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The 50 Weirdest Moments in PC Gaming
Via GameSetWatch, a feature on the personal site of the well-traveled games journalist Richard Cobbett. The Circe Du Strange details fifty of the strangest, most out-of-place game elements in the history of PC gaming. From classic text adventures to games released in the last few years, the piece outlines some mighty odd design decisions. "30) Command and Cretaceous - While the original Command and Conquer suffered from really bad expansion packs, the first offered a particular entertaining secret. Adding the -funpark parameter when running the game opened up a top secret set of five missions that pitted the standard armies of GDI and Nod against. dinosaurs. For no reason. There was even a briefing movie and bonus music track. And developers Westwood didn't even mention it."
Oddest ever: Solid Snake on Super Smash Bros
WulframII - Free Online Mutiplayer 3D Tank Shooting Game
Raiden. Nude. Sack. 'Nuff said.
Adding the -funpark parameter when running the game opened up a top secret set of five missions that pitted the standard armies of GDI and Nod against. dinosaurs. For no reason. There was even a briefing movie and bonus music track. And developers Westwood didn't even mention it.
On behalf of the last few decades, I'd like to welcome you to the computer industry and something called "easter eggs".
I think it was Heretic 2 (based on the Quake engine) where you type "GOD" in the game console, you got a message saying, "So you think you're God?" and bad guys would appear out of nowhere to kill you. I don't remember what the code word was for god mode. Maybe it was "DOG".
WTF Zonk?
I couldn't get to the page... here's the cache version from google: http://72.14.209.104/search?q=cache:jT6FOBaQYw8J:w ww.richardcobbett.co.uk/codex/articlelibrary/filin gcabinet/the_50_weirdest_moments_in_pc_gaming/+htt p://www.richardcobbett.co.uk/codex/articlelibrary/ filingcabinet/the_50_weirdest_moments_in_pc_gaming /&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us&client=firefox-a
They're not all easter eggs. One of the items, for example, is pointing out the inherent weirdness of cross-dressing in FF7, instead of just--y'know--using your 7-foot sword to bust up the bad guys who've taken Tifa.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
Depends on how you define "oddball"... I can remember finding that "invisible dot" in the Atari 2600 Adventure game and thinking "WTH?!?"
Don't tell me to get a life. I'm a gamer; I have LOTS of lives!
with the Throne of Bhaal expansion iirc.
:)
In the middle of a cave/dungeon you encounter another party of adventurers, a low-level party; they're bragging about having Magic Missile, etc. (you're about level 8-9 at this point i think). one of them walks up to you and starts talking, the conversation goes south and you end up fighting each other, and you destroy them with no effort...
once you kill them all you see the "Loading save-game" window appear and there you both are BEFORE the fight. they choose a different course of action this time around and you part ways
That game was absolutely incredible, but that particular bit with your dead sister was pretty disturbing. Which is saying a lot considering what else went on in it...
... that Zonk posted a slashdot article about how playing video games is like eating out pussy?
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
And this story is filed under "Politics" because...?
[Slashdot Comments We Liked]
http://www.richardcobbett.co.uk.nyud.net:8090/code x/articlelibrary/filingcabinet/the_50_weirdest_mom ents_in_pc_gaming/
The Skingrad potions master starts asking weird questions about necrophilia for no apparent reason. Boy is that ever creepy.
--
Toro
Phantasmagoria is actually pretty disturbing, with 6 (or was it 7?) depicted murders and a rape scene (oddly enough, while both parties are fully clothed... I guess Sierra isn't that risque).
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
The server seems Slashdotted, so I haven't read the article, but for me the prize goes to Fahrenheit (Indigo Prophesy in the US) a.k.a Our Dog Ate the Last Third of the Script, Honest.
CONTAINS SPOILERS:
Lukas Kane, the main character, dies early in the game, but like Neo comes back to life with SuperMatrixPowers. Later in the game as the earth is about to end, there is a tender love scene between him and policewoman Carla Valenti (this scene was removed in the US version of course...). First I thought - nice, a fairly adult treatment of love and sex (unlike Samantha's earlier strip scene in front of Tyler), sort of a "two people at the end of the world seeking comfort in each other" thing. But then I remembered - Lukas is dead! People in the game have commented that he doesn't breathe anymore, his skin is cold and he doesn't have a pulse! Sooo wrong... The Wikipedia article has a nice explanation for the botched ending though.
