Videogame Places You're Not Supposed To Go 261
Ssquared22 writes "The eight far-off realms in this article exist for different reasons. They could be developer test areas, or forgotten pieces of landscape that somehow made their way into the final code. Whatever their reason for being, they all have one thing in common: they weren't meant to be explored by the likes of you and me. But through persistence, hacks or some combination of the two, you can take in these rare delights for yourself. Pack your bags."
What odd, interesting, or funny game locations have you wandered into?
Two Words! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Two Words! (Score:4, Funny)
Earl Gray! Hot!
GTA 3 Lighthouse (Score:5, Interesting)
If you face the slope, the game slides you down. Not sure why it doesn't when you're facing backwards - maybe they designed it that way for people like me.
Apparently there are plenty of other "easter egg spots" in GTA3.
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Pretty sure that somewhere on the middle island there's a little place you can get to by flipping a car a certain way, and by no other means. In there is a sign saying "you're not supposed to be able to get here" or something similar.
Re:GTA 3 Lighthouse (Score:5, Funny)
quick google search results [softpedia.com]:
"Go to Staunton Island. Head for Bedford Point, and bring a tall vehicle with you, like an Ambulance. Go to the parking lot that is behind some buildings in the projects (it was used in the "Kingdom Come" mission you do for King Courtney). Park your Ambulance next to the wall where the Kuruma is parked. Climb up on top of the ambulance and jump over the wall. On the other side, you'll see a sign that says "You weren't supposed to be able to get here you know". "
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DN3d has one of those "You're not supposed to be here..." eggs too.
Obvious reply (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Obvious reply (Score:5, Informative)
Regarding WoW secret areas (there are several) the obviously omitted the most significant Mont Hyjal as an entire zone area you had to join by trick jumping. The place had nice project site marking and barrier at the end of the long coiling road.
It was only opened to playable content with the Caverns of Time.
Re:Obvious reply (Score:5, Interesting)
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There's tons:
- Old AQ40, which you have to do wall walking, slow falling, and lots of running all the way from Tanaris to the back of Silithus. Bring a soulstone!
- The caverns under Karazhan can also be found by running there in ghost form if you pop a Dark Rune or have a horde kill you.
- Old Caverns of Time was fun. There were also many invisible holes in the ground. If you stepped the wrong way, you'd have to spirit res.
- The Ironforge landing strip. You can still get there
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Hyjal and CoT Mount Hyjal are not the same zone. Hyjal in present time is still inaccessible.
Sierra (Score:3, Interesting)
Stalker (Score:5, Interesting)
When you turn no-clipping on and try to explore the levels, you can very often see (especially at the wild territories and at the brain scorcher) that the levels were originally meant much larger and the story was meant larger, too (what's with the helicopter behind the fence at the radar site?)
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What was the name again of that central Bar in a bunker, where all the Duty guys hang around ? You know what I mean, where you can trade items, and get a few assignments.
Well, the road leading to the front entrance of that bunker, always has some dogs running around, chasing you when you approach. There's a grassy area besides the road, and those dogs are always runnning around in circles there, whenever you show up. This meadow is bounded with a fence, but it clearly continues beyond that fence. I once not
Oh... so not real locations then (Score:5, Funny)
I read the title and thought it was talking about places in real life. When I was living in Tokyo, I went to Squaresoft's headquarters. Totally could have stolen some videogame award trophies right off their front desk, assuming I completed some sidequest to distract the guard first. On the next floor there was a taped up piece of paper with a moggle on it pointing to the left and saying something in japanese, probably something like "That way to accounting."
Pretty boring, plus I felt like a huge nerd. Then again, it was only 3 blocks out of my way.
Anyway, I'm not sure how many other real videogame related places you aren't supposed to go there are.
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The university I went to had a campus that had been nuclear hardened in the long long ago, when they thought the bombs could be dropping at any time. Going inside the buildings was like walking into a faraday cage, and everyone left their phones on the windowsills in an attempt to get signal.
Under the campus everything was connected by utility tunnels, with power, water, and data lines everywhere, but still more than large enough for a person to walk easily.
