Super-secrets in games

[pk1yen]

Mister Six's game story thread got me thinking about the most involving bits in games - and at least when I was a kid, it was thinking I'd found something that no-one else had (or at least searching for something that no-one had yet found).

Specifically, I remember spending hours trawling Video Gamer X's website about the Ocarina of Time - found here: http://vgchat.info/vgx/zelda64.htm - in order to try to find the Triforce that fans were adamant was in the game somewhere. Turns out it wasn't (not really anyway) - but the quest was so much fun - trying to find the mythical Overture of Sages song for the Ocarina that would stop Ganondorf before Link opened the Temple of Time - http://vgchat.info/vgx/zwow.htm. But there was more - tiny hints that there was maybe more - Zora's Ice never unfreezing, and looking like there were places to explore underneath it, for example. It was genuinely creepy at times, searching for something that was beyond the realms of the game universe.

My question is - are there any more things like this? Or was this just because I was young?

Is there something about the glitchy nature of videogame universes that make us think we can break through and find some real secrets? Or was it just that back then, with very little internet, there was more mystery surrounding these universes (mystery that is now ruined by Game Guides being released the same day as the game in question)?

What's happened to super secrets? Has the internet ruined them for good, with guides available at every turn?

I think most games (exploration-based ones like Fallout especially) which are ruined by the knowledge that you aren't among the first to discover something. It's pretty certain that even though you've spent hours searching for a particular mythical item, or something similar, thousands of people have been there before you, and won't hesitate to call you a n00b if you sound excited at having found it on your own.

Is there any genuine exploration left in gaming? Any mysteries to unravel that haven't already been uncovered by American teenagers?

Any creepy content that still doesn't make sense? There was always something about pre-128-bit games that creeped me out ... places like Lavender Town in Pokemon Blue, which were all the more creepy because of their low-res world - they were almost more real, like a monochrome dream. Glitches in a world like that were creepy.

Or am I just getting old, and the immersion of games is forever ruined by the internet always mocking you for being slow?

[madhair60]

The last one I can think of was San Andreas, with the Piggsy/Bigfoot rumours.

[Famous Mortimer]

This isn't exactly what you were talking about, but it's a fun article nontheless:

http://www.cracked.com/article_18801_9-video-game-easter-eggs-that-took-years-to-find.html

[HappyTree]

I love it when there is a cheat in a game for turning clipping off or allowing a free-roaming camera to look at the levels behind the scenes.

I remember the wonder of DOOM and it's no clip cheat, using it to access areas untouched by human hand and looking at the rooms from outside the map. I used it to spy inside the boss at the end of DOOM 2, and even though others had been there before me I still got a thrill seeing the digitised head skewered on a pole.

In KotOR there was a camera cheat and I used that to fly around rooms my character hadn't entered yet. It was great to see all these NPCs standing there twitching, just waiting for me to trigger them into life. It was like I was inhabiting a kind of Westworld full of soulless automatons, a ghost train of delights that I had the power to observe from the position of Creator.

More games should have this. The 360 has less cheats for it since there are achievement points to be got, but the original Xbox had loads of cool stuff like that. I would turn off all achievement points permanently if it meant I could get to see backstage again.

Cheats and glitches are exciting, they're like finally discovering magic is real.

[mcbpete]

I'm guessing pre-internet, kids really did think they'd discovered some super secret worlds in Metroid with the infamous door glitch:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOHZYMYi_eg

Though unfortunately it was just a result of how the engine interpreted blank bits of map data - http://www.metroid-database.com/m1/secretworlds.php

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

Bits which bring you closer to the creators of the game, whether it's bits on a map you weren't supposed to find, or easter eggs you were supposed to find make games immensely more interesting and enjoyable for me. My least favourite games are those that don't allow you to 'go over there' or exploit the games mechanics for things it wasn't primarily intended to do. Every toy can have purpose beyond it's intended function.

However, I've never really been interested in user-created maps and mods and I find that less interesting and takes me further away from the developers. I know people who feel the opposite way. Funny.

[Mister Six]

Cheats and glitches are exciting, they're like finally discovering magic is real.

Yeah, I remember finding little 'You shouldn't be here!' messages from the coders in Duke Nukem 3D after clipping/jet-packing my way to some incredibly obscure corner of a level. Love stuff like that. I also remember freaking out a little bit in Fantasy World Dizzy when I walked through an inoccuous bit of wall and found myself in a secret room. My jaded old soul wouldn't be half as impressed now.

Actually, I say that but I just remembered the extraordinary 'secret room' in Milla Vodello's brain:

Spoiler alert

Milla is a fun-loving hippy chick and teacher of psychic children whose mind - after you psychically leap into her head - takes the form of a groovy, brightly-coloured disco-cum-obstacle course. As you travel through it, it's possible to bounce up to a high ledge with a hole in it. Drop into the hole and you land in a fiery room full of screams and shadowy figures.

Milla begs you to leave, but if you stick around you can crack open a safe that hides her darkest memory. Do so and you get a little slideshow that reveals that she used to be a nun and ran an orphanage full of happy kids. One day, while out shopping, one of the kids set the orphanage on fire - she returned too late to stop them all from burning to death. She then left the church and created a new persona for herself as an outgoing, fun-loving and flirtatious psychic spy/teacher.

[close]

It's definitely something you're supposed to find, but it's so well hidden and so very different from the rest of the level that it really does feel like you're transgressing on the acceptable way to play the game - which is entirely appropriate considering that's what your character is doing.

[madhair60]

God I hate that twat Tim Schafer.

Reasons to follow probably never

[Mister Six]

I'd be interested to know (in a different thread).

[VegaLA]

I think one of you guys (Big Jack?) took me to some unchartered territory just last year in 'Red Dead Redemption' by jumping around near a grandfather clock in the corner of a room.

I'm not usually that easily lead astray though.

Spoiler alert

THAT easily.

[close]

[Still Not George]

Tim Schafer, much like David Braben, is a self-possessed narcissistic wanker and comes across as one in interviews. However, unlike David Braben, Tim Schafer has produced more than one good game idea in his life.

I read a Braben interview a week or so back that frankly left me wanting to strangle the man. I have no idea how he keeps finding investors for Frontier Developments - I can only assume he's working his way through every single Elite player that has ever made any money.

[madhair60]

Fun fact: I met Braben once and asked him why every game he's ever made is less fun than Wario Ware Inc.  Oh the contempt in his voice as he explained demographics.  Fair enough I was being a prick, but still funny.

Edit: Schafer reasons later.  In short, anyone who sets their personal Twitter army on people who have criticised them is an insta-cunt.

[Paaaaul]

You can press symbol-shift and walk through walls in Gauntlet.

[mcbpete]

Fun fact: I met Braben once and asked him why every game he's ever made is less fun than Wario Ware Inc.

To be fair though, almost all games by any developer are less fun than Wario Ware Inc.

[madhair60]

To be fair though, almost all games by any developer are less fun than Wario Ware Inc.

Uh-huh.  And in Braben's defence, the way I worded the question was along the lines of "Why spend so much money on making games that aren't fun?"  Which was a bit unreasonable.