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Recently I've become a fan of reading about video game hoaxes and urban legends. Most of the ones I find are complete bullshit, and always have to do with the original Pokemon games to some degree. For example, that the Lavender Town music made some kids commit suicide. Or stupid myths involving things in Zelda games that would even be technically possible on N64 hardware. However, I have stumbled across some good ones, some of which are more well known then others. If you know any, feel free to share them, I find this stuff really interesting. Shen Long in Street Fighter Probably the most famous one. One of the win quotes in Street Fighter 2 had a mistranslated version of the attack Shoryuken. The original victory phrase was "You must defeat my Dragon Punch to stand a chance!" It was translated as "You must defeat Shen Long to stand a chance!" This caused Electronic Gaming Monthly to create what was probably the biggest prank in video game history. They convinced players that Shen Long was a hidden character in Street Fighter 2, and to unlock him you had to complete the game in an absurdly difficult way. Eventually, it was revealed as an April Fool's Joke, and players were furious. The character Gouken in Street Fighter 4 is more or less based on Shen Long. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheng_Long Polybuis This one is a crazy urban legend that is said to have originated on Usenet. Essentially, a new prototype arcade game was released that proved to be incredibly popular. Many players became addicted, with cases of insomnia, nightmares, and suicide apparently. There were also rumors that the FBI was monitoring players that achieved high scores. To this date there is no evidence it exists, but I guess a ROM was released about two years ago. It seems like a pretty normal game, but I could see how it would bother someone with epilepsy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polybius_%28game%29 Killswitch This one is really bizarre and difficult to even explain. The gist of it is that it was a Russian PC game with a very limited run, about 10,000 copies. Upon completion, it would delete itself. It is (in)famous because there were puzzles and levels that players never found ways to complete. The game took place in a Russian factory that was inhabited by demons. Like I said, its difficult to explain what this game is even about, but you can read more here: http://invisiblegames.net/archives/killswitch/ Phantom The Phantom was a game console that basically played PC games. It had a ton of hype and then was never released. I really can't say much more about it because I can't find any information on it. I've heard it was some sort of investment scam. So if anyone else has any good ones, feel free to share!
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Aug 30, 2010 21:47
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SpaceBees posted:
This is pretty cool. I hope people have more stories like this instead of crap about their friend telling them how to find mew.
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Aug 30, 2010 21:58
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I think one of my personal favorites is the statue in Super Mario 64 that reads L IS REAL 2041. That one little message sparked tons of debate and rumors about Luigi being hidden and unlockable in thousands of increasingly ridiculous ways.
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Aug 30, 2010 22:03
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Shadow Ninja 64 posted:I think one of my personal favorites is the statue in Super Mario 64 that reads L IS REAL 2041. That one little message sparked tons of debate and rumors about Luigi being hidden and unlockable in thousands of increasingly ridiculous ways. Did anyone ever ask someone at Nintendo what the texture was actually supposed to say? I've heard a lot of people saying it's intended to read "Eternal Star," but I don't know if that's ever been confirmed.
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Aug 30, 2010 22:09
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I can't believe I forgot the Fallout 3 one. http://www.gamesradar.com/f/is-this-the-most-elaborate-gaming-hoax-of-all-time/a-2010080395712304064 There were messages hidden in Fallout 3 Morse code that you could pick up on the radio. You could only do so after killing Free Dog and going to very specific areas of the world. The creepy thing is what was actually IN the messages. Players decrypted the Morse code and this is what they got. Mainly these ones: quote:“The Queen has died today. The world mourns, as on days like these we are all Brits.” 4:02 March 19, 2014 quote:“I can’t believe they’ve actually done it. Not long left. They were warned, but they just had to keep pushing the boundaries of science. The noise. I can’t take the noise anymore. And the light, dear God! The universe is slowly unraveling around us. I’m not going to wait for death. I have a pistol in the attic.” This is actually the only message not preceded by a string of numbers. Now if you read that GamesRadar article, Bethesda denies all of it, including banning anyone on the forums that mentions it. But here's the thing..those messages are in the stock, vanilla version of Fallout 3. Someone put them there intentionally. Chalk this one up as a really creepy easter egg?
