EASTER EGGS ENJOY a prominent place in the heart of video game history. The argument could even be made that certain codes have gone so far as to eclipse the video games they were featured in.
If this shirt existed in the ’80s, it would have been required wearing at sleepovers.
However, every now and then a video game comes along with an Easter egg so profound that it completely changes the game it was featured in. We’re talking about Easter eggs that will never make you look at the game the same way again because it was seriously that brilliant, that ballzy, and that hilarious.
And not just for the controversy.
The Easter eggs featured below are among the best of the best.
6. “The Secret Players,” the NBA Jam series (various)
It’s easy to overlook how completely unfathomable it was that Midway included so many hidden characters in the original NBA Jam games. Among them where then-President Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Al Gore, Will Smith/“The Fresh Prince,” DJ Jazzy Jeff, a slew of official NBA mascots, and even half the cast of the original Mortal Kombat.
Who needs Michael Jordan code when you can have Scorpion and Sub-Zero playing against the Executive branch?
How could such a feat be replicated? By giving the players what they wanted when NBA Jam returned to consoles in 2010. This time, players could choose from a just as staggering cast of characters that include President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and yes… even the human cartoon character known as Sarah Palin herself.
If only Palin could quit halfway into each game.
How the hell did Midway pull off such a feat so many times? You’re guess is as good as ours, but it wouldn’t surprise us one bit if one of the original arcade cabinets could still be found in the White House from the Clinton years.
5. “Winsett’s Z,” Age of Empires (PC)
We don’t know what prompted Microsoft to go so ape when it came to their cheats for the Age of Empires series, and we mean “ape.” These games were so loaded with so many hidden units that typing “furious the monkey boy” in Age of Empires II unlocked the single most destructive monkey to hit gamers since Donkey Kong.
More or less, you got to play as this guy.
The original Age of Empires, however, boasted nothing short of a gamer’s wet dream of hidden characters to choose from. We’re talking catapults that shot villagers, nuke troopers who shot lasers, battle droids straight out of Robocop, and our personal favorite, Winsett’s Z: a sports car driven by a maniac with a rocket launcher.
In a game that takes place during the golden era of Greek togas and Roman orgies.
Honest to God, you can blow up the Colosseum with this thing.
The result is nothing short of a masterpiece that completely transforms the game. Are these units time travelers? Is Age of Empires technically sci-fi? Take it for whatever we wish. All we know is that few games gave us the opportunity to blow away a war elephant with an entire fleet of sports cars and bazookas.
4. “Secret Cow Level,” Diablo II (PC)
It takes a special kind of game developer to not only pay attention to their fans, but to include an Easter egg so outlandish that it was originally mistaken for an April Fool’s prank. The “Secret Cow Level,” which started off as nothing more than a rumor when Diablo was released, was eventually made into a reality when Diablo II came around.
Yes.
This level exists.
One can only imagine what it was like when Diablo loyalists were rewarded with what just might be the single most gracious act of fan-service since the Chun-Li shower scene in the Street Fighter II animated movie.
3. “ No-suit Samus,” Metroid (NES)
When player learned that Samus Aran in the legendary NES game Metroid was a lady, it sent shockwaves throughout the 80’s. Never before had a woman been featured so prominently in a video game without it sparking some sort of a controversy.
As pictured here.
Metroid changed all that by revealing that underneath all that armor was a long-haired woman in a pink swimsuit. How could Nintendo possibly blow gamers minds more? By allowing players to play as Samus without her suit by typing “Justin Bailey” followed by twelve spaces on the password screen.
The rest, as they say, is history. Cosplay history.
Please note that a piano is never featured once in the entire series.
2. “The Ant Missions,” Command and Conquer: Red Alert – Counterstrike (PC)
When Command & Conquer: Red Alert was released in 1997, the game was so deadpan that it would eventually become unrecognizable when compared to some of the subsequent games in the series.
Particularly when the role of Josef Stalin was replaced by a Japanese school.
However, this is precisely what made the game’s “Ant Missions” so brilliant. Rather than actually have giant ants in the game, Westwood very prudently hid them in their Counterstrike expansion as a bit of a love-letter to fans.
Specially, those who lived during the 1950s.
For a game that tackled the very serious question of what the world would have been like had Hitler never existed, these bonus missions came completely out of nowhere. That is, unless you decoded the Morse code in the original game manual, at which point you thought “giant ants” was some type of a code word. Apparently, it was. For giant ants. And just in time for the release of Starship Troopers.
1. “The naked lady,” Rings of Power (Sega Genesis)
It was only a matter of time before programmers started hiding naked women in their games, and honestly, we’re impressed Naughty Dog was able to get away with this gem they hid in Rings of Power on the Sega Genesis way back in 1991.
Hell, we’re amazed they were able to release the game without getting sued by the Tolkien Estate.
On its own, the game was one hell of an achievement. It was an enormous, open-ended RPG that drew heavily from Dungeon Master and Wizardry. As such, who would have guessed that such a nerdy game would feature the most highly-pixilated topless women to grace the 16-bit era.
Be warned, the video you are about to see is NSFW.
Not too surprisingly, the Internet was invented only a few years later.
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