Are You Hunting Easter Eggs Today?

Happy Easter everyone, today I am writing a short article about what Easter Eggs mean to gamers.  Traditionally on this day regular, decorated eggs are placed in hiding for children to enjoy trying to find.  In video gaming it is something completely different.  Easter eggs refer to a hidden material inside a video game that developers include, usually for their own amusement.

The idea of the Easter egg dates back to the Atari 2600's Adventure from 1979.  Adventure's programmer Warren Robinett added his own name to a screen in the game as a statement that developers don't receive attention for their work.  Since then there have been a number of inside jokes, political statements, and other oddities of gaming included with a variety of different titles.  While I will cover many of these in the future, I will start by highlighting the most infamous of Easter eggs for this fine Easter evening.

The Grand Theft Auto series didn't give a shortage of those that hate video gaming a reason to be quiet.  The surprising violent, sexual, and adult themed references often don't sit well with parents who feel that only children play games and a market for adult themed games is out of line.  That didn't stop Rockstar Games into including a crazy easter egg that was never supposed to see the light of day.

1994's GTA San Andreas was the game that included the infamous "Hot Coffee" Easter egg.  The game's playable character, Carl Johnson had the potential to have six girlfriends around San Andreas.  There was a small minigame revolved around dating.  The whole sequence was tame compared to what happened if you drove a prostitute to a secluded location.

This all changed when the PC version came out.  Since PC games allow for anyone to see into the source code of the game, anyone can release mods for these games by making changes to this code and releasing it.    A mod known as the "Hot Coffee Mod" was released.  This mod changed the potential of the ends of these dates.  If the date goes well Carl will be invited in for hot coffee.  What follows was a full on sex scene minigame.

Rockstar initially claimed that the entire sequence had been added by the modders.  The modders came back by claiming that only one bit of information needed to be changed to achieve the hot coffee sequence.  It was also revealed that the rouge code was included with the console versions of the game as well.  This meant the game was released to the public still containing the code.  Since the code was disabled and not removed the video game rating board still requires that all coding included in a final version be submitted for review.  Since the inclusion of a full on sex scene coded into the game would change the game's rating to an Adults Only rating from the the Mature rating it received, it was immediately pulled from shelves by many retailers fearing backlash from consumers.

Lots of bad legal things ensued.  It also put increased pressure on developers to quit pushing the envelope of good taste with their content.  It was a setback for the game industry, and probably a mistake that won't ever happen again.      

Retro Review: SimCity - SNES - 1991

I'm not opposed to online gaming, but I don't like being forced into it.  I do get scared that someday that online will be the only way I'm going to be able to play anything new. I can understand big MMO adventure games being exclusively online, but I don't understand why they are extending to games that are outstanding as single player games.  To me there is a lot of risk involved with making games online exclusive.  I always prefer when a game has a viable single player option to keep me occupied.  Even the games of the Call of Duty series has single player modes.  And I also fear the day where I can no longer play a game that I spent money on.  And if you haven't heard the online only version of SimCity was released on March 5th, and on March 30th EA will be looking for a new CEO.

The simple fact is that on the release date SimCity didn't work.  Many people bought the game, only few could play.  It was an absolute nightmare for them. I don't know if it was the sole reason that the CEO is stepping down, but it seems to be the straw that broke the camel's back.   It got so ugly that even their forums were using the filter usually used to block people from swearing, to censor their customer support number.  The fact is that the once proud SimCity franchise is now at the mercy of EA's overworked servers, and Adam DeVine's underpants.

It appears that EA fixed the problem relatively quickly, and others figured out a work around in the event that something like this happens again.  The whole ugly episode makes me ask why did this need to be a problem in the first place?  Is the temptation to put all games out on an online format really that great that now even strategy games must be done   I can assure you that many of us would have been very happy with a more traditional update to the series.  With that being said I decided that if I really wanted to play SimCity I would go to one that I knew I could count on working.

Cover art for SimCity for the SNES

That is where my Super Nintendo came in handy.  Back in 1991 long before online gaming was a viable option came a SimCity that worked straight out of the box.  SimCity was really a triumph for the time.  In a time where console games were much more about platforming, action, adventure, and sports games, a good strategy game was rare.  Most good strategy games found their way to the PC. What made the SNES SimCity such a rare game at the time was the fact it was a playable console version of a game that was generally played with a keyboard and mouse.  For me it really introduced me to an entire different gaming experience than I was used to as a kid, and grew to love as an adult.  

In the main sandbox version of the game you are the mayor of a bare piece of land.  From there you need to build a power plant and then off you go.  As mayor your first objective is zoning.  Your population needs places to live, work, and shop.  You need to carefully plot your zones among various public services and means of transportation.  Secondly you are in charge of the finances.  You decide how your government funding is dispersed, and the tax rates on your citizens.

A very neat birds eye view of a well made SimCity

It is a beautifully addicting game, and a horribly frustrating game all wrapped into one.  You get sucked into watching your fluctuation of population as time passes by.  After you get a town built and your population grows you will begin to get bombarded with issues.  And no matter what you can never seem to keep your people quiet about their issues.  If you make an effort to solve an issue, it generally creates another issue.  If your people demand an airport, they complain about the pollution.  If your people want a stadium, they bitch about the traffic around it.  They don't want to pay taxes, yet can't handle budget cuts to your worthless police force and fire department.  And it goes on and on.

If you become convinced of the fact your people will never be happy you can also choose to destroy them in the worst ways possible.  You can cause a random fire to break out somewhere, have a tornado rip though town, or even unleash Bowser upon your town in an effort to steal Godzilla's thunder with a Nintendo plug.

The green haired fellow is Dr. Wright.  He generally pops up when your people are mad about something.  But occasionally he will show up with some good news.

If genocide isn't your idea of a good time, the ultimate goal is to have a population of over 500,000 people.  Even with cheat codes this is a very difficult task to complete.  To achieve 500,000 you need to use every single pixel of land that you have access to.  It also helps to utilize the gifts that are given out throughout the game properly, and also make it a police state.  If you can keep the people happy enough, and you constantly tweak your under performing areas you will be ultimately rewarded with a statue of Mario to commemorate your achievement.  

The second mode was called the scenario mode.  It featured different pre-built SimCities that represented real cities around the world.  In each scenario you need to save the day for a city.  In San Francisco you need to save the city from the 1906 earthquake.  There is flooding in Rio, a nuclear meltdown in Boston, crime in Detroit, pollution in Bern, and a Bowser attack in Japan.  And there are bonuses to unlock if all of those are beaten as well.

The SNES version was incredibly similar to the original PC version of SimCity shown here

The SNES SimCity is revered by many fans of the series.  It made good use of the controller to create a computer game experience fun and easy on our consoles for one of the first times ever.  Many PC titles struggle on this even to this day.  It also allowed the series itself to continue branching out to different platforms of gaming.  The Nintendo DS, Wii, iPad , Android, and Blackberry Playbook all have SimCity games available to them.

Until next time, build yourself a city.