Being bitter is drinking poison and hoping someone else will die
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Ice_(video_game) would most definatly qualify for me. I still load it up occasionally to try and work out what the hell is going on. Apparently even the authors walkthrough doesn't really help you finish the game.
Also Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time Master Quest - The Lord Jabu-Jabu's belly level. Every switch (which in the first game had been nice normal crystals) has been replaced by a cow, usually sticking half out of the wall or ceiling.
...where you have to lure undead farmers to the mill, kill them,put them in the mill and turn them into ground meat, which you then hide in a barrel. In a subsequent quest in the same sequence, you are given a barrel of "URT Certified Meat" to feed to a bunch of redcaps. The meat turns out to be rather off, and you have to go destroy the witnesses to protect the reputation of URT...
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
An easter egg in Myth II Soulblighter opened a new level where you fought deer. Oh, and they exploded. The goal was actually to get enough of them together that the chain reaction would take out enough of the opposing force.
--
$tar -xvf
No Assassination of Lord British?
I never played UO, but that story was fun to read from the "bad guy's" perspective
I like music
I really enjoyed reading through the list, and esp. #50 was quite moving. Wasn't there a couple who celebrated a quake II / III based real life wedding in VR? I seem to recall a /. story from a couple of years back, that would have fit nicely on that list, too ("you may now frag the bride" ;-)
Ever wondered whats wrong with the world? http://www.ishmael.org/
I agree. I read the article yesterday, and some of the author's explanations make no sense at all. I mean, none. It's basically incoherent rambling, leaving the reader more confused about the events than before - even if he knew what the author was talking about.
It's not just easter eggs, but a really odd and incoherent collection of stuff they found weird in games, or about games, or somewhat related to games... and some of it isn't even weird if you think about it.
;) At any rate, unless you know what the real castle looks like, chances are you'd never suspect anything in the game.
E.g., they pick on the fact that the main character in Undying was designed to be appealing to a gay man. Well, having played the game, you wouldn't notice it, and certainly not think there's anything weird about that character. He's not camp or a cross-dresser, he's just a young and fit Irish soldier, fresh from the trenches. He'd probably look just as sexy to a woman too, and, honestly, there was no point where I thought "dude, this guy looks gay". If anything, it's a fit and macho kind of a character, not the effeminate kind. I can live with playing a character like that.
If I'm allowed the detour, though, reading the whole story just gives me one of the details that _do_ make me say, "thank goodness they asked a real novellist for help." I mean, I knew they had originally crammed all the worst cliches in a game until Clive Barker talked them out of it. Now I find out that the protagonist was supposed to be some _count_ too. How cliche is that in a supernatural theme?
E.g., under "The Art of Evil" they pick on... not something from an actual game, but on Sony's reaction to a player's distasteful fanfic about Dark Elves.
E.g., "Twisty History" has them pick on the fact that Sierra heavily photoshopped a castle, instead of using the real castle. Well, gee, ya think that games might not really match reality? I never would have guessed
E.g., "Strumpets of Silicon" picks on erotic clips or movies where some porn star dressed like Lara Croft. I'm kinda at a loss how that would count as weird, much less as weird in _gaming_.
E.g., "The Madness of Malkavians" is even weirder in itself, picking on something that's expected and a trait of that bloodline. Newsflash: Malkavians _are_ mad, and ghouls _do_ pick the traits of their master. It's like elves having long ears or dwarves being short: that's the whole idea. It would have been weird if you played a Malkavian and you were perfectly sane.
Plus, if they actually wanted to pick on something weird from that particular game, there's a scene where you talk with the news anchor on your TV set, and he tells you a joke.
E.g., "Plot, The Magic Dragons" sees them picking on the fact that an old PC RPG's has... quests. No, really, you end up doing quests for some dragons instead of instantly hacking and slashing them, and everything else that moves! How weird is that? Well, not at all. Just because PC RPGs for a long while meant just dumb hack and slash, doesn't make quests weird.