People always used to make nuclear waste jokes abo
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I went to Nintnedo headquarters in Kyoto... but they wouldn't let me in. Yeah, my story sucks compared to yours.
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If I hadn't posted already here, I would have modded you up for the "assuming I completed some sidequest to distract the guard first."
WoW Exploration (Score:5, Interesting)
For anyone who's been doing exploration in World of Warcraft for a long time, the name Dopefish has additional meaning. Wall walking to places was amazing, and 1.9 was a sad sad day, except wall jumping took it's place! Hyjal, above/under Orgrimmar, on top of zeppelins, epic levitate jump from Hyjal to Orgrimmar, above and 2nd floor of Undercity, under Stormwind and behind the gated instance portal, Ironforge airport, Wetlands farm, Elwyn house/retreat/pond, the Dragon-Dwarf fight on the flight to Searing Gorge, Troll village, half-existing Gadgetzan from ZF, outter edges of the BE starting zones, middle part of Eastern Kingdoms, smiley face under Karazhan, and the Crypts next to it, outside the Karazhan instance, most especially the large area where you fight Prince, underneath all of Outlands (except for Netherstorm, damn bridge) especially behind Black Temple, outside the playing parts of CoT: Hyjal, inside CoT pre-BC, top of CoT, on the hourglass (old and new), behind AQ (which allowed zoning in before the Wall opened), North Plaguelands, behind the Greymane Wall. So much amazing exploration over such a long time.
Only 2 things I've never done that I really want to is get to Old Ironforge on my guy, and outside of Deadmines.
Re:WoW Exploration (Score:5, Funny)
I know of a huge forgotten area, but it's too difficult to get to for most WoW players.
It's called real life.
Re:WoW Exploration (Score:5, Funny)
I know of a huge forgotten area, but it's too difficult to get to for most WoW players. It's called real life.
It's all real life. But I've heard of this mysterious land AFK, haven't explored that yet...
There is another undocumented area (Score:5, Interesting)
In Stonetalon Peak, slightly south-west of the Inn, my wife and I tricked-jumped on a spot of the mountain side that looked the most accessible, and we eventually reached the top. Right there, you get to a plateau on top of some of the highest mountains in the area, with a nice and beautiful view of the mountain ranges as far as your GPU will render. You can see various map areas all around.
Anyway, that's not the coolest part. The best part is what lies beyond. There is a cliff at the edge which brings you to a "secret" area. If you jump down from the left-most edge of the cliff, you'll fall down and die; but with persistence you can then come back the same way as a spirit, jump down and reclaim your body. Et voilá, you're in!
This area is a wide expanse of unfinished terrain between the various world sections that intersect there. It seems to be completely uninhabited and serene. It is vast and pretty, with a weird mélange of texture maps. you can explore this huge area and marvel at the beautiful collage of colors, textures, and terrain elements.
Eventually, you'll find a rather large, rectangular pit, where various areas coincide. It is like a huge deep pool drained of water. Its floor is composed of texture tiles from the different areas that meet at that point. But be careful! If you decide to jump in, know that there is no way out of it. You'll have to use your hearthstone (or call a game master). There is plenty more beyond that point which I haven't explored yet (as you may imagine, we dropped into the pit and got stuck).
All in all, it is one of the most strangely beautiful areas--hidden or not--of the World of Warcraft. So, be sure to pack plenty of sandwiches, your beverage of choice, and your video camera!
-dZ.
Re:There is another undocumented area (Score:5, Funny)
my wife and I [..] get to a plateau on top of some of the highest mountains in the area, with a nice and beautiful view of the mountain ranges as far as your GPU will render.
For some reason that strikes me as one of the nerdiest things I've ever read. Gone are the days of "you can see x island from here on a clear day!", now it's "you can see x island from here if your graphics card can has enough memory!".
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Why do you think they're gone? That'd just different. 'Different' doesn't mean 'exclusive'.
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It doesn't, but it isn't as funny if you put it like that.
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. It's just a play on "as far as the eye can see."
