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Rumors about games that turned out to be false


BassGuitari

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Like it says on the box. What were some things you'd heard about games that turned out to be nonsense?

"The Shrink Ray In Doom" This was one I heard from a kid at school when I was in 6th grade. As he told it, there was a super-secret shrink ray weapon in Doom, and that it could only be found in E1M9--the "secret" level--by shooting a specific section of wall in the main outdoor area with the BFG9000 some certain number of times, which would then open like a door and reveal a little room with the shrink ray in it. My memory is fuzzy but there may have been a component that required a specific and exact number of imps being killed or something, as well. And it wouldn't work if God Mode or No Clipping Mode had been activated at any point.

 

Looking back, I should have known better, even at the time. I had played both Doom and Doom II to death by then and I should have noticed that some things didn't add up. A) The BFG isn't even available in Episode 1, so you'd have to IDKFA, which would also give you any other weapon that exists in the game, top-secret or otherwise. B) Although many of the innumerable fan-made Doom mods and WADs released in the years since contain doors and switches that can be activated by shooting them, none exist in the original Doom. And even those usually can only be activated by bullet or shotgun weapons, not plasma weapons. C) No such super-secret room appears on the Automap, which IIRC even reveals monster closets. D) Doors in the original Doom can't open sideways, and having a door open into a sky-texture ceiling is very much at odds with the design philosophy of the game. E) Perusing the source code years later, there is nothing in there about any weapon other than the ones we all know.

But, like a dope, I tried it anyway, and soon decided that the kid made it up. :P

 

"The Seventh Star In GTAIII" A friend of my brother's purported that there was a way to get seven "wanted" stars in GTAIII, at which point a wizard would appear and shoot lightning at you. We saw through that one pretty much immediately--he might have had us if he hadn't said "wizards"--but it was still fun camping out and blowing up tanks and helicopters ad infinitum on the off-chance that maybe there was something to it. :-D

"Killing The Abominable Snow Monster In SkiFree" Word around the schoolyard was that the Yeti (as people call it now; we called it the Abominable Snow Monster) in SkiFree could be killed by leading it into a tree or chairlift pole. Many, many hours were spent unsuccessfully testing that theory. :P

"Invisible Bridge In Super Mario Bros." This was one my wife's brother used to pull on her when she was a kid. The jist of it is that there was an invisible bridge across a gap in World 1-1; there was not. :-D

"Dead Marios At Bottom Of Pit In Super Mario Bros." My brother--then 5 or 6 years old--was the victim here, our babysitter the perpetrator. This one purported that if you jumped into a certain pit in Super Mario Bros., you'd fall down and down several screens until you hit a pile of dead Marios at the bottom and died. I can still remember how pissed off my brother would get. :rolling:

Edited by BassGuitari
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"The Seventh Star In GTAIII" A friend of my brother's purported that there was a way to get seven "wanted" stars in GTAIII, at which point a wizard would appear and shoot lightning at you. We saw through that one pretty much immediately--he might have had us if he hadn't said "wizards"--but it was still fun camping out and blowing up tanks and helicopters ad infinitum on the off-chance that maybe there was something to it. :-D

 

Never heard of that one. The one I remember from GTA III was that it was possible to unlock the Maibatsu Monstruosity, by performing a certain number of stunts at specific points.

In GTA San Andreas, there was that rumor that it was possible to see the Yeti/Migoo/whatever monster) at some time of the day, in that part of the map where you had crashed abandonned cars.

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There was a rumor at school that a secret code made Chun Li to forget to get dressed.

 

And not exactlty a rumor but a gaming magazine in France once commented that there were very little Blanka cosplaters in Japan because they found green skin to be offesnsive. That felt made up on the spot...

Edited by Newsdee
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That was a simple change of the bitmaps. Been there done that.

Lol.....not if you were playing it on a console like most people.

 

I remember my brothers friend putting the game into a CD player and going through all the sound tracks. One was Laura saying "Haven't you seen enough?" in a sexy kind of tone. That really fueled the fire that it was real.

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Lol.....not if you were playing it on a console like most people.

 

I remember my brothers friend putting the game into a CD player and going through all the sound tracks. One was Laura saying "Haven't you seen enough?" in a sexy kind of tone. That really fueled the fire that it was real.