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Aug 30, 2010 22:10
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No it's not an easter egg it's literally just something a guy made up. Nothing of the sort is in the game.
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Aug 30, 2010 22:15
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The morse code messages are there, but they're not the ones it's talking about. Besides, considering how easy it is to mod Fallout 3 wouldn't the sound files be easily extractable from the game data?
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Aug 30, 2010 22:15
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Magnificent Quiver posted:No it's not an easter egg it's literally just something a guy made up. Nothing of the sort is in the game. Alright, well that one is debunked. I've been reading about a "T-Virus" mass cell phone text spam marketing campaign for Reisdent Evil 4 back in 2004. Anyone have any information on this?
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Aug 30, 2010 22:16
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If you press A a thousand times the truck moves over a square and you can fight Mew.
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Aug 30, 2010 22:17
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Category Fun! posted:The morse code messages are there, but they're not the ones it's talking about. Besides, considering how easy it is to mod Fallout 3 wouldn't the sound files be easily extractable from the game data? Plus it's pretty unremarkable to predict that the Queen will die at the ripe old age of 88. Shocking.
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Aug 30, 2010 22:18
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Goddamn it, I love this kinda poo poo. Does anyone here remeber the Bigfoot myth and the Leatherface myth from GTA San Andreas? There were people even here in Brazil who had heard about that bullshit. Some even believed it.
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Aug 30, 2010 22:20
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Luigi Thirty posted:If you press A a thousand times the truck moves over a square and you can fight Mew. No you have to teach all of your pokemon to use STRENGTH. Also first quote: Category Fun! posted:This is pretty cool. I hope people have more stories like this instead of crap about their friend telling them how to find mew.
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Aug 30, 2010 22:21
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SpaceBees posted:
"I can't believe that he went and did it. Six people dead and an entire server company destroyed in a freak inferno. Can't say I'm not pleased about it though. Maybe that'll show those bastards that mutants ARE allowed." 3:57 November 26, 2010
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Aug 30, 2010 22:21
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SpaceBees posted:Killswitch Hell with the other stuff, I want to learn more about this.
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Aug 30, 2010 22:21
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 There is no cow level
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Aug 30, 2010 22:22
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Yeah, Killswitch seems very interesting. Is it really impossible to stop it from deleting itself or to copy it?
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Aug 30, 2010 22:22
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RBA Starblade posted:Hell with the other stuff, I want to learn more about this. Unfortunately I can't find any other information about it. I found a supposed "ROM" but its on Rapidshare so its probably a virus or something. Read about the other games on that page, they are equally bizarre.
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Aug 30, 2010 22:23
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Ermac in Mortal Kombat. Before MK3 his existence was a rumor that began from an "ERMAC" listing in the MK1 audit menu. The counter apparently incremented when reptile or scorpion was mistakenly displayed with red instead of green/yellow. There still isn't really a solid source of agreeing information on any of this.
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Aug 30, 2010 22:23
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SpaceBees posted:Killswitch Too bad looking at that page hurts my eyes, I would like to know more about that game.
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Aug 30, 2010 22:25
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In 2002, EGM printed as an April Fools' joke that you could unlock Sonic & Tails in Super Smash Bros. Melee if you could beat 20 opponents in Cruel Melee mode. I think I remember beating 19 of them at most before I realized it was a prank that someone told me. Apparently, after revealing the prank, EGM then held a contest where those who sent in videos proving they accomplished over 20 KOs in Cruel Melee would win a copy of Sonic Adventure 2 Battle.
