DirtyDMan
10-05-2010, 11:36 AM
http://media.1up.com/media?id=3847442&type=lg
Remember the simple times before the Internet when gamers had to rely on their friends and the occasional monthly mag to update them on strange cheats and Easter eggs? Those were the days, back when you could spend nights trying to unlock Shen Long or revive Aeris only to realize you'd been duped.
To honor these pranks and rumors we present you our favorite. These are The Best Video Game Urban Legends.
Oh, by the way, I know a guy, who knows a guy who knows the Mortal Kombat SNES blood code, if you're interested.
14. Michael Jackson Composed Sonic 3's Music
http://media.1up.com/media?id=3847441&type=lg
Michael Jackson Composed Sonic 3's Music
Collaboration between the King of Pop and the Prince of Speed seems reasonable enough. After all, SEGA, had developed Michael Jackson's Moonwalker for the arcade and a slew of home consoles four years prior, and Sonic had recently become a pop culture icon.
Legend has it Michael Jackson's involvement would have been a selling point for the hedgehog's threequel, but Jackson's child molestation allegations :twitcy: forced SEGA to distance themselves from the star and put the kibosh on the project.
True or false, there's no denying Jackson's musical styling influenced the jazzy-poppy background beats on the Sonic 3 soundtrack.
13. Blow the NES Cart to Fix It
http://media.1up.com/media?id=3847440&type=lg
It doesn't work. You're damaging your games. The moisture from your breath causes the cart's good bits to corrode. Use rubbing alcohol. It works better and evaporates quickly.
This has been a public service announcement from UGO.com.
I did that all the time and I even blow into the system itself to get it to work...
12. Lara Croft Nude Code
http://media.1up.com/media?id=3847439&type=lg
The most highly desired booty in the Tomb Raider franchise is the booty of Lara Croft herself. Ever since she busted on the scene in 1996 there have been false rumors concerning cheat codes that undress her. Search all the hidden corners you like, but you'll never uncover such a cheat. There is, however, a patch called Nude Raider that delighted fans for a time prior to Eidos demanding the creators cease and desist. All that trouble for pixelated breasts.
That pixel butt make me so hot..... Nudity in games is always a plus for me ;-)
11. Wrap 360 in a Towel to Fix RRoD
http://media.1up.com/media?id=3847438&type=lg
Microsoft has a great history with software and operating systems. Sony has a great history with hardware and technology. Unfortunately for us, those two companies don't do what they should, which is get together to make a trusty beast of a console with a great software platform to support that is nice and easy for the devs to drive. Instead we get massive hardware failures, unhappy customers and petty fanboy arguments. :eek1:
Unfortunately for many, getting the "Red Ring of Death" is a common rite of passage when owning an Xbox 360. With this frustration comes the home remedies, rumors, and desperation that drive some creative 360 devotees to try some crazy sh*t. The last thing you would expect to do with a system known for overheating would be to wrap it in a thick, warm blanket.
When folks realized that a warping of the 360's motherboard, due to overheating, was causing it to pull away from some integral architecture, causing the system to go into RRoD mode, some gamers decided that you had to fight fire with fire, and cause the system to heat even further to warp the board back into place. You would do this by wrapping the system in towels in a certain way, and, "Bam," your problems are over.:no:
But this was only half true. While those who tried the trick may have been gifted with a working 360, most systems would usually only last 20 or 30 minutes before going right back to the way they were. Oh, and the worst news is that in many cases this would cause permanent damage to the unit, forcing you to still go through the motions with Microsoft to get your faulty hardware replaced with more faulty hardware. Yay! :mad1:
In the end you learn that no matter what platform you choose to support, no one is happy, everyone makes mistakes and we should all just go back to playing games on those Tiger LCD watches. They usually only failed when the battery died.
The things that people will do to get their system to work again
10. Shen Long in Street Fighter II
http://media.1up.com/media?id=3847437&type=lg
As Ryu, play through Street Fighter II without taking any damage. When you reach M. Bison neither inflict damage nor take damage until match time runs out and you get a draw. Repeat this bout with Bison ten times. On the tenth time, Shen Long will enter, toss out Bison, freeze the time at 99 seconds and fight you to the death.
