Note: A few days ago I tried to make a post like this, but as I hit the 'PUBLISH LIVE:D' button the page refreshed and I lost the entire blog, has that ever happened to you? Also, this post may be a tad long.

I just had my tonsils removed last week. And so it game me a lot of time to think. Conversely, it also gave me a lot of time to play some vidja games, which was more than welcome. Now, when people have some spare time, they begin to think. Legend has it that Isaac Newton was simply shooting the breeze by some apple trees when he discovered gravity. Sure, a myth, but a popular one. Craig Zobel and Mike Chapman were bored one afternoon so they wrote a children's book, thus creating probably the greatest internet cartoon ever, which by the way has its own WiiWare and PC games coming out this July, which you should totally buy! Albert Einstein is another good example. And I'm pretty sure it was boredom that made Albert Einstein think up a little thing called the Spacial Theory of Relativity. And proceed to kick ass with it. E=MC-hells yeah! Here he is kickin' back with his main-man, Neils Bohr, no doubt discussing the A-bomb whilst waiting for the barkeep to hand him some brewskis.

Anyway, by this point you may be asking yourself, what on earth did the preceding paragraph have to do with video games? Well, whilst I was 'recovering' with some Ice Cream b/w a side of gaming, I got to some serious thought myself. Whilst I was playing Neutopia on the Virtual Console, I got to thinking; "This game could easily be part of the Zelda series with a few tweaks". I had believed that for a long time, but that little train of thought travelled even further and got me really thinking about games that are so similar that they could easily be considered in the same series, give or take some minor details.

So, here are my findings. There are some stupidly obvious choices that I could have included, such as most WWII shooters and sports games, but I omitted them, because after all, do you really need me to tell you how similar those games are? Anyway, I tried not to get into any serious tin-foil hattery, but some stretches had to be made, so without further ado, here I go: Two examples of where a game is so similar to another that they could be in the same series.

Neutopia = Zelda

It's not hard to see the similarities, especially when Neutopia is, for intensive purposes, designed to be a ripoff of the Zelda franchise, to help bring the same lustre and popularity of The Legend of Zelda to the PC Engine (Turbo Grafx 16). The controls are similar, the story is similar, the graphics are similar, even the animations are similar:


Look Familiar? Do-do-do-dooo

Now, for those of you who are still a bit skeptical, here's some gameplay footage of Neutopia:

It's uncanny. Great game in it's own right, though.
To further enhance the notion that Neutopia could easily be a Zelda game, change 'Jazeta' to 'Link', 'Neutopia' to 'Hyrule', the Neutopian Princess to 'Zelda' and 'Dirth' to 'Gannon' or 'Agahnim' since they are both wizards.

Neutopia was released 1989 whereas Zelda was released in 1986 and Link to the Past in 1991. I feel that Neutopia bridges the gap between those two games very well, although Neutopia II was released after Link to the Past. Both Neutopia games are really good and if you like the Legend of Zelda, you should definitely pick up both Neutopia games on the Virtual Console.

Alright, that was easy, what's next?

House of The Dead = Resident Evil
Or Vice Versa

I hope this connection isn't stepping on anyones toes, as I love both of these franchises, and the similarities between the two compliment each other, so don't be offended by this harmless hypothetical. I'm still waiting for SEGA to announce HOTD 4 on Wii, and a Wii Zapper remake of the first HOTD games wouldn't go down bad with me at all.


Don't tell me you haven't ever even thought of HOTD as Resi-Evil's Brother-from-another-mother?

Both of the original games in these two distinguised franchises came out in 1996, however, they both came out as very different games. You could make claims as to who came first to the zombie shooting party, though it doesn't matter to me. And other Zombie-killing games did come before these two. Seemingly, the only connection is you shoot zombies, however, the plots of the two games are pretty similar indeed. For a start, both of the original games start with government sanctioned teams infiltrating a mysterious mansion which just so happens to be the filled with the bloodthirsty creations of a Scientist-Gone-Wild.

Now, Capcom have dipped their feet in the zombie-lightgun pool before, and their latest example, Umbrella Chronicles, simply made me want to go out and get 2&3 Return for my Wii. Not because I thought that HOTD 2&3 would wash the taste out of my mouth, in fact, quite the opposite. Before playing UC, the last time I had picked up a Lightgun Zombie shooter was when I came across a HOTD4 cabinet on the ferry I took to Scotland last year, and playing UC simply re-ignited my enjoyment for the genre.

Now, it would be glib for me to say that these games could be put together to form some sort of Superfranchise if HOTD just adopted some plot fixtures about the Umbrella Corporation, or if Resident Evil acknowledged the HOTD universe, and trust me, I don't ever expect that to happen. But still, someone who is really jonesing for HOTD4Wii to be announced (E3 please?) could pretty easily pickup Umbrella Chronicles and enjoy themselves. Both these series are highly recommendable and Co-op on UC or and HOTD game is a blast.

Also, whilst I'm making 'E3 Pretty please with sugar on tops', Sega, if you're reading this, start porting your lightgun classics to Wii. Same for you Namco, Time Crisis4 would really go down well (lucky PS3 owners...), and more lightgun Resi-Evil stuff from Capcom would be well recieved by me, anyone else?

Here's a video showing the terrible voice acting in Resident Evil, in all it's terribly written glory. You know you loved it.

Jill, here's a lockpick. It might be handy if you, THE MASTER OF UNLOCKING take it with you.

There are quite possibly many more examples, some of which I already have made connections for, but it's pretty late, this post has gotten very long and If you're reading this, I feel you nice people have humoured me for long enough. I could make more of these blogs depending on the reaction this one garners. What do you think? Also, I'm open to suggestion, so if there's any games you guys think are similar enough to be in the same series post below and I might just be willing to see for myself! Thanks for reading and don't take this post too seriously, as it is merely hypothetical.

Credits: Hudson, Nintendo, Sega, Capcom, any other developers involved, IGN, Youtube/various uploaders, Google images, various image owners, Craig Zobel, Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein, Mike Chapman, you the reader and Destructoid.