelessly to boot). Bonus–the Wii will save your game for you if you hit the “home” button, meaning you can always stop and resume as you please.
* There’re plenty of free Zelda-ish games on the Web, too. Cave Story is a personal fave, a retro-styled title made by a single dude in Japan a few years ago that’s somewhere between Zelda and Metroid. Knytt Stories is similarly simple-fun nostalgic stuff.
Guardian of Paradise is a free Zelda clone that is a little too anime for my tastes, but, well, it’s free. And then, of course, there’s last year’s particularly stupid Barkley: Shut Up & Jam: Gaiden. It won’t let me embed that game’s intro video here, and maybe that’s for the better.
Dodongo don’t like smoke
Phantom Hourglass is pretty cool too on the DS.
Fact: Zelda 2 is way tons better than Zelda 1.
Yeah, your post made me open my DS (which had Phantom Hourglass in it) and play a few wifi matches with random people.
Sam – That Charles Barkley game looks awesome!
Octorocks! Peahats! Tektites! Leevers…
Bitch please. Twilight Princess is the motherfucking mad note.
You guys should try http://www.playnes.net. You can play online and also save your game states so you don’t have to start over all the time. I love that site you posted though, mostly for the online dos and C64 emulation.