Flashback — Great Game Myths and Legends

There was a time when many of our treasured classics and not so classic games had developed wild rumors and myths about them the perpetuated to the point where people actually believed  them to be true.  Some were true but not entirely and others, well not so much. You know know how it starts, it’s like a bad game of password or telephone and  by the time the dust settles the rumor or urban legend left standing becomes codified into gaming history .

So this edition of Flashback pays tribute to some of great gaming myths of yesteryear.

Nude  Raider

Every teen boy’s dream would be to see this anatomically endowed action girl, Lara Croft, in the buff  since her premiere more than 10 years ago there’s. So yes, there’s never been a cheat of any kind to unlock Ms. Croft in her birthday suit in all the versions of  Tomb Raider, but there was a PC patch a while back called Nude Raider that would allow you to see her pixelated boobs. Ah the days before DSL and cable modems. You had to be patient for your videogame porn.

The Mario Flagpole Trick

Super Mario Brothers had this iconic bit at the end of each level like the one pictured above and well somehow a rumor got started that you could actually … jump over the flagpole. Sure this crazy plumber dude who’s main ability is jumping could certainly jump over that pole right? Turns out you could. The act of jumping the flagpole wasn’t really the myth. It was the fact that everyone thought it granted you some magical level or an amazing score or something. Nope, no such luck. Not only was this a challenging task but the myth of untold greatness after you did it, well that was fantastically wrong.

Buried Piles Of the E.T Game

While this sounds like a total fabrication it is in fact true and a sad commentary on what happens when someone doesn’t think beyond the dollar bills they envision they’ll make. Yes E.T. the movie was a huge hit but the game is still considered one of if not the worst game in history. That being said when it was released Atari thought, “We should make a ton of these because they’ll sell like hotcakes.” And when they didn’t — what do you do thousands of unsold cartridges? Bury them in a New Mexico desert. The bigger surprise to this rumor wasn’t that this actually happened, but that it happened more than once.

Home Repair Then and Now– Blowing On Stuff And Using Towels

Back in the SNES days the alleged trick/myth was to blow on the cartridge (yes they used cartridges)  if it wasn’t working. That one was a total myth. Common sense tells you that blowing on a device with internal parts in the opening that led to said internal parts would … screw up the parts. But this is one of those old adages like blowing on the needle of the turntable (a what?) and hitting the side of the TV for better reception.

Fast forward to the modern consoles and we get — the towel trick. Back when Microsoft was awash with RROD consoles during the 360′s first couple of years, people wrote in detail and also made videos of this trick with a towel where you overheated the 360 on by wrapping it up in a towel and leaving it on with the purpose to get it to “reset” itself and fix the red ring of death. Does it work? Not exactly. It works  in the sense that you’ll feel like you’ve actually succeeded in stopping  your RROD … for about 20 minutes.  Alas the red lights would return and you would be stuck with a non-working machine you would have to send back. It is fun to see all the versions of the towel trick though.

The Sheng Long Hoax

Talk about a joke that turned in a long lasting  legend take a minute to ingest this one –  If played through Street Fighter II as Ryu and somehow  didn’t take on any damage then fought the end of the game boss M. Bison and neither of you took damage and outlasted the fight clock, this badass Sheng Long would show up, get rid of Bison, freeze time and then fight you to the death. Yes take a minute. Does this even make sense? Well back in 1992 it seemed logical especially since it was printed in the EGM ( the gaming magazine of the time) in a editorial. The whole thing — was an April Fool’s joke. Some other mags took it as real and reprinted it as a real game tip and thus the legend began.  From joke to legend in one page flat.

And the greatest myth of all — POLYBIUS!

POLY what? No not the Greek historian

This urban legend is almost worthy of a flashback of its own but here’s the basic gist. In 1981 there apparently was this game that was released to the innocent masses sin the suburbs of Portland, OR area. The game was successfully to the point of addiction (lines around the corner, thousand mile stares, hysteria). As the legend continues this addiction led to the dudes in black suits and glasses coming around and collecting data about these psychoactive machines that were allegedly causing  amnesia, insomnia, nightmares, night terrors, and even suicide.

What’s that you say — a government conspired videogame weapon? Here’s the best part — no one could ever really confirm any of this from the Men in Black taking names of the high scores to the subliminal messages in the then revolutionary vector graphics.

Flashback — Great Game Myths and Legends