E.g., "The Mother / Whore Dichotomy" picks on the fact that Roberta Williams posed as Mother Goose on the cover of one game, and as one of the supposedly naked girls (you can't actually see anything naughty, if you ask me) in a jacuzi on the cover of Softporn Adventure.
First of all, it seems to me like it's a false dichotomy in the first place, as one can jolly well be both if she so chooses. (Even prostitutes and porn stars have kids, you know. Plus, where do you think pregnant porn comes from?)
Second, and more importantly, being seen from the collarbone upwards in a jacuzi doesn't make one a whore. Now if she had sex on camera or something, that might qualify as a "whore", but if showing a bit of skin makes one a whore, then you've just filed 99% of actresses and singers as "whores". It takes a mindset worst than even the biblethumping belt to go that far. And having worked on a softcore game doesn't make one a whore. It can mean anything ranging from "oh well, I'm not going to hand in my resignation just because the company makes a softcore game", to not giving a damn about it, to actually having some interest in softcore... which isn't horribly weird even among women. At any rate, it's ju
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Sorry you didn't enjoy the article. The print version that appeared featured pictures for each of the entries, which may have helped clarify a few of them (for instance, there was a big picture of The Secret Of Monkey Island alongside the Guybrush one that you'd almost certainly recognise if you were a PC gamer). The web version only uses a handful in order to conserve bandwidth.
Ah, Malkavians... Not just one of the weirdest moments in gaming, one of the most beautifully written ones. Anyone else ever play the game just for the Malkavian dialogue?
[clever sig]
the WOW funeral raid...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TSGUf1xbF8
pwned
They throw up "Jeff Minter made some games with odd names / concepts", and then go with something relatively pedestrian (in name) like "Attack of the Mutant Camels". (Which is largely just what happens if you code while taking drugs and watching "The Empire Strikes Back", anyway). "Metagalactic Llamas Battle at the Edge of Time". Now *that's* a title.
This encounter happens in Abazigal`s Lair, the 4th dungeon of the Throne Of Bhaal expansion.
:)
-Your party is roughlty level 30 to 35 at this point; epic heroes that slay dragons and eat demiliches for breakfast. Of course, this only make the situation funnier
I never spellcheck and I freely admit it. Save your karma for more worthwhile "lol erorrs" replies
Remember the secret level of Rise of the Triad that had a bunch of wall tiles with "You do not Belong Here" written on them? That was just creepy.
Then there's the Holy Grail game where after the Black Knight kills you it asks if you want to go back to the moment before you die. If you select yes, it shows you keel over and die again. Then the game asks if you'd like to go back to a few minutes before you die and you can continue as normal.
Do you remember in Duke Nukem: Forever, when um, you could press the one button.
And well. I don't know, but this seems like a very slashdotty post to make.
The first time I played the "secret cow level" in Diablo II, I almost fell off my chair laughing.
The halberd wielding cows chasing you going mooo!! was hilarious.
If you hearded them together, you could use the exploding corpse spell to virutually annihilate them.
Just ask the good Jedi how they feel about "Balance" now...
Because Senators Jack Thompson and Joe Lieberman would denounce it if they didn't. Duh!
The wikipedia article for the expansions appears to confirm this wikipedia article[wikipedia.com]
My two favorites (I have both games)
You can't commit suicide with a .45 magnum in Car Wars. People have 3 hit points- 1 wounds you, 2 makes you unconcious and 3 kills you. A heavy pistol does 2 points of damage...
In a civil war game about the battle of Pea Ridge, there's a rule called "Designer's Great Great Grandfather". The DGGG was an officer in one confederate unit in the game. Every time that unit takes damage, you have to see if the DGGG is killed. If so, the game ends instantly without a winner since it's obvious the game couldn't possibly exist
"Seven Deadly Sins? I thought it was a to-do list!"
Why the heck did he describe Revenge of the Mutant Camels when talking about Attack of the Mutant Camels? That ain't journalism, my friend. Or was he just on the same stuff as Jeff?
HAL.
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
this article is by some smackoff with nothing better to do.
The entire series is weird, but the weirdest is a level in EWJ2, where for no apparent reason Jim dresses up like a blind salamander and swims around in a giant intestine (which is the summer home of professor monkey-for-a-head), avoiding the pinball bumpers, all set to the tune of Beethoven's moonlight sonata.
