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The Ten Greatest Fire Levels in Gaming History, Part 3

The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker — Dragon Roost Cavern

Generally speaking, I have as much disdain for the 3D Zelda games as I have love for their 2D predecessors. With some exceptions, they're tedious slogs of fetch questing, hand holding, and unskippable, unbearably patronizing prattle. ("You got a key! You can use it to open a door!") This subject tends to be a bone of contention between me and my esteemed colleague here at 61FPS, but one thing I have to concede to him is that the dungeon design in these games is usually pretty swell. For all of Wind Waker's faults, it has the virtue of being visually gorgeous, which is why its fire dungeon, Dragon Roost Cavern, beats out the dreary Fire Temple from Ocarina of Time. (Don't even get me started on Twilight Princess.) The dungeon's architecture and mood are admirably cohesive, too — you can almost feel the breezy air outside the volcano give way to a brutal dry heat within. And the boss is — no argument here — spectacular. You win this round, 3D Zelda. . . grumble, grumble. . . — PS

The Ten Greatest Fire Levels in Gaming History, Part 2

Resident Evil 2 — Raccoon City Streets

Hideki Kamiya followed the logical zombie progression after Shinji Mikami's original Resident Evil, going from the '50s schlock of a haunted mansion/mad-scientist's lab combo and straight onto the '60s of Romero-urban-zombie-apocalypse. Kamiya's sequel also had a novel twist on the dual protagonists of the first by making two slightly different quests for the heroes Claire and Leon. You know how zombie apocalypses work, right? When survivors need to stick together to survive, you separate them immediately. Resident Evil 2 opens with a tanker truck of gasoline exploding in downtown Raccoon City, with Claire and Leon stuck on either side of the ensuing blaze. When you finally start guiding your poorly equipped, clean-cut cop or street-smart biker chick through the undead, you do it in flames. And, yes. The zombies are totally on fire too. — JC

The Ten Greatest Fire Levels in Gaming History, Part 1

Videogame designers have found a great deal of inspiration in elemental dichotomies. Wood versus stone, wind versus lightning, ice versus fire — these natural conflicts are excellent bases for compelling environments and rich atmospheres. What better than tangible extremes like hot and cold to convey a sense of place to a player? To celebrate the imminent arrival of summer, 61 Frames Per Second is going hot with our first top-ten list, looking at the greatest fire levels in gaming history. If you're sweating, don't worry — we'll get to ice soon enough. — John Constantine

Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts — Crucible of Flame

Nobody would subject themselves to the brutally difficult Ghosts 'n Goblins series if the games didn't feature Capcom's usual immaculate production values. Dying a hundred times in Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts' third stage, the Crucible of Flame (and you will) is made marginally more bearable by the brooding music (forever seared in my brain after a misspent youth) and the characteristically idiosyncratic twist on the usual "fire level" theme: instead of a generic inferno, the Crucible of Flame finds you in some kind of metallurgical hell. The stage has a lot of character; as fire levels go, it's more of an oozing, molten nightmare than a pyrotechnic fun fair. (In fact, some would say there's nothing fun about it.) A word of warning: it only gets worse from here. — Peter Smith

about the blogger

John Constantine, our superhero, was raised by birds and then attended Penn State University. He is currently working on a novel about a fictional city that exists only in his mind. John has an astonishingly extensive knowledge of Scientology. Ultimately he would like to learn how to effectively use his brain. He continues to keep Wu-Tang's secret to himself.

Derrick Sanskrit is a self-professed geek in a variety of fields including typography, graphic design, comic books, music and cartoons. As a professional hipster graphic designer, his recent clients have included Nerve, Pitchfork and MoCCA, among others.

Amber Ahlborn - artist, writer, gamer and DigiPen survivor, she maintains a day job as a graphic artist. By night Amber moonlights as a professional Metroid Fanatic and keeps a metal suit in the closet just in case. Has lived in the state of Washington and insists that it really doesn't rain as much as everyone says it does.

Nadia Oxford is a housekeeping robot who was refurbished into a warrior when the world's need for justice was great. Now that the galaxy is at peace (give or take a conflict here or there), she works as a freelance writer for various sites and magazines. Based in Toronto, Nadia prizes the certificate from the Ministry of Health declaring her tick and rabies-free.

Bob Mackey is a grad student, writer, and cyborg, who uses the powerful girl-repelling nanomachines mad science grafted onto his body to allocate time towards interests of the nerd persuasion. He believes that complaining about things on the Internet is akin to the fine art of wine tasting, but with more spitting into buckets.

Joe Keiser has a programming degree from Johns Hopkins University, a tiny apartment in Brooklyn, and a fake toy guitar built in the hollowed-out shell of a real guitar. He writes about games and technology for a variety of outlets. One day he will stop doing this. The day after that, police will find his body under a collapsed pile of (formerly neatly alphabetized) collector's edition tchotchkes.

Cole Stryker is an American freelance writer living in York, England, where he resides with his archeologist wife. He writes for a travel company by day and argues about pop culture on the internet by night. Find him writing regularly here and here.

Peter Smith is like the lead character of Irwin Shaw's The 80-Yard Run, except less athletic. He considers himself very lucky to have this job. But it's a little premature to take "jack-off of all trades" off his resume. Besides writing, travelling, and painting houses, Pete plays guitar in a rock trio called The Aye-Ayes. He calls them a 'power pop' band, but they generally sound more like Motorhead on a drinking binge.