This month’s community challenge is a most fitting one for the month that is home to April Fools, revolving around the many secrets found in video games, from the ridiculous to the outright fake. I have encountered a good number of these secrets and have managed to unlock many of them, to feelings of great glee all around, while on the other end of the spectrum, I have experienced frustration and befuddlement as I attempted to unlock a secret I later found was all false. I’m sure we’ve all had this happen to us, so I decided to create a little quiz to see how good you are at distinguishing between hoaxes and the real thing. Whether or not you’ve heard of the game or the secret involved, try and guess which ones sound legitimate and which are merely pranks designed to trick the gullible gamer (myself included). Continue reading Gaming Secrets and Hoaxes: Can You Tell the Difference?
Tag Archives: april fools
My Favorite (April) Fools
April Fool’s Day may have already come and gone, but that’s not going to stop me from writing a post for this rather silly holiday, and it’s not going to stop me from asking a question. Who is your favorite video game fool? You know, an idiotic character that you can’t help but love. The character I have in mind is the bumbling, idiotic, and suspiciously muscular fake superhero, Captain Copernicus Leslie Qwark from the Ratchet and Clank series. His birthday, as stated in the 2010 calendar, is April Fool’s Day, making this a great month to commemorate this lovable fool.
To be honest, I wasn’t a fan of the guy at first because he actually played a more villainous role in the first two games from the original trilogy on the PlayStation 2, and I still firmly believe that Ratchet and Clank: Up Your Arsenal is the best game of the series, partly because it is the game where Qwark turned hero again. Nevertheless, he is a pretty cruddy hero. Qwark may not be lacking in muscles, but he is sorely missing anything and everything related to, well, intelligence, or humility, or really any desire to risk himself for others. And so it is no surprise that Ratchet doesn’t have the fondest feelings for him, when Qwark takes credit for victories he played no part in or runs away from danger, even going so far as to fake his own death. Continue reading My Favorite (April) Fools
Gaming’s Best Foolery: Secrets and Hoaxes
We swear we’re not fooling around with a new community writing challenge, for it is with a little April Foolery in mind that we offer up a new topic this month about secrets, hoaxes, and general (yet fun) trickery in games!
It’s no secret that developers have been hiding some fun and frustrating secrets in games for decades, from warp whistles (Super Mario 3), to Reptile (Mortal Kombat), to the Scarab gun (Halo 2), and finding Mew (Pokemon) to name just a few. And it seems that for every handful of known secrets, no matter how difficult they are to find, there are a few that remain unknown or questionable in their legitimacy. With the rise of gaming secrets and easter eggs has also come the rise of gaming hoaxes. Some end up in the form of rumors – remember the ones about how you could supposedly keep Aerith alive in Final Fantasy VII? While others become full-blown ruses that lead players on wild goose chases, such as the one about being able to obtain the actual triforce in the The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.
As crazy as gaming secrets and hoaxes can be, they pepper landscape of video games with plenty of intrigue and have become “a way of life” in gaming, so to speak. With this months writing challenge, we invite you to write about your favorite or least favorite gaming secrets, tricks, and hoaxes. Are there any secrets you never found but want to one day? Are there any gaming hoaxes that you wish had been true? What’s the hardest easter egg you’ve ever found or longest you’ve ever spent trying to find a secret something-or-other? Maybe make up your own hoax or secret and see if the community can call you out on it (all in good fun, of course).
We’ll be sharing any posts we catch across our social media sites — tag your post with #UnitedWeGame or #UWG so we’ll be sure to see it. However you choose to run with this topic, have fun with it and spread the word! The challenge runs through Friday, May 1st, so there’s plenty of time to come up with something. The more posts there are, the more we’ll share. And check back here for posts of our own on gaming secrets and hoaxes!
Community Post: I’m a Fool for Deadly Premonition
We all have games that are foolish to love; those comfort titles that the general public regards as less-than. We players can look past these games’ warts and rough edges to find a worthwhile experience in spite of what others may think. To start the month of April off with a goofy bang, those of us at United We Game will be divulging some of our own guilty pleasure games for your amusement. Things have gotten off on the right webbed foot by the Duck of Indeed, so let’s continue the joke with another foolish game!
Let us be frank at the commencement: Deadly Premonition is not a good game. The graphics are outdated, the combat is repetitive (at best), and the game controls quite poorly. The voice acting is hyper cheesy, the hit detection is appalling, and there are boring portions of the game that are simply included to drag out the time spent in front of your television. I could go on, but you get the idea; Deadly Premonition is far from the pinnacle of video game development. But despite all of these flaws, I really, really love this game. I would even go so far to recommend playing this strange title, as long as you don’t take it too seriously (along with friends and a case of beer).
When I first heard of Deadly Premonition, the main topic of discussion was how the game was receiving reviews covering the entirety of the number line. Some reviewers abhorred the game, damning it with scores of 1 and 2 (out of 10) to match their hatred. Others looked past the flaws to praise the story and ingenuity of the developer, rewarding the game with scores of 8 and 9 (also out of 10). I was intrigued, to say the least. As I was talking with a friend about the game, he revealed that he had purchased Deadly Premonition and was about to finish it for a second time. He also mentioned that he was No. 1 on the Xbox Leaderboards for this game, which is irrelevant (and super badass). So he agreed to let me borrow this strange survival horror/murder mystery game, mainly so he could have someone with which to talk about this title. Continue reading Community Post: I’m a Fool for Deadly Premonition