Psycho Mantis reads your mind
Easter Eggs are the hilarious moments in games that everyone wants more of; the tucked away secret rooms or bonus upgrades that are sometimes near impossible to reach.
Sometimes an accidental glitch, but more often than not a purposeful hidden gem left by the bored developer; the easter egg is always an absolute pleasure to find and a lovely piece of what makes gaming such a joy.
This list is incredibly difficult to compile, mainly because of the vast amount of possible entries; so please don’t crucify me if I’ve missed one of your favourites! I haven’t even been able to consider the more recent titles, so unfortunately things like Marcus Fenix finding a toaster in Gears of War 2, and the crazy fish riding man in Borderlands haven’t made the list (though you should check them out, they are absolutely hilarious).
- The Chris Houlihan Room from the Legend of Zelda: a link to the past.
Wouldn’t it be fantastic to be part of one of the best Nintendo franchises of all time? In 1990, the Nintendo Power magazine ran a contest to actually make this happen. Scholars (gamers and internet folk), have said that the details of the competition were lost many moons ago; what we do know, is that the winner would be immortalised in the Legend of Zelda; a link to the past. The winner of the competition would have a secret room put into the game, with their name literally written on it. Chris Houlihan was the winner of the competition, and thus the Chris Houlihan room was born.
The CHR (as I but nobody else is calling it), was extremely difficult to reach; hardly anyone managed to make it there until the game could be emulated onto the PC, and word travelled fast. All you had to do was use a certain item in the game to run at a very specific point under an even more specific time frame. Once you made it into the CHR (catching on yet?), you were treated to 45 blue rupees and a message that read as follows:
What an amazing way to be given game immortality. It is such a shame that companies these days don’t run similar competitions; who wouldn’t want to see their grinning face tattooed on the front of a locust in Gears Of War 3? Anyone? No. Ok.
Even vegetarians wouldn’t mind the slaughter of these cows, as they just so happened to be demonic axe swinging cows, hell bent on imbedding their axes in your skull
- Lucky 7’s in FF VII
Everyone’s favourite gaming franchise, Final Fantasy (Don’t disagree, it’s a fact), has its fair share of great in-jokes, but this one in particular tickled my fancy. If you were ever experienced enough to have your characters at such a high level they had above 7777 HP, you could achieve this potentially brilliant/annoying treat. If any of your characters HP hit exactly 7777, then you would enter Lucky 7’s mode. In this mode, all of your attacks did exactly 7777 points of damage, and you had no control over anything they did until the end of the fight. While this would be absolutely hilarious and wonderful in a regular fight, if it happened (and it did more than you would expect) during a particularly gruelling boss fight it could be potentially disruptive to your battle progress. Well done Square Enix, how could you possibly annoy us anymore? Oh right... Final Fantasy XIII.
- The Secret Cow Level in Diablo 2
This feature wouldn’t be complete without referencing this old favourite. Blizzard North stretched out their humour muscles, to offer this knee slapper, in a mostly knee slap free game. After you completed one play through of the game, you had to complete a certain set of activities to open a portal to the secret cow level. The name of the secret cow level is very appropriate, as it was secret and it had cows in it. Even vegetarians wouldn’t mind the slaughter of these cows, as they just so happened to be demonic axe swinging cows, hell bent on imbedding their axes in your skull and then (probably) turning you into burgers and putting you in a happy meal.
This was actually an extremely rewarding easter egg, as the cows were relatively high level, and there were a huge amount of them. Players would use the secret cow level to train up their characters after the final battle, and what was best about the enemies was their human (and genuinely amusing) sounding moo’s, so you could laugh whilst you set fire to your beef.
- Psycho Mantis reads your mind in MGS1
The whole of this section could be called, ‘isn’t Metal Gear Solid awesome because of how many tiny references, in-jokes and hilarious Easter eggs it has’, but I thought it may have been convoluted so I kept it a bit snappier. However, what I’m trying to get at is that the MGS series has probably the most quirky moments and brilliant developer-left hidden jokes in any series. From receiving moody responses from the colonel on the codex because you called him up too many times, to shooting Mario and Yoshi dolls to hear their signature cries; MGS has it all.
