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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."
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".
WTF Zonk?
Good cache
For Heretic 2 (Quake 2 based), the godmode command was "playbetter".
Raven had an interesting theme of easter eggs in the cheat codes. For Heretic, using Doom's godmode cheat would result in "Trying to cheat? That's one..." printing on the screen; type it two more times and you instantly die. Entering the all-weapons cheat for Doom would take away all your ammo and weapons and print "Cheater, you don't deserve weapons" on the screen. Of course, there were functional cheat codes, but they were different from the parent Id game.
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
Correction: All your bandwidth are belong to us.
File Deletion is Murder.
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
That reminds me of an old NES dungeon crawler where you actually could meet the game's programmers in some far off corner. They give you a quest to bring them coffee in exchange for an exclusive item. Fun idea.
I don't remember what the game was called, something with the word "Immortal" in the title I believe.
May you be touched by His Noodly Appendage. RAmen.
Oh, man, then have I got a story for you.
I discovered, when playing around with multiplayer one day (no internet at that time, so I used the bots) that you could alter the game's gravity setting. Cool.
I also discovered, shortly thereafter, that a bug in the game caused gravity settings to carry over into single-player mode.
In the game's 2nd level, there is a very short hallway one space wide, filled with several guards. 5 or 6 at least, all sardine-canned into this tiny corridor.
You may remember the Dark Staff, the weapon that takes a second or two to charge and then lets loose a great ball o' fury that hits one target and plows right through to the next one. And the next one. Anything in the direct line of fire between you and a wall is effectively toast.
EKG mode + Dark Staff + low gravity + that hallway = a shower of blood lasting several full minutes. The walls kept the gibs in a column-like formation and the game's code was still primitive enough that not all the gibs that ran into walls turned into the sliding drops of blood. The open ceiling of the hallway (between those weird metal support things that were all over in that game) allowed the "volcano" to get plenty of altitude.
The last time I remember having such wicked fun was cackling like a madman in Carmageddon 2 and scaring my friend's neighbours. Maybe I should get help.
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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!