The boss of that level? First a quiz show, then a "Simon says" game with the bumpers.
Gods, I loved that game.
You can't take the sky from me...
Given that your webserver can't handle the load of providing the text to people right now, wouldn't it have made more sense just to give all the graphics? No one can read it at all without the cache anyway. (At least it never loaded for me in the five minutes I took reading the cached article and looking things up on wikipedia.) I found the article utterly underwhelming without images.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
this list is pretty thorough, Vangers is easily the weirdest game i've ever played.
How much is your data worth? Back it up now.
I believe it was Karateka, a side-scrolling martial arts rescue-the-girl game.
If you inserted the disk upside-down, the game would boot and play upside down.
I love the part in the first chapter of the first game that happens off screen:
...gophers!
THOK
THOK
SMAK
Guybrush comes out and places back the priceless Ming to its place.
Guybrush : Better leave this here.
(proceeds back to the room)
THOK
ooh!
Hypnotize quarrelsome rhinoceros
ow!
KRASH!
Push
Sheriff : No!
Push red button
Sheriff : Not the red button!
KABOOM
WUMP
WUMP
WUMP
WUMP
Look at tremendous yak
Guybrush : It's a big, ugly, hairy yak wearing some wax lips.
Push tremendous dangerous-looking yak
Guybrush : I can't move it.
Pull tremendous dangerous-looking yak
Guybrush : I can't move it.
Pick up staple remover
Use staple remover on tremendous dangerous-looking yak
THOK
Suddenly, the painting is shocked and Guybrush is thrown through it, making
a hole in the wall.
Walk to books
Pick up Manual of Style
Guybrush : I'll need this. I must be nuts!
(jumps back into the hole he made earlier)
Pick up wax lips
THOK
KRASH
Guybrush : (loud voice) Acck!
Pick up gopher repellent
Use gopher repellent with gopher
Use gopher repellent with another gopher
Use gopher repellent with gopher horde
Use gopher repellent with funny little man
SMAK!
KRASH
Look at fabulous idol
Guybrush : It's beautiful!
Open lock
Guybrush : I can't open it. Uh, oh!
Pick up heavy chair
Use heavy chair with sheriff
THOK
Guybrush appears from the door on the second floor.
Guybrush : That should hold him for a while! If only I had a file I could get the idol!
In Morrowind, or an expansion, there was a vast ancient dweemer hold. The story explained the dweemers had disappeared suddenly (act of god type thing), and sure enough there were little ash piles everywhere a dweemer has died. In one residence, there were two ash piles on a bed, plus a "dweemer tube" (like a vacuum tube the size of a banana) on one ash pile, and a jar of "dweemer oil" on the bedside table. After I got done laughing I opened the other door to leave, and found another ashpile outside the door, lined up with the door's keyhole.
I don't think the last 30 minutes -reading the top 50- count in my boss's list of acceptable slashdot reading...
Okay, maybe not weird in a "the walls are green way.. but) Oh - wait it IS exactly like that...
In the latest Thief game, it's a typical day in the slums when you have to go to an insane asylum to gather some evidence. What happens next is probably the oddest and coolest thing that I've seen in a long time. And it gets odder and more twisted as time goes on... And the way you get out of it is the best(won't spoil it). Let's just say the game's mature rating comes completely from this section.
Very disturbing and very scary. Like playing a FPS version of a Twilight Zone episode. Way more disturbing than Fear. Best part of the game - and definitely worth checking out. You'll know when it starts to get weird - it's in your face obvious.
Then it was back to the Quake-like normal game as if nothing had happened. Total non-sequitor moment that made you wonder what in the world possessed the developers to actually come up with this gem.
- The other one that stuck in my mind was the game Alice. Not the game, mind you, which single-handedly destroyed any childhood image of Alice in Wonderland that you've ever had with a 2x4 upside your head, but the website. You can still find it on the wayback machine - without a doubt the most disturbing game site ever made. just... something so very wrong with how she looked and talked at you...
(yes, the computer world needs far more horror, IMO)
Have you heard? Paris Hilton was sent back to jail in tears!
Cloud in a dress made me bi.