My personal favourite moment (and a long-lasting fan favourite), comes from the first instalment of the series. In between facing the boss Psycho Mantis, you are treated to a great looking cut-scene (a cut-scene in MGS!?!). In the video, Psycho Mantis tries to battle you psychologically; he did this by reading the data from your memory card. Mantis would come out with comments about what you had stored on your memory unit, such as, ‘you like adventure games do you!’ and ‘So... you like games from Konami!’ This was enjoyed by the fans so much, that on the later released Gamecube version, the developers added in dialogue to match, ‘So you have been playing Mario Sunshine have you!?’ Oh Mantis you really know how to get right to my core! In the end, the only way to beat Mantis was to switch your controller into port 2, a fantastic smashing of the fourth wall.
- Meeting Yoshi in Mario 64
The ultimate reward for getting all of the stars in Mario 64, was meeting Yoshi on the castle roof. After you got star number 120 (no mean feat I assure you!), the green pipe in the castle gardens would open up and shoot you onto the top of the castle. Here you would meet the otherwise absent Yoshi, who would give you a hundred lives, a nice little message from Shigeru Miyamoto himself, and to top it off add a sparkle to your third jump. What more could a Mario fan boy want?
Female First Edward Lewis
Easter Eggs are the hilarious moments in games that everyone wants more of; the tucked away secret rooms or bonus upgrades that are sometimes near impossible to reach.
Sometimes an accidental glitch, but more often than not a purposeful hidden gem left by the bored developer; the easter egg is always an absolute pleasure to find and a lovely piece of what makes gaming such a joy.
This list is incredibly difficult to compile, mainly because of the vast amount of possible entries; so please don’t crucify me if I’ve missed one of your favourites! I haven’t even been able to consider the more recent titles, so unfortunately things like Marcus Fenix finding a toaster in Gears of War 2, and the crazy fish riding man in Borderlands haven’t made the list (though you should check them out, they are absolutely hilarious).
- The Chris Houlihan Room from the Legend of Zelda: a link to the past.
Wouldn’t it be fantastic to be part of one of the best Nintendo franchises of all time? In 1990, the Nintendo Power magazine ran a contest to actually make this happen. Scholars (gamers and internet folk), have said that the details of the competition were lost many moons ago; what we do know, is that the winner would be immortalised in the Legend of Zelda; a link to the past. The winner of the competition would have a secret room put into the game, with their name literally written on it. Chris Houlihan was the winner of the competition, and thus the Chris Houlihan room was born.
The CHR (as I but nobody else is calling it), was extremely difficult to reach; hardly anyone managed to make it there until the game could be emulated onto the PC, and word travelled fast. All you had to do was use a certain item in the game to run at a very specific point under an even more specific time frame. Once you made it into the CHR (catching on yet?), you were treated to 45 blue rupees and a message that read as follows:
What an amazing way to be given game immortality. It is such a shame that companies these days don’t run similar competitions; who wouldn’t want to see their grinning face tattooed on the front of a locust in Gears Of War 3? Anyone? No. Ok.
- Lucky 7’s in FF VII
Everyone’s favourite gaming franchise, Final Fantasy (Don’t disagree, it’s a fact), has its fair share of great in-jokes, but this one in particular tickled my fancy. If you were ever experienced enough to have your characters at such a high level they had above 7777 HP, you could achieve this potentially brilliant/annoying treat. If any of your characters HP hit exactly 7777, then you would enter Lucky 7’s mode. In this mode, all of your attacks did exactly 7777 points of damage, and you had no control over anything they did until the end of the fight. While this would be absolutely hilarious and wonderful in a regular fight, if it happened (and it did more than you would expect) during a particularly gruelling boss fight it could be potentially disruptive to your battle progress. Well done Square Enix, how could you possibly annoy us anymore? Oh right... Final Fantasy XIII.
- The Secret Cow Level in Diablo 2
This feature wouldn’t be complete without referencing this old favourite. Blizzard North stretched out their humour muscles, to offer this knee slapper, in a mostly knee slap free game. After you completed one play through of the game, you had to complete a certain set of activities to open a portal to the secret cow level. The name of the secret cow level is very appropriate, as it was secret and it had cows in it. Even vegetarians wouldn’t mind the slaughter of these cows, as they just so happened to be demonic axe swinging cows, hell bent on imbedding their axes in your skull and then (probably) turning you into burgers and putting you in a happy meal.
This was actually an extremely rewarding easter egg, as the cows were relatively high level, and there were a huge amount of them. Players would use the secret cow level to train up their characters after the final battle, and what was best about the enemies was their human (and genuinely amusing) sounding moo’s, so you could laugh whilst you set fire to your beef.
Tagged in Easter