That's the trick, as published by EGM in a 1992 April Fool's editorial, to unlocking Shen Long in the original Street Fighter II. What transcends Shen Long from joke status to full on urban legend is the story's wildfire spread. Publications in Europe and Hong Kong published the gag as fact, sending many players into frenzy for the super special fighter.
The stunt popped up again in a 1997 EGM joke for Street Fighter III and, most recently, became a pseudo reality with Street Fighter IV. Street Fighter fans' incessant requests for the legendary master led to the inclusion of Gouken.
Never knew this one
9. Super Mario's Secret Communist Agenda
http://media.1up.com/media?id=3847436&type=lg
There's no end on the net to the pet projects claiming the Brooklyn plumber is a commie. Everything he wears is red, conspiracy theorists remind us, and he looks a helluva lot like Stalin. :eek1: It doesn't stop there. Like his Russian comrades, Mario's nemesis is a king (King Koopa), and he'll do whatever it takes to overthrow his legitimate regime and give the power to the people (Princess Toadstool). At the end of every level in Super Mario Bros. he tears down a peace flag and raises something that resembles the red star of Russia. :eek1: Too many signs to ignore? Or is this just one big coincidence?
I knew there was something up with Mario
8. Mystery NES Port Plays SEGA Carts
http://media.1up.com/media?id=3847435&type=lg
Mystery NES Port Plays SEGA Carts
If you had a NES, you definitely wondered what the hell that port was on the bottom of your system. You tried to plug controllers into it and even went back to read your super-thin NES manual to see if they explained the mystery plug.
Imagination eventually took hold and wild stories started circulating as elementary school kids and hardcore fans tried to one-up each other at the lunch table. Some claimed to have a Unicron toy that doesnt exist, others claimed to be able to play SEGA games on their NES system, through the expansion port. In the end, these were just lunch room rumors.
What was that port intended for? Multi-system link play. Yes, NES LAN parties could have happened but never did, at least not in the USA. For shame. :mad1:
I always wonder what that port was for...
7. Kill the Dog in Duck Hunt
http://media.1up.com/media?id=3847434&type=lg
If Duck Hunt taught us anything, it was that it was okay to bring guns into the home. Duck Hunt came bundled with the weapon (but, alas, no hoisin sauce) and a big fat urban legend: the pooch that aids you in sniffing out water fowl could be shot! This is one of the few urban legends based on a reasonable truth. In the arcade version, you actually can shoot the dog in the bonus round. Doing so caused him to say "Ouch! Shoot the ducks, not me!" :laugh:
I cant say I ever tried to shoot the Dog
6. Revive Aeris in FFVII
http://media.1up.com/media?id=3847433&type=lg
Flower seller, last daughter of the Ancients, hottie: Aeris was many things to FFVII's protagonist, the Claymore-wielding Cloud. She was the impetus for his flight to the north in search of Sephiroth and his unerring drive to get that goddamn golden chocobo (KotR FTW!). Aeris' murder seemed to affect the legions of PSX devotees as much as Cloud, and the rumor that she was originally slated to be resurrected later in the game caused their hopes to burn like an eternal flame on the grave of a fallen hero.
Alas, Squaresoft would later exclaim that though Aeris was surely killed off late in the game, her demise was always part of the larger plan for Gaia. And there is no secret mission to bring her back. Sorry all you AVALANCHE members out there. Let her go.
Never heard this one before
5. Mortal Kombat SNES' Blood Code
http://media.1up.com/media?id=3847432&type=lg
Once again, SEGA did what NintenDon't! On both the Genesis and SEGA CD versions of Mortal Kombat people were able to rip out hearts, get bloodily impaled in the pit, and wreak all the usual gory arcade havok of the original game. Unfortunately, due to Nintendo's family friendly policy at the time, SNES devotees were given a neutered version of MK, complete with grey blood (read: "sweat"), finishing moves (read: fatalities) and even some modified combo systems (read: broken). Yeah, it sucked because half the fun of the game was taken away, just like with Mortal Kombat vs DC. Sorry, it had to be said.