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Aug 30, 2010 22:26
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Kizuna Encounter A really obscure fighting game by SNK. Really not that hard to find an arcade copy. What is hard to find though, is a copy of the PAL Neo Geo version. Apparently only 5 copies have ever been witnessed sold, making one of, if not the rarest game of all time. http://www.racketboy.com/retro/2006/10/holy-grails-of-console-game-collecting-2.html Were those five people full of poo poo? Makes you think if someone is holding on to a Neo Geo port that's worth 13 grand.
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Aug 30, 2010 22:27
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Bubble Bobble You pressed the buttons in a coded way to get all of the power-ups at the start of the game. This was a huge urban legend that no one really believed. I was badly addicted to Bubble Bobble and a friend and I would play it after school at the local variety store. We walked in one day and there was a kid playing who knew the code! It was unbelievable! He taught us the code and we committed it to memory and passed it along to every other Bubble Bobble player that we came across. Keep in mind, this was the '80s, long long long before the internet and word of mouth was the only way this secret was passed around. I don't think any other coin-op game did this but I could be wrong.
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Aug 30, 2010 22:28
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SpaceBees posted:Killswitch Man I want to hear more about this one. It sounds amazing. Does that mean once it's installed, that's it? You can't reinstall it? Once it's beaten, it's done for good? How would it even be possible to play as an invisible character?
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Aug 30, 2010 22:29
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SpaceBees posted:Kizuna Encounter Digital Press also heard of those rumors, and have it listed. Not sure if anybody there has verified that it actually sold that high.
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Aug 30, 2010 22:31
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Alberto Basalm posted:Yeah, Killswitch seems very interesting. Is it really impossible to stop it from deleting itself or to copy it?  I don't think that story's actually true.The one in the OP that interested me the most was Polybius, because that actually sounds like there's a nugget of truth in it. I could believe that there was a Polybius cabinet at some point, it had flashing graphics that gave a few people seizures so it was canceled and recalled, then people started attributing a bunch of made up stuff to it so over time this myth grew around it. Killswitch just sounds like somebody in a college creative writing class made up a spooky story off the top of their head: quote:To find any copy usable today is an almost unfathomably rare occurance; a still shrink-wrapped copy was sold at auction in 2005 for $733,000 to Yamamoto Ryuichi of Tokyo. It is entirely possible that Yamamoto’s is the last remaining copy of the game. Knowing this, Yakamoto had intended to open his play to all enthusiasts, filming and uploading his progress. However, to date, the only film which has surfaced is a one minute and forty five second clip of a haggard Yamamoto at his computer, the avatar-choice screen visible over his right shoulder.
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Aug 30, 2010 22:33
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The Killswitch story sounds neat until you start to think for a few seconds. How do you make a file that can't be copied, and how do you make something that will delete itself to an 'unrecoverable' state? Maybe with magical fairy computers you can do this, but with real world computers if you have data on a disk, you can copy that data to another type of media. Especially in 1989. Data security back then mostly consisted of saying 'please don't copy this disk, thanks'. And for magically deleting itself... cut a little U in the side of the floppy disk. Boom, now it's write protected and can't magically delete itself.
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Aug 30, 2010 22:33
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Ace Oliveira posted:Goddamn it, I love this kinda poo poo. Does anyone here remeber the Bigfoot myth and the Leatherface myth from GTA San Andreas? There were people even here in Brazil who had heard about that bullshit. Some even believed it. Oh hey I missed this one. Actually, I think in San Andreas there was a bug that would spawn an NPC that was texture-less and completely black. He popped out of nowhere so it scared a lot of players. Pretty sure it wasn't intentional though. The whole Leatherface thing might be based off that.
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Aug 30, 2010 22:34
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My Uncle works at Nintendo and he told me...
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Aug 30, 2010 22:34
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Yeah, I don't think Killswitch is an actual game... But I enjoyed the story.