I know, that's why it was funny. But I changed my joke from "as far as the eye can see" because in reality it's the horizon that causes the issue, and technically the eye can see infinitely far away given a strong enough light source and enough time for the light to reach the eye...
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I've never understood the appeal of getting through the cracks of the terrain map. When I play a game the best views I find are the ones the artists created for me to see. Dropping through a crack and looking up under the terrain mesh is, well, like looking at it in a level editor. All the work, art, and trickery that immersed me in the game world is undone, and I'm reminded I'm looking at a video game.
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The area I described is not the typical broken terrain map, where you go behind walls or under the floor and see half-rendered rooms. It is actually quite beautiful, perhaps in ways that the developers never considered; yet still appealing in their own strange ways. You need to remember that the terrain in World of Warcraft, for the most part at least, is complete, even those places were you are not supposed to enter. Sure, some of the textures may at times appear incongruent, but they are still pretty t
MMO's really should reward this stuff more (Score:2)
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Ned Beatty taught us that it might be worthwhile for everyone in your party to carry a revolver and not just have one guy who can shoot a bow and arrow.
Wow has a few places... (Score:5, Informative)
From "Old Iron Forge", to the top of Iron Forge Mountain where the airplanes are, to _under_ Stormwind, and before BC, you could actually travel N along the shore from Hinterlands and see "behind" Stratholme.
Thankfully the WoW Map Viewer [wowmodelviewer.org] lets you explore the world (& zones) offline.
Duke Nukem (Score:2)
"You're not supposed to be here."
Or something like that. It was at the end of a very high tunnel type thing that could only be reached be using a flying cheat.
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It's towards the end of the game. I don't remember all the details, but you're under a mountain or something - there's lava everywhere. There's a little alcove that you can reach only by using a cheat and recharging your jetpack. When you get in there, you see a message that says "You're not supposed to be here".
Playing a game in a way you are not supposed too (Score:2)
Currently I am addicted to a game called 'reset generation' which you can play on your nokia or online http://resetgeneration-site.arena.n-gage.com/ [n-gage.com]
You play against 3 players who all have the goal to steal each others princess, they mix the game play up by you having to lay a path using tetris bricks to the other castle. Also there are 10 classes so each character plays differently.
So if you get the last princess then you win.
However since I play not so much online but against AI players I try to survive as
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I know n-gage is not popular, however I think for about of 80% of the time that I do go online I have no problems finding other players.
And it did had a shitty start and although I did expect more of them, they are continiously pushing new games.
it certainly is not the quality of n-gage.
OBlivion (Score:5, Interesting)
Oblivion has a nice place you can teleport to.
Its a room full of doors.
Behind every door, there is something developers used to test, like items, enemys, even a whole test city :D
When talking to test npcs there can be very funny messages ^^
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Ultima 7, Lucas Arts, Baldur's Gate (Score:3, Informative)
Using the Alt-214 cheat in Savage Empire lets you explore the "top-most" part of the world.
Us old school gamers will remember stacking crates in Trinsic to climb on the roof in order to access the teleporter room in Ultima 7. :-)
I remember being giddy when I saw the debug menu (and warp map) in Ultima 7 and figured out how to access it. i.e. ultima7 abcd
For Monkey Island 1, Zak McKracken , Maniac Mansion, Loom, Last Crusade, Monkey Island 2, Fate of Atlantis, Day of the Tentacle
Enter Debug Mode [lucasforums.com] to use the Goto-Room.
My brother used to use the (PS2) Baldur's Gate built-in warp menu cheat to run the Gauntlet. (Warp In, Warp Out :)
Hell, just check gamefaqs for your favorite game.
--
Dark Energy by any other name is still the Aether.
Not really a place... (Score:2)
I vividly remember playing Ultima VI on the PC, and learning to use the debug mode. Entering codes you could create any "item" in your inventory, including walls of buildings etc. (Isometric 3D game.)
I sunk a huge amount of time into building my own castle or something, only to have it vanish when I wandered off somewhere else... :(
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SPAM SPAM SPAM IOLO ... if I remember correctly anyway.