Anyhow, rumors started flying about a code that would allow you to unlock the full gore and original fataliites from the arcade version for your SNES. Half the world claimed they knew how to do it, the other half had a Genesis. Yep, the origin of the damn rumor was the Genesis version itself. To get the MA-17 version of the game for the non-SEGA CD version, you had to enter the code "ABACABB", which was the name of an album from the band Genesis. Yep... a lazy ass urban legend if I ever heard one. The blood code was real only if you didn't have an SNES. Too bad!
4. Jump the Flagpole in Super Mario Bros.
http://media.1up.com/media?id=3847431&type=lg
If you were a game programmer, you'd hide all sorts of Easter eggs all over your game. You'd place secret invisible doors throughout your world, hide naked 8-bit chicks behind them, :yes: let players tap Left-Right-A-B-A-B and take them on a suicide run to destroy your game's ultimate boss. You'd throw cheats everywhere, create mini-games inside mini-levels, and spell "penis" in a freeze frame during a cut scene. :eek1: You'd go crazy, so it's only reasonable that Miyamoto and friends would at least let you jump the flagpole in Super Mario Bros. It's right there at the end of every level, reaching only yea-high into the Mushroom Kingdom's blue skies. There's gotta be a way to hop over it, take more than 5,000 points and zoom onto the next stage. There's just gotta be.
And there is. At least in one level. The consensus among Mario fanatics seems to be that it's possible to hop over the pole in level 3-3. Some people claim it's possible to do so in 7-1 as well, and the jury's still out on whether this 1-1 flagjumper is a fraud. So it can be done. Not that it gets you anything rad except a repeating frame where you can't reverse and must wait for time to expire to move on.
I tried to do this lot of times but never could
3. E.T. Landfill
http://media.1up.com/media?id=3847430&type=lg
Sometimes urban legends are true. In 1983, a cocky Atari gambled on a then unproven business plan: a game based on a hit movie. Generally, popular home titles were adapted from arcades or well-tested formulas, but in Spielberg's kid-friendly alien the company saw a hit.
And it may have worked had they not rushed the development process and released a nearly broken piece of drivel. ;( Turns out gamers rather not spend time roaming confusing boards and evading cavernous pits.:mad1:
So, with millions of unsellable copies of E.T. (and plenty of other Atari products like the abysmal Atari Pac-Man), Atari sent its waste to the dump. The Alamogordo landfill to be precise. :twitcy:
2. Nintendo and Sony Invented the PlayStation
http://media.1up.com/media?id=3847429&type=lg
Like E.T., this urban legend has a smidge of validity. To keep up with competitor SEGA, who had developed the SEGA CD, Nintendo contracted Sony and Phillips to develop a CD add-on for the SNES. Both fell through with Phillips developing the CD-I and Sony, the PlayStation.
At the time, CD-ROM seemed like a natural fit for Nintendo. While the SEGA CD failed, disk technology allowed for inexpensive storage and improved production. But, as we know in hindsight, Nintendo stuck with carts, abandoning its research in CD technology (it had looked into CD-ROM tech for both 16 bit and 32 bit add-ons) for the Nintendo 64's cart platform. Unable to hold out forever, they switched to disk for the Gamecube.
Never knew this one
1. Polybius
http://media.1up.com/media?id=3847428&type=lg
Polybius
The corrupting influence of these new fangled video games has been under scrutiny since their inception. Worryworts and social conservatives have long decried the attack of morals waged by the bloody combat and adult nature of many, many titles. So, what happens when a video game is said have actually damaged young players by playing it?
The controversial history of Polybius is somewhat muddled, but what we do know is the Tempest-style shoot 'em up game was introduced around Portland, Oregon in 1981. Incredibly long lines around the arcade machines spurned rumors of complete addiction and visits from shady men in black. The players were said to suffer severe mental withdrawl, amnesia, insomnia, nightmares and bad gas. Insidiously, it was the Federal government who was said to have been testing on our young socially awkward population. No proof of any black-ops plot was uncovered. But the truth is out there.
Videogame Urban Legends from 1UP.com (http://www.1up.com/do/feature?cId=3181732)
Videogame Urban Legends from 1UP.com (http://www.1up.com/do/feature?pager.offset=1&cId=3181732)
Just thought some of you guys would enjoy reading this....