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Aug 30, 2010 22:36
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I think that whole site is fake bullshit, actually
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Aug 30, 2010 22:37
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Pig in Dampe's Graveyard I don't know how far-reaching this was, but it was pretty big rumor in the Ocarina of Time board on GameFAQs. The rumor was, during the race with Dampe as Adult Link (which gave you the Longshot, I think), you could come across a pig or pig-like enemy. One guy started the rumor with a "Strange Creature" topic, which got a lot of attention. Tons of people tried to replicate this trick, with some saying the succeeded. To my knowledge, no photos or video of the enemy was ever shown. But it was pretty interesting seeing people trying to find this pig. Going back to the board years later to find an answer, apparently the "pig" was some sort of glitch that only occurs in the first 50 copies of OoT released in Japan. One guy just got lucky and had a game with the glitch. Seems like an oddly rare glitch then. Also I don't recall the original poster saying anything about having a japanese copy, but it has been awhile.
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Aug 30, 2010 22:38
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Yeah, reading through the rest seems to give that impression as well. Still interesting, though.
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Aug 30, 2010 22:38
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0staf posted:
And don't forget the chat gem that will let you fight a super diablo! (Although they eventually did have a super diablo you could fight, just not through the chat gem) I wonder what ridiculous rumor Diablo 3 will have 
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Aug 30, 2010 22:39
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Heroic Yoshimitsu posted:Pig in Dampe's Graveyard There was the classic Zelda: Ocarina of Time one where everyone came up with ridiculous ways you can get the Triforce. The indentation was right there on the quest status screen so everyone thought you could get it.
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Aug 30, 2010 22:39
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Ace Oliveira posted:Too bad looking at that page hurts my eyes, I would like to know more about that game.
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Aug 30, 2010 22:40
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Heroic Yoshimitsu posted:Pig in Dampe's Graveyard I really can't picture a production run of only 50 for a cart based game even if there was a glitch. Weren't carts HUGELY expensive to manufacture?
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Aug 30, 2010 22:42
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Buckwheat Sings posted:Man I want to hear more about this one. It sounds amazing. Does that mean once it's installed, that's it? You can't reinstall it? Once it's beaten, it's done for good? How would it even be possible to play as an invisible character? Yeah this Killswitch one sounds especially fake. Actually these all sound fake as hell, but a game that is uncopyable is pretty much impossible. Companies have been trying to make games uncopyable since their inception, but apparently they developed and perfected the technology in 1989? That said, I hear the Hideo Kojima has been fascinated by the idea of making a game you could only play once. The problem is that it's pretty much impossible to enforce it, and even if you could it would frustrate more people than it would impress. quote:I really can't picture a production run of only 50 for a cart based game even if there was a glitch. Weren't carts HUGELY expensive to manufacture? To further debunk this we have dumps of every version of the cartridge. If there really were a super rare version floating around someone would be clamoring to dump it. RadicalWall fucked around with this message at 22:45 on Aug 30, 2010 |
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Aug 30, 2010 22:43
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Killswitch is not a real game, but it's a pretty good work of fiction.
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Aug 30, 2010 22:44
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Yeah, apparently it's a 'creepypasta'. I had to google what the hell that means, and apparently it is a short story designed to be creepy.
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Aug 30, 2010 22:47
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Final Fantasy II (US)/IV (Japan) There's a door outline (like for a secret door that has a switch somewhere) in one of the chambers on the moon. I think the Namingway room. This in combination with the Pink item that had no apparent use led to all sorts of bullshit people spewed about what magic number of Pinks would result in that drat door opening. And what was behind the door was also a source of a lot of bullshit. IIRC, it's either just a glitch and there's no door there, or it's something they changed for the US version, and is something boring/unimportant in the Japanese version anyway. No great mystery, and nothing at all to do with those drat Pinks. The smiley face made out of craters on the moon, and the Mars face being a terrain feature there that had no obvious purpose also was a source of a lot of completely unfounded rumors, again usually linked to either Pinks or that drat door outline.
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Aug 30, 2010 22:49
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