Crazy Game or Console Rumors Past

[digitalpress]

Remember way back when... when someone told you that if you play your Sega CD upside down you'd hear devil lyrics in the soundtracks? And you experimented with it for awhile until you realized it was a hoax?

If you've got gaming buddies or have hung around gaming circles long enough, you've surely heard some crazy rumors or tall tales about certain games or systems over the years.

So tell me - whether in fact it was a rumor or turned out to be true - what have you heard in the past that sounded too crazy to be true?

[Ed Oscuro]

All the stuff about Goldeneye...I'm sure you all remember that. What's the 20th cheat, Oddjob's in the facility (odd one, though I swore I killed some guy in the wall with a rocket for the longest time,) Xenia's on the Frigate (according to the game info she might be,) where do you find the tazer on the game box (looking at it now, it's obviously an old AK-47 render) and all the wondering about what's on the other side of the fence, trying to find out where that shaft in the command center leads (by experimenting with tank shells and the grenade launcher!) That's just a few...the island on the other end of the dam, test tubes on top of a vent in the facility, and the most famous one of all...trying to get on the other side of the vent (in the facility, again). Must've tried to get over there for hours straight.

That game was VERY wierd. It's virtually the only game where I used slowdown to (usually just try) to get places I shouldn't have, actually the only game where I found myself firing dual RCP-90s at a wall to create slowdown in the first place. The bullet mark decal had so much potential...

Another game that (just now) seems to have had a lot of experimentation was Castlevania, especially as bugged up contacts between the cart board and the game ROMs has caused a number of carts to fail in amusing ways over the years.

[Jorpho]

Most of the really fruity stories can only be found in high schools and elementary schools, I think. (Remember "L is real 2041!" in Mario 64?)
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[Ed Oscuro]

Yep, it was high school that a friend told me (Metal Gear Solid on PlayStation, where you can use first-person mode to make Meryl uncomfortable) that he put a book or something on his first-person button, went away for a few hours. When he came back, Meryl was GLOWING RED with embarassment! ;O

Fun times...heh. Less junk flying around now too.

[Needle]

I always found that poor game documentation back during the NES era caused a lot of funny rumors. Back then, game instruction manuals could be less-than-specific in their descriptions, most likely because game budgets were much, much lower.

The things is, most of these rumors were completely secluded to gaming groups, since there was a general lack of communication. Get enough 10 year olds in a neighborhood together, and the rumors start flying, but those rumors are unlikely to pass to other kids. Things are different these days with the advent of the Internet.

These factors combined, our neighborhood developed a lot of fun rumors thanks to the lack of information given.

One such game was Wizards & Warriors for the NES. Anyone remember the Horn? This item makes secret doors visible when you activate it using the Select button, but there's no visual or audio evidence that the activation occured unless a secret door appeared. The horn, from what I remember, was not described in the instruction manual. This led to many rumors. Supposedly, if you faced off with Malkil at the end of the game with the Horn in your posession, you could prevent his life regeneration. :)

I can't even tell you how many rumors we developed about Deadly Towers. Reading through the instruction booklet is likely to make you even more confused. It describes two shields, one good and one cursed - but both show the same exact graphic. Oh, the pain.

One of the most notorious rumors (one that I think still evades the public to this day) is the exact meaning of "10th Enemy Has The Bomb" in the level 8 dungeon of The Legend of Zelda. We kids tried to come up with so many possible explanations, and in the end it really didn't matter. Did anyone EVER figure out what the exact translation is?

[kai123]

I have two castlevania carts that are all bugged out. The first one doesn't play music at all. The other is very strange it is like the floor isn't there. Start the game and fall through the ground everytime. I then let it go to the demo mode and he falls through on that too. Very strange... :hmm:

[TRM]

I had remembered when a guy I knew told me that you could dissolve the slime in Shadowgate on the NES by using one of the viles. I tried and tried, but to this day I haven't been successful.

Also, on Shadowgate 64 I remember hearing a few rumors about getting outside the castle and getting the bottom on the other side of the gate in the sewer. I also remember hearing a rumor about digging yourself into a hidden area or something---I had actually found a shovel but there was no way to get to it.

Unfortunately, most of these things were proven false when I talked to the masterminds behind that series.

[ManekiNeko]

I'd have to use Polybius, the mind-bending arcade game created by evil KGB agents, as my example. I'm just glad this thing doesn't actually exist, because it could have turned a lot of people off video games forever.

JR

[IntvGene]

Alternate Reality: The Dungeon (Atari 8bit)
My friend was trying to "crack" this game, and he though he had it all figured out. The copied version was loading fine, until you starting playing the game, where he was attacked and killed by FBI agents (this was a fantasy RPG!). Nobody believed him... until we finally saw it. As it turns out the programmers added some subtle checks a various points during the game which would eventually cause pirated copies to force an encounter with FBI agents (who would make short work of adventures attacking with weapons like "the long arm of the law"). I still think that it's the best copy protection EVER in a game.