Remember the simple times before the Internet when gamers had to rely on their friends and the occasional monthly mag to update them on strange cheats and Easter eggs? Those were the days, back when you could spend nights trying to unlock Shen Long or revive Aeris only to realize you'd been duped.
To honor these pranks and rumors we present you our favorite. These are The Best Video Game Urban Legends.
Oh, by the way, I know a guy, who knows a guy who knows the Mortal Kombat SNES blood code, if you're interested.
14. Michael Jackson Composed Sonic 3's Music
http://media.1up.com/media?id=3847441&type=lg
Michael Jackson Composed Sonic 3's Music
Collaboration between the King of Pop and the Prince of Speed seems reasonable enough. After all, SEGA, had developed Michael Jackson's Moonwalker for the arcade and a slew of home consoles four years prior, and Sonic had recently become a pop culture icon.
Legend has it Michael Jackson's involvement would have been a selling point for the hedgehog's threequel, but Jackson's child molestation allegations :twitcy: forced SEGA to distance themselves from the star and put the kibosh on the project.
True or false, there's no denying Jackson's musical styling influenced the jazzy-poppy background beats on the Sonic 3 soundtrack.
13. Blow the NES Cart to Fix It
http://media.1up.com/media?id=3847440&type=lg
It doesn't work. You're damaging your games. The moisture from your breath causes the cart's good bits to corrode. Use rubbing alcohol. It works better and evaporates quickly.
This has been a public service announcement from UGO.com.
I did that all the time and I even blow into the system itself to get it to work...
12. Lara Croft Nude Code
http://media.1up.com/media?id=3847439&type=lg
The most highly desired booty in the Tomb Raider franchise is the booty of Lara Croft herself. Ever since she busted on the scene in 1996 there have been false rumors concerning cheat codes that undress her. Search all the hidden corners you like, but you'll never uncover such a cheat. There is, however, a patch called Nude Raider that delighted fans for a time prior to Eidos demanding the creators cease and desist. All that trouble for pixelated breasts.
That pixel butt make me so hot..... Nudity in games is always a plus for me ;-)
11. Wrap 360 in a Towel to Fix RRoD
http://media.1up.com/media?id=3847438&type=lg
Microsoft has a great history with software and operating systems. Sony has a great history with hardware and technology. Unfortunately for us, those two companies don't do what they should, which is get together to make a trusty beast of a console with a great software platform to support that is nice and easy for the devs to drive. Instead we get massive hardware failures, unhappy customers and petty fanboy arguments. :eek1:
Unfortunately for many, getting the "Red Ring of Death" is a common rite of passage when owning an Xbox 360. With this frustration comes the home remedies, rumors, and desperation that drive some creative 360 devotees to try some crazy sh*t. The last thing you would expect to do with a system known for overheating would be to wrap it in a thick, warm blanket.
When folks realized that a warping of the 360's motherboard, due to overheating, was causing it to pull away from some integral architecture, causing the system to go into RRoD mode, some gamers decided that you had to fight fire with fire, and cause the system to heat even further to warp the board back into place. You would do this by wrapping the system in towels in a certain way, and, "Bam," your problems are over.:no:
But this was only half true. While those who tried the trick may have been gifted with a working 360, most systems would usually only last 20 or 30 minutes before going right back to the way they were. Oh, and the worst news is that in many cases this would cause permanent damage to the unit, forcing you to still go through the motions with Microsoft to get your faulty hardware replaced with more faulty hardware. Yay! :mad1:
In the end you learn that no matter what platform you choose to support, no one is happy, everyone makes mistakes and we should all just go back to playing games on those Tiger LCD watches. They usually only failed when the battery died.
The things that people will do to get their system to work again
10. Shen Long in Street Fighter II
http://media.1up.com/media?id=3847437&type=lg
As Ryu, play through Street Fighter II without taking any damage. When you reach M. Bison neither inflict damage nor take damage until match time runs out and you get a draw. Repeat this bout with Bison ten times. On the tenth time, Shen Long will enter, toss out Bison, freeze the time at 99 seconds and fight you to the death.
