The Other Thing About Swamp Thing
Plus: A New 'Ocarina Of Time' World Record
OK. So here’s the thing about last week’s post: Even if the details of Swamp Thing’s inception are a bit janky, don’t think I don’t love the guy. In fact, I was one of those weirdos that not only enjoyed Wes Craven’s original film adaption in 1982, but also its direct-to-video 1989 sequel and the subsequent stinkfest of a TV series on USA Network. (It would be years before I’d discover the Alan Moore run that broke my brain and took the character far beyond schlock.)
I would go as far to say that the merch surrounding Swampy provided some highly underrated relics of the late 1980s and early ’90s—so much so that I’ve decided to compile three of my favorites into this newsletter. Let me know if you owned any of these yourself:
Snap Up Swamp Thing (Kenner)
The clever mechanism inside of this 1990 figure allows for two types of Swamp Thing: an amorphous pile of green parts (presumably to blend in with the surrounding terrain?) and by the press of a button, an upright hero. It was a beautiful action for imaginative play with other characters, and designers sweetened the deal with a “Log Bazooka” in the package, too. Other variations of Swamp Thing in that first series from Kenner included Camouflage Swamp Thing, the glow-in-the-dark Bio-Glow Samp Thing, and Snare Arm Swamp Thing.
The Swamp Thing video game (THQ)
THQ released NES and Game Boy games in 1992, based on a short-lived (5 episodes, in fact) animated series during the previous year. The side-scroller would be pretty forgettable if not for the novelty of our hero in 8-bit form, his swampy sprite jumping canoe-to-canoe in marshland environments. That was enough to make this unusually difficult game a favorite of the time.
Source: Etsy Swamp Thing Halloween costume
The rest of the get-up was terrible, but the mask in this set, released alongside the cartoon, was just gorgeous.
All Hail DannyB For His Ocarina of Time World Record
Even though it’s just 166 milliseconds, player dannyb (Daniel Baamonde) set the speedrun world ablaze with his new The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time record last week, in the Any Percentage category. His total time in beating the game was 3 minutes, 55 seconds, and 300 milliseconds.
So how did he do it? Well, to explain, you’re going to have to learn about a few major exploits used by speedrunners to zoom through a game that used to consume hours and hours for many of us:
As with many games in speedrunning, playing the Japanese version ensures the least amount of pages needed for text when scrolling through the game’s exposition.
Walking backwards is faster than walking forward in this game. Side-hopping also is optimal, so many speedrunners move using the combo of the two.
The bigger factor in this specific game, as Kotaku writer Heather Alexandra describes, is SRM, or "Stale Reference Manipulation": “This broad term refers to a set of glitches that allow players to overwrite the game’s memory values to affect actors and items within the game world. This makes it possible to perform ‘arbitrary code execution,’ a process through which players can perform seemingly random actions that allow them to execute modified code." These actions create warps, which can get you to anywhere from Ganon's Castle to the ending cutscenes themselves. You obtain these abilities through perfect execution and actions throughout the first couple sections of the game. To most of us, these movements are going to appear random.
See for yourself, via dannyb’s run, below:
