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: Lemmings - Multi-platform - 1991

If I told you there was a video game based on an urban legend perpetuated by the mass murder of cute little arctic rodents by the Disney company in the 1950's would you think I was crazy.  However it is true.  The game is called Lemmings, and before getting into the game I should explain the backstory.

This is a real live non-suicidal lemming.  

     A lemming is a small rodent that lives in Arctic regions of the world.  A popular misconception arose about lemmings, that during migration they would commit mass suicide by jumping off the edge of a cliff into the sea.  In 1958 Disney released "White Wilderness" a nature documentary in which they showed lemmings plunging off of cliff sides to their eventual death.  Sadly this was only an attempt to romanticize these legends and led to many people believing that the lemming stories were true.  The footage of the lemming suicide was staged and the poor little creatures were either pushed or launched into achieve the footage that was in the  documentary.  Then the poor little bastards tried to swim away from the Disney masochists, not realizing that they weren't just in the lake.  I have included that footage below and you can see for yourself.

However the idea of little creatures walking blindly into impending doom did tum out to inspire a pretty good video game.  The original 1991 version was released for the Amiga due to the fact it had a mouse which really is the logical way to play the game.  However the game was so much fun, there has been a version released for damn near every game system I've ever owned.  There is a version for the following systems: Amiga, Atari ST, PC, Mac, NES, SNES, Turbo Grafx CD, Sega Master System, Atari Lynx, Sega Genesis, Commodore 64, Sega Game Gear, Game Boy, PSP, PS1, PS2, 3DO, CD-i, and a bunch more for some obscure old systems.

Several of our brave lemming friends must explode to allow the herd to make  it to safety in this level.

Lemmings worked on a simple platformer basis.  The lemmings would pop out of a trap door into some type of peril.  Left to their own devices the lemmings will just walk until they hit something and turn around and walk the other way, even if that path will lead to their doom.  There was a goal at the end of the level and your job was to teach several lemmings a particular skill to help pave the way for the others to reach the goal safely.

The entire name of the game is strategy and using the jobs that are given correctly.  Climbers obviously climb things.  Floaters deploy an umbrella to avoid death from falling from a distance.  Bombers blow up and destroy everything within a certain radius.  Blockers stay put and keep other lemmings from passing.  Builders build 12 stairs.  And Bashers, Miners, and Diggers all just dig in different directions.

The original version came with its own side effect warning label.

The developers were very keen on keeping the learning curve manageable.  The first few levels are designed to familiarize yourself with the games controls and jobs.  As the game goes on the challenges get more and more severe.  Each level has its own specific goals, many of the levels will only require the saving of a percentage of the lovable little scamps.  Unfortunately these levels require you to use either blockers or bombers in your strategy to martyr themselves for the greater good.  And if you see that you need to save 100% of the lemmings you know that you have failed immediately after one dies.

The nuke button made Lemmings the best game to screw up ever.

And what did the developers do in those tricky situations where we were completely stuck with no hope of success?  Well they gave us the nuke button of course (Thank god Disney hasn't featured lemmings in any more recent nature films).  Instead of allowing the level to just end with some downer jingle and sad times that you screwed up, you got to blow all of your little friends to smithereens, just like this guy who sings his rather joyous lemmings song the whole time (They start exploding at about 1:20 if you want to spare yourself from hearing the song the whole time)...

  
Thankfully the real soundtrack for Lemmings doesn't quite pack the same punch.  It's hard to believe that Lemmings has now been around for over two decades.  And obviously it still has demand, I believe it is currently on sale for digital download on the PSN and will be coming up on its 25th anniversary within the next few years so I expect to see the title make a return in the future.  In my opinion it is still one of the all time greats as far as strategy games goes.  So unless the Sega Dreamcast is your last working game system, find a copy of Lemmings and have some fun.

Also thankfully YouTubers like to upload themselves playing games without singing along.  Here is some Lemmings gameplay to enjoy.  The second one is particularly amazing check them out.