That is hilarious ... young boys taking this out of context and jumping to the conclusion they want to find.

 

I was in my mid-20's back in '96 with a new job, single, no responsibilities outside of work, and getting paid very well. I had the latest gaming PC and thought consoles were beneath me. In my 20s I was a bit of an elist arrogant geek.

 

I'm very happy my mom keep all my old consoles and computers ( VCS, VIC-20, C64, early PCs) in a closet as picked them all up about a decade ago and have been enjoying my retro games ever since.

Edited by thetick1
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Nude code for Tombraider

Ha, how did I forget that one? :rolling:

 

 

Never heard of that one.

Oh, you wouldn't have--or at least not that version of it. :) A friend of my brother's made it up when they were kids. I guess it was really more of an in-joke than a true rumor.

 

 

Just thought of another one, although this one was a tease from the game itself: meeting the girl at the river at midnight in Castlevania II. I got stood up many, many, times. :( :rolling:

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In the early 80's I was told that there was a hidden or secret elevator screen for Atari 2600 Donkey Kong and I remember saying "WOW! I can't to play it" but it turned out to be a false alarm and I was pissed off - still liked the game nevertheless knowing that it was still a version of Donkey Kong I could play at home.

 

I would have flipped out if I saw that screen back then......

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I do believe that Sylvia from Kung Fu is in cahoots with Mr. X because of how she keeps being "kidnapped", but it isn't true that you get to fight her after completing 50 loops.

 

https://gamehacking.org/vb/forum/misc/the-lounge/5268-beat-nes-kung-fu-50-times-and-fight-sylvia-fact-or-fiction

Edited by mbd30
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I do believe that Sylvia from Kung Fu is in cahoots with Mr. X because of how she keeps being "kidnapped", but it isn't true that you get to fight her after completing 50 loops.

 

https://gamehacking.org/vb/forum/misc/the-lounge/5268-beat-nes-kung-fu-50-times-and-fight-sylvia-fact-or-fiction

That's a new one to me. Which is surprising because I loved Kung Fu back in the day...but also not surprising because "back in the day" was nine or ten years after Kung Fu came out. :P

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A few I can think of:

When I was a kid, I lamented to a friend that Ugg wasn't in the VCS version of Q*bert, and he told me "Oh, he shows up in Level 21" (or something like that). So I went home, dutifully played until I reached that level (no mean feat at that age), and no Ugg.

 

When I got back to school I saw him and said "Hey, I got to Level 21 but Ugg didn't appear!", and he just looked at me blankly, probably not even remembering the lie.

Also, the rumor that you could get extra shields in Star Wars (arcade game) by shooting Vader's ship enough times in a single stage. That's been debunked, and I also checked it out myself in MAME with frame advance.

There was also a hoax page claiming that World -1 in SMB had a pattern like World 7-4, and could be completed if you did things correctly, but I think everyone saw through that one relatively quickly.

Finally, GameFAQs has lots of fake codes. And actually, now that I think about it, there's a fake review on there for Warrior of Rome III on the SNES, an unreleased game for which a prototype has never been found (though box art exists). It's embedded in the Warrior of Rome II review:

(On a side note Warrior Of Rome 3 was released on the Super Nintendo in Japan and uses the same game engine as 2 except it is upgraded a little bit and has a new story. This is probably the most rare game for that system only 500 of them were printed due to financial constraints of the publisher. Considering how good 2 is 3 is probably real good if someone could find it that would be cool. As for now no one knows where a copy is)


As far as I know, there's zero evidence that any of that paragraph is true. Why would someone make up something so specific? Who knows.

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I remember the volcano on battle zone. The nekid code for tombraider (even in the day that seemed a stretch, those models are fugly, even back then) you can be Luigi or yoshi on Mario 64. If you beat halo on legendary in four hours without dying you got an alternate ending (never knew if that was supposed to be different from the native legendary video) how much crap surrounds pokemon? I think the biggest one there was you could scrag the game using a game shark, or get mew legitimately in game.

 

Just concentrating on ones that aren't super obviously fake, or most games would have myths surrounding them.

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