That's the trick, as published by EGM in a 1992 April Fool's editorial, to unlocking Shen Long in the original Street Fighter II. What transcends Shen Long from joke status to full on urban legend is the story's wildfire spread. Publications in Europe and Hong Kong published the gag as fact, sending many players into frenzy for the super special fighter.
The stunt popped up again in a 1997 EGM joke for Street Fighter III and, most recently, became a pseudo reality with Street Fighter IV. Street Fighter fans' incessant requests for the legendary master led to the inclusion of Gouken.
Never knew this one
9. Super Mario's Secret Communist Agenda
http://media.1up.com/media?id=3847436&type=lg
There's no end on the net to the pet projects claiming the Brooklyn plumber is a commie. Everything he wears is red, conspiracy theorists remind us, and he looks a helluva lot like Stalin. :eek1: It doesn't stop there. Like his Russian comrades, Mario's nemesis is a king (King Koopa), and he'll do whatever it takes to overthrow his legitimate regime and give the power to the people (Princess Toadstool). At the end of every level in Super Mario Bros. he tears down a peace flag and raises something that resembles the red star of Russia. :eek1: Too many signs to ignore? Or is this just one big coincidence?
I knew there was something up with Mario
8. Mystery NES Port Plays SEGA Carts
http://media.1up.com/media?id=3847435&type=lg
Mystery NES Port Plays SEGA Carts
If you had a NES, you definitely wondered what the hell that port was on the bottom of your system. You tried to plug controllers into it and even went back to read your super-thin NES manual to see if they explained the mystery plug.
Imagination eventually took hold and wild stories started circulating as elementary school kids and hardcore fans tried to one-up each other at the lunch table. Some claimed to have a Unicron toy that doesnt exist, others claimed to be able to play SEGA games on their NES system, through the expansion port. In the end, these were just lunch room rumors.
What was that port intended for? Multi-system link play. Yes, NES LAN parties could have happened but never did, at least not in the USA. For shame. :mad1:
I always wonder what that port was for...
7. Kill the Dog in Duck Hunt
http://media.1up.com/media?id=3847434&type=lg
If Duck Hunt taught us anything, it was that it was okay to bring guns into the home. Duck Hunt came bundled with the weapon (but, alas, no hoisin sauce) and a big fat urban legend: the pooch that aids you in sniffing out water fowl could be shot! This is one of the few urban legends based on a reasonable truth. In the arcade version, you actually can shoot the dog in the bonus round. Doing so caused him to say "Ouch! Shoot the ducks, not me!" :laugh:
I cant say I ever tried to shoot the Dog
6. Revive Aeris in FFVII
http://media.1up.com/media?id=3847433&type=lg
Flower seller, last daughter of the Ancients, hottie: Aeris was many things to FFVII's protagonist, the Claymore-wielding Cloud. She was the impetus for his flight to the north in search of Sephiroth and his unerring drive to get that goddamn golden chocobo (KotR FTW!). Aeris' murder seemed to affect the legions of PSX devotees as much as Cloud, and the rumor that she was originally slated to be resurrected later in the game caused their hopes to burn like an eternal flame on the grave of a fallen hero.
Alas, Squaresoft would later exclaim that though Aeris was surely killed off late in the game, her demise was always part of the larger plan for Gaia. And there is no secret mission to bring her back. Sorry all you AVALANCHE members out there. Let her go.
Never heard this one before
5. Mortal Kombat SNES' Blood Code
http://media.1up.com/media?id=3847432&type=lg
Once again, SEGA did what NintenDon't! On both the Genesis and SEGA CD versions of Mortal Kombat people were able to rip out hearts, get bloodily impaled in the pit, and wreak all the usual gory arcade havok of the original game. Unfortunately, due to Nintendo's family friendly policy at the time, SNES devotees were given a neutered version of MK, complete with grey blood (read: "sweat"), finishing moves (read: fatalities) and even some modified combo systems (read: broken). Yeah, it sucked because half the fun of the game was taken away, just like with Mortal Kombat vs DC. Sorry, it had to be said.