Pitfall II (5200 version)
Nobody belived that whole extra level existed until they saw it. Everyone thought that I was making it up, and I even wondered if it existed. I remember playing that extra level and feeling like it was a dream of mine. I would wake up the next morning, and try it again, because it didn't seem real! One of my favorite games of all time, with a hidden level, the size of the original!

[jaydubnb]

I believe this rumor was started by EGM via one of their April Fool's jokes (help, my memory is a lil fuzzy) but everyone was trying to score nothing but "PERFECT!" matches in SF2 by defeating the computer using only Ryu's dragon punch in order to unlock Sheng Long.

In my 'hood there was another SF2 rumor, but for the SNES home cart. If you remember, there was a code ( i forget what it is ) that allowed 1p and 2p to use the same characters. The rumor was that if you inputted the code and hit the "X" button afterwards, you'd unlock Sagat!

[jonjandran]

Getting to world -1 in Super Mario Bros.
Back when it was a rumor , I tried for weeks to do it and couldn't.
I started to think it was BS . And then one day I did it !!!!
Imagine my disgust when I found out it was just a never ending water-world where you eventually just died. :embarrassed:

[ubersaurus]

I remember people claiming that there was a chocolate factory in Super Mario Bros. and I searched long and hard to find it. Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

[Raccoon Lad]

I can't think of anything other than the classic arcade Spy Hunter rumor.
(the on where you get to the graveyard level, and the guy stops and gets out of the car)

[buttasuperb]

I believe this rumor was started by EGM via one of their April Fool's jokes (help, my memory is a lil fuzzy) but everyone was trying to score nothing but "PERFECT!" matches in SF2 by defeating the computer using only Ryu's dragon punch in order to unlock Sheng Long.

I think it was something more along the lines of fighting 10 rounds in a row against Bison each time getting a draw (or maybe each character not getting hit at all) and after the 10th round Sheng Long was supposed to come in and throw Bison out of the screen and fight you. LOL

[The Unknown Gamer]

I know a couple of them like:
The nude Lara Croft code for Tomb Raider PS1 FALSE
The revive Aeris code for FF7 FALSE

Heres something that turned out to be true. Enter magazine back in 1984 reported that Coleco was in serious talks with RCA to bring out a CED player add on for it's Adam computer. So games like Space Ace and Dragons Lair could come out for it. But bexause of the big game crash of 1985 it never happend.

[Neil Koch]

In my 'hood there was another SF2 rumor, but for the SNES home cart. If you remember, there was a code ( i forget what it is ) that allowed 1p and 2p to use the same characters. The rumor was that if you inputted the code and hit the "X" button afterwards, you'd unlock Sagat!

There was a Game Genie code that allowed you to play as the bosses and some mags printed the screens from that.

[Half Japanese]

I remember hearing about the negative worlds in Mario and though "man that's full of shit" only to have that rumor confirmed a few years later.

I also remember that a friend of mine told me that when you beat Mario Bros. you started over and all of the levels were different and there were different enemies (I specifically remember he said there were butterflies). Weird.

[Jorpho]

Technically, I believe the fancy player was supposed to be for the Colecovision.

Colecovision paid so much money for the rights to the home version of Dragon's Lair that when the player was cancelled, they released an... odd version for the ADAM anyway.
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[Mayhem]

Three do spring to mind immediately...

1) The EGM Sheng Long April Fool as mentioned before.

2) In a similar stunt, a UK Nintendo mag ran a spoof feature whereby if you weighted a Mortal Kombat cartridge for the SNES in such a way (using a coin) then blood mode would be activated!

3) The Pitfall III hoax... probably the first retro spoof done in modern times.

[TheRedEye]

Street Fighter 2 rumors were a goddam mess. Remember Guile chucking his comb? E. Honda jumping in the bath?

I started one for fun, long ago. It involved an interactive tea party if you beat Metroid really really quickly. I think I fooled exactly one person.

[GrandAmChandler]

"Your playstation has less chance of breaking when played upsidedown."

I had a customer when I was working at FuncoLand swear by this

[o2william]

Someone once told a friend of mine that if you beat Dracula in the original Castlevania using only the Axe, he'd turn into a giant bat (not his normal "spirit" form). We tried it, but of course it didn't work.

Another persistent rumor is that if you beat NES Metroid fast enough or with a certain secret password, Samus will appear naked at the end. What's weird is that I have a DISTINCT memory of Samus appearing naked the first time I beat the game using the JUSTIN BAILEY code. But I've never been able to do it again, and all the FAQs out there state that there is no nude code, so I guess I imagined the whole thing (wishful thinking maybe?).

[RetroYoungen]

I remember some of those kids when I was a gamer in high school kept telling me that the PS3 is going to be released in 2004, and it's going to be 1000x more powerful than anything other computer in the world. It's funny, they told me this like a week after the PS2 launch! I don't know for sure, but at least a few of them may post on the GameFAQ boards...

[Zaxxon]

The EGM? hoax that you could unlock Ryu in RE2.

The story about you can get Smurfette to "lift her dress" in Smurf Rescue for CV. I still see this reported as fact in books and magazines. :roll:

[jonjandran]

"Your playstation has less chance of breaking when played upsidedown."