Memory location 0xFF83E2D4 (Score:5, Funny)
You're SO not supposed to go there! But if you do, a secret screen comes up with a bunch of cryptic text that nobody has yet been able to decipher.
Re:Memory location 0xFF83E2D4 (Score:5, Funny)
I deciphered it, it was just a stupid ad for Ovaltine.
Re:Memory location 0xFF83E2D4 (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Memory location 0xFF83E2D4 (Score:4, Funny)
http://xkcd.com/138/ [xkcd.com]
(don't forget mouseover text)
Ah the memories (Score:2, Funny)
Who can forget John Romero's head on a pole, hidden behind the boss demon in the last level of Doom II? Or the level full of Wolfenstein 3D Nazi's, with Command Keen hanging from a noose!
The most sacred place must be when I was creating maps for DN3D, Blood & Doom, browsing the sprites you'll find a few that were never used in-game.
Thief 1 & 2 - movement tricks (Score:5, Informative)
There's a very interesting technique you can use to move pretty much anywhere you like in Thief 1 & 2 due to a physics bug or feature. Until it was discovered by Luthien, fans of the games (at www.ttlg.com) stacked enormous amounts of crates on top of each other to explore different places in levels but one player discovered a trivial method to move like that (crate stacking is somewhat difficult). For those interested, here's how to move through flare elevatoring (the same can be done with keys in Thief 1 but note that you must always have one object of the kind you use, in your inventory all the time so you need at least three). It's easier if you have very low mouse senisitivity so adjust it before trying this.
1. look straight up and drop a flare in the air so that it lands on your head (note: do not throw it but drop it, check your key configuration, if necessary)
2. look straight down and jump, the flare you threw will become "stuck inside you"
3. you can jump once or twice more to gain more height
4. again look straight up and drop a flare in the air like in 1.
5. look straight down, you should see the flare you dropped in 1. below you
6. jump and when doing so also pick up the flare below you
7. jump once or twice more to gain more height
8. goto 4.
You can climb as high as you like but if you're close to the edge of a wall, you'd better not face it since the result of jumping might become an attempt to climb (mantle) it instead. It's better if you wait until you're high enough to mantle it easily.
This technique can also be used to move horizontally in the air but it's quite difficult (at least for me).
A first suggestion of a place to visit is of course the roof of Angelwatch. In the demo they have even placed some AI there but it's not there in the full game version (in neither one are you supposed to actually get there). And in case you didn't know it: The Thief 2 demo is quite a nice playing experience otherwise too, it is a version of "Life of The Party" but with quite a lot of modifications. Very much worth playing, if you liked the full game. You can also try climbing the lighthouse in "Kidnapped" from the outside.
Beware that when you visit locations that you're not supposed to, the game might crash because the polygon limit might be exceeded. In the editor, it's possible to have more polygons on screen than in the actual game and thus some places like that have been possible to design and the level designers have only taken into account from what directions you should be able to see them.
More about the technique here [ttlg.com].
Another location: In case you didn't know it, there's an easter egg in "Framed" in Thief 2: If you throw a scouting orb over the fence to your left in the beginning of the level, you'll see something funny (a couple of dancing zombies) and you can even visit them (without flare elevatoring). One of the buildings in front of you has a roof object instead of a real roof and that object has no physics properties so you can climb onto it even though it looks too steep and high to allow it. I don't remember exactly which building it is, probably the tavern you can enter. From its roof you can then jump over the fence. I don't remember if the zombies will care about you or not.
And one more: In Thief 1 (and Thief 1 Gold), you can enter the cathedral during your first visit to it too. If you go behind the cathedral to the window (which isn't even there when you visit it again in "Return to The Cathedral"), you can enter the cathedral through it like this: Jump up to it so that you're "in it" but can't squeeze through since you're not meant to. Turn 180 degrees and jump. You'll fly straight into the cathedral. This jumping backwards with higher force feature, is probably meant to stop you from getting stuck somewhere but you can exploit it like this. The haunts inside won't see you since the level has their vision off to reduce CPU load but they will hear you
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Reminds me of something similar in Phantasy Star Online. There is a particular move you can do with a particular staff weapon where your character performs a series of strikes while stepping forwards and backwards. You end up sightly further back than you started, so if you do it while standing next to a wall you end up inside it. Using that method you can get into areas you are not supposed to, get through locked doors etc.