Anyhow, rumors started flying about a code that would allow you to unlock the full gore and original fataliites from the arcade version for your SNES. Half the world claimed they knew how to do it, the other half had a Genesis. Yep, the origin of the damn rumor was the Genesis version itself. To get the MA-17 version of the game for the non-SEGA CD version, you had to enter the code "ABACABB", which was the name of an album from the band Genesis. Yep... a lazy ass urban legend if I ever heard one. The blood code was real only if you didn't have an SNES. Too bad!
4. Jump the Flagpole in Super Mario Bros.
http://media.1up.com/media?id=3847431&type=lg
If you were a game programmer, you'd hide all sorts of Easter eggs all over your game. You'd place secret invisible doors throughout your world, hide naked 8-bit chicks behind them, :yes: let players tap Left-Right-A-B-A-B and take them on a suicide run to destroy your game's ultimate boss. You'd throw cheats everywhere, create mini-games inside mini-levels, and spell "penis" in a freeze frame during a cut scene. :eek1: You'd go crazy, so it's only reasonable that Miyamoto and friends would at least let you jump the flagpole in Super Mario Bros. It's right there at the end of every level, reaching only yea-high into the Mushroom Kingdom's blue skies. There's gotta be a way to hop over it, take more than 5,000 points and zoom onto the next stage. There's just gotta be.
And there is. At least in one level. The consensus among Mario fanatics seems to be that it's possible to hop over the pole in level 3-3. Some people claim it's possible to do so in 7-1 as well, and the jury's still out on whether this 1-1 flagjumper is a fraud. So it can be done. Not that it gets you anything rad except a repeating frame where you can't reverse and must wait for time to expire to move on.
I tried to do this lot of times but never could
3. E.T. Landfill
http://media.1up.com/media?id=3847430&type=lg
Sometimes urban legends are true. In 1983, a cocky Atari gambled on a then unproven business plan: a game based on a hit movie. Generally, popular home titles were adapted from arcades or well-tested formulas, but in Spielberg's kid-friendly alien the company saw a hit.
And it may have worked had they not rushed the development process and released a nearly broken piece of drivel. ;( Turns out gamers rather not spend time roaming confusing boards and evading cavernous pits.:mad1:
So, with millions of unsellable copies of E.T. (and plenty of other Atari products like the abysmal Atari Pac-Man), Atari sent its waste to the dump. The Alamogordo landfill to be precise. :twitcy:
2. Nintendo and Sony Invented the PlayStation
http://media.1up.com/media?id=3847429&type=lg
Like E.T., this urban legend has a smidge of validity. To keep up with competitor SEGA, who had developed the SEGA CD, Nintendo contracted Sony and Phillips to develop a CD add-on for the SNES. Both fell through with Phillips developing the CD-I and Sony, the PlayStation.
At the time, CD-ROM seemed like a natural fit for Nintendo. While the SEGA CD failed, disk technology allowed for inexpensive storage and improved production. But, as we know in hindsight, Nintendo stuck with carts, abandoning its research in CD technology (it had looked into CD-ROM tech for both 16 bit and 32 bit add-ons) for the Nintendo 64's cart platform. Unable to hold out forever, they switched to disk for the Gamecube.
Never knew this one
1. Polybius
http://media.1up.com/media?id=3847428&type=lg
Polybius
The corrupting influence of these new fangled video games has been under scrutiny since their inception. Worryworts and social conservatives have long decried the attack of morals waged by the bloody combat and adult nature of many, many titles. So, what happens when a video game is said have actually damaged young players by playing it?
The controversial history of Polybius is somewhat muddled, but what we do know is the Tempest-style shoot 'em up game was introduced around Portland, Oregon in 1981. Incredibly long lines around the arcade machines spurned rumors of complete addiction and visits from shady men in black. The players were said to suffer severe mental withdrawl, amnesia, insomnia, nightmares and bad gas. Insidiously, it was the Federal government who was said to have been testing on our young socially awkward population. No proof of any black-ops plot was uncovered. But the truth is out there.
Videogame Urban Legends from 1UP.com (http://www.1up.com/do/feature?cId=3181732)
Videogame Urban Legends from 1UP.com (http://www.1up.com/do/feature?pager.offset=1&cId=3181732)
Just thought some of you guys would enjoy reading this....