I had a customer when I was working at FuncoLand swear by this
Well that one is true. The track that holds the laser up to the cd gets worn out and the laser gets farther away from the cd, which causes it not to read the cd.
If you were to play it ONLY upside down then the track would never wear out and it would never have that problem.
The majority of PS1's that won't read a CD will if you turn them upside down because it allows the laser to fall down closer to the cd again allowing it to read it properly.

[Kid Ice]

-In the Kung Fu Master arcade game, there is a weird graphical glitch at the end of the 1st level, under the stairs. It appears that there is a wooden board under one of the stairs, and there is something behind it. It was rumored back in the day that you could break that "board", and get a huge bonus by obtaining what is under the stairs.

-Battlezone arcade games; I heard a million times that you could drive to the mountains. This rumor flies in the face of common sense since the mountains NEVER get any larger, no matter what you do. Yet the rumor persisted, with the neighborhood champions insisting they had in fact done it.

-Mattel always compared Intellivision games to Atari games in their commercials because they were too scared to compare them to Odyssey 2 games.

-Also back in the day, there were constantly rumors about how some cartridges would work in competing systems. The most common rumor was that some Colecovision carts would work on the 2600. Also, when the M-Network games came out, two rumors came along; one, that you could snap off that plastic piece at the end and make them work on an Intellivision, two, that you could place that plastic piece on any Intellivision game to make it work on a 2600.

[Kid Fenris]

The EGM? hoax that you could unlock Ryu in RE2.

It was actually Akuma that EGM2 stuck in Resident Evil 2. It's among the more convincing of the April Fool's pranks, since Akuma seems a more likely hidden character than Tofu.

I was taken in by the General Leo rumor in Final Fantasy III, after some kid at my school claimed that there was a way to make him permanently join your party. And there was a time when I believed the same thing about Golbez in Final Fantasy II. Fool me once . . .

[Bratwurst]

Street Fighter 2 rumors were a goddam mess. Remember Guile chucking his comb? E. Honda jumping in the bath?

Ha. I remember one about Guile pulling out a knife to stab his opponents. Most likely a misinterpretation of the sonic boom move or whatever.

Before the internet went big there were rumors of a code for Sonic the Hedgehog at my school that let you play as the enemy characters. Of course that was just the debug code.

My personal favorite was the alleged 3-D Sonic title that was slated for the 32X but turned out to be merely a video demo for a theme park.

[john_soper]

Before the PS2 came out, I heard crazy rumours that it would be
miles ahead of the competition with its "emotion engine" that would not only draw a tree with polygons, but would draw every single leaf on a tree.

Of course all this BS had nothing to do with the official word from Sony
.
.
.
.
Actually, just now I remembered all that BS was the official word from Sony

[slapdash]

The story about you can get Smurfette to "lift her dress" in Smurf Rescue for CV. I still see this reported as fact in books and magazines. :roll:

Yeah, that's BS.

She actually drops it.

(well, okay, it's actually just an odd graphical glitch)

[badinsults]

I always remember this rumor about a beanstalk being in level 1-2 in Super Mario Bros. I spent months looking for it.

[SoulBlazer]

Christ, Slapdash! Could you make that final comment any smaller then 3 point pont? LOL

[Captain Wrong]

The story about you can get Smurfette to "lift her dress" in Smurf Rescue for CV. I still see this reported as fact in books and magazines. :roll:

Yeah, that's BS.

She actually drops it.

(well, okay, it's actually just an odd graphical glitch)

Yeah, I was thinking that too. I've gotten this to work, but it's been a while and seeing this questioned, made me question my own memory.

How about some more old school action?

-2600 Donkey Kong missing levels. I heard a variety of different ways to supposedly accomplish this. And of course I knew at least 1 or 2 people claiming they saw them.

-Alternate ranks in Star Raiders. I'm pretty sure I remember someone claiming to get something other than the standard rankings. May have just been my neighbor hood.

-2600 Pac-Man. Lots of rumours/wishful thinking about this. Intermission levels was the one I remember.

-Arcade Pac-Man. Was I the only one who heard there were gold bars beyond the keys?

-Battlezone, someone already mentioned.

[CX2K]

I remember that there was a ton of these when I was a kid although I can't remember most of them at the moment.

I do remember the Battlezone arcade one about getting to the mountains.

A big rumor on the home side was that there was a way to get to the elevator screen in 2600 Donkey Kong.

The rumor about the hidden message in Adventure (which obviously was true).

There are several rumors of hidden messages and such in Atari Computer hardware/firmware. The early versions of the Atariwriter cart supposedly have a hidden game as well as a graphic demo in them.

A reliable ex-Atari employee once told me that virually every piece of Atari hardware has some hidden message built-in to the firmware, including the 1050 disk drive. Of course nobody ever has any facts on how to do it. :)

Great topic! Hope I remember more.

John

[bargora]

-Arcade Pac-Man. Was I the only one who heard there were gold bars beyond the keys?
And if you chomp them just as they flash white, they are worth ten times as much!