There's so much to break (Score:2, Informative)
Most of my favourites are the stuff that is left in some Nintendo games (Zeldas in particular) - debug or beta versions of some levels that the developers somehow left in. Not that I've seen them personally, and the website I was about to point people to is dead. *sigh*
As for the rest, I really recommend people to check out this guy's anti-walkthroughs and findings [it-he.org]. A lot of this stuff is absolutely brilliant.
"This is for you, you crazy rocket-jumpers" (Score:5, Interesting)
A secret area in Quake II with a stash of ammo, that you could only get to by rocket-jumping.. acknowledging a unintended trick that started with the original Quake. The message printed on the screen was, "This is for you, you crazy rocket-jumpers."
Re:"No prize for you, rocket man" (Score:5, Informative)
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Ha, that's awesome. I have the mission packs but haven't played them yet. I still intend to someday. Loved the campaign for Q2, and I think it still holds up pretty well.
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Ha, that's awesome. I have the mission packs but haven't played them yet. I still intend to someday. Loved the campaign for Q2, and I think it still holds up pretty well.
I played Quake II as soon as it was released...back in the day. But I only played the mission packs last month - got them for free with my copy of Quake 4. Both mission packs were really enjoyable - quite challenging for an experienced player and lots of hardcore action against enemies that can take quite a pounding. It's very satisfying when you unload 10 rockets or a handful of rails into a big bad dude and watch him keel over and blow up.
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Speaking of Quake, does anyone remember the Well of Wishes in the first Quake? It was an underwater room with some goodies and a picture of Dopefish on the wall as well as the text "Dopefish lives".
Ultima VII (Score:5, Interesting)
I remember a great one of these in Ultima VII. Basically, there was a certain building in the first town, which had an invisible portal hidden behind its chimney. To access it, you had to either cheat (which is... well... cheating), or else build a staircase out of crates to get onto the roof. To do this, you needed to pretty much scour the entire town for crates, as you would need every last one to get up there.
Once you went through the portal, you found yourself in a strange sci-fi type area, with the Kilrathi theme from Wing Commander 2 playing as BGM. There were chests containing multiple sets of the best equipment in the game, a huge variety of useful magical items, as well as most of the plot-related items. There were also teleporters that could take you to most of the key points of interest around Britannia.
This one was so cool because it didn't require the use of a cheat or clipping exploit to find it. Sure, nobody was ever going to find it on their own accord without having been told about it in advance, but you could get in there without typing in any special commands or cheat codes.
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An interesting point about that teleporter room was that you could access it before encountering the game's copy protection. In Ultima VII you could explore the first town freely but would be challenged with some look-in-the-manual questions when you tried to leave.
Of course if you just want to skip the copy protection it's much easier to download the answers to those twelve questions from somewhere.
Ender's game (Spoiler Alert) (Score:5, Interesting)
In the book "Ender's Game" by Orson Scott Card, Ender keeps exploring the super video game the kids are given beyond what anyone else does. Since the game "engine" is very sophisticated it keeps generating new territory and challenges for him (sometimes based on his alien influenced "dreams"). Not only does he eventually successfully complete his self-driven quest but the computer creating the game becomes sentient! Of course this is just one of several important "games" in the book.
So, maybe if you go places in your videogame that you're not supposed to go, you'll create new territory not imagined by the designers of the game and cause the game to become self-aware!
Good luck reading that book (Score:2)
I made it halfway and gave up. One of the most tedious sci-fi books i've ever had the misfortune of reading. Hardly anything happens, just a lot of Ender self reflecting. Reminded me of the Thomas Convenant novels by Donaldson - endless verbiage about Coventants inner thoughts and feelings and blah effin blah and very little action. When I buy a fantasy or sci-fi book I want some action - if I want to read a load of girly navel gazing crap I'll go and get a copy of Bridget Jones!
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(*) To be fair Card starts forgetting a few minor points like character ages, whether beings are scheduled to die or not, his own frequently asserted core world rules... likely it's just the syphilis kicking in.
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"Ender's Game" filled with tedious self-reflection?
Sounds very much to me as though you read one of the later books in the series thinking that it was the first when really it was not. The series quickly became progressively less note-worthy with each subsequent publication. --Which is lucky for you; it means you have still to read one of the most celebrated sci-fi books ever written.
Cheers and have fun!
-FL
The "innocent killer" (Score:2)
Of course, whether it deserves that celebration can be questioned [ncsu.edu].
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I made it halfway and gave up. ... Hardly anything happens, just a lot of Ender self reflecting.
So, you don't really know if anything happens because you only read half. From what I can tell, you don't like Sci-Fi. You like action. Ender's Game is one of the most lauded Sci-Fi books of all time - it won both the Hugo and Nebula award for best novel, a rare honor. Wikipedia has a great list of join winners [wikipedia.org] (19 join winners for Novel by my count). Truly excellent Sci-Fi is powerful because it provokes thought, not because it increases your adrenaline.
Perhaps you should try First Blood [amazon.com] for less "n
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A good experiment with moby dick:
Read the first 15 chapters.
Read the last 3 chapters.
It turns into a passably good book about fighting a whale.
Plus, Ahab is awesome:
Towards thee I roll, thou all-destroying but unconquering whale; to the last I grapple with thee; from hell's heart I stab at thee; for hate's sake I spit my last breath at thee.!"
Everquest 1 Secret Cat Room (Score:2)
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Apparently thats Kevin Burn's cat mittens:
http://www.massively.com/2009/03/04/a-decade-of-norrath-qanda-with-everquests-kevin-burns/ [massively.com]
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I used to cast the wizard's spell where you could control an eye to explore while facing a wall or corners. Sometimes this would allow an exploit that I could see far into dungeons, and sometimes I would find odd nonsense like the cat.
Also for EQ, you could get into the top of Karnors Castle if you levitated with enough speed from the zone around it. Of course you would be stuck inside the building and nothing was really there ( you didnt cross a zone line). At that point you had to port or call a GM.
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I began to think that was how they started with wall textures - start with some photo image then photoshop it into unrecognisability.
I don't know if it's the same with EverQuest, but the artists for the Legacy of Kain games would stick photos in as temporary textures to reserve the space in video RAM (space was/is tight on Playstation-series consoles). There are a couple of examples here [thelostworlds.net]. Other parts of my site describe things more directly related to TFA, like the city 10/11 rooms in the first Soul Reaver [thelostworlds.net],
SMB (Score:2)
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Eventually you'll either run out of men or time out twice, and in either case you're done playing.
Another great similar area on an NES game is found in Rygar. If you jump and move side-to-side enough times in a any of a few of the places on the overhead world view at places where the the map scrolls from one screen to the next, you can get up into the grassy area above the dugout pits. There's no invisible clipping wall around a couple of those grassy areas, and you can run off the screen until your sprite
Wolfenstein 3D (Score:2)
Silkroad Online (Score:2)
My friends and I have found several places that you're not really supposed to go to in Silkroad Online. These are mostly accessed through small invisible holes in a wall or bridge or similar.
- in Jangan, there is a river to the north. My guild used to go under the water to do Pandora's Box parties and the like where we wouldn't be disturbed.
- In Jangan, the mountains to the south can be climbed. There's nothing up there, but you can climb around up there to the edge of the map.
- I
Dalaran bubble (Score:2)
I once got into the bubble around Dalaran in World of Warcraft, before it floated away. I was pretty disappointed, there wasn't anything in there except dirt. :\
It also used to be possible to get underneath Stormwind and into Old Ironforge, but they seem to have fixed the bugs that let that happen.
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Second Life (Score:5, Funny)
Oh, wait...
Katamari Damacy / "Royal Warp" (Score:2, Interesting)
How about a collision-detection bug turned in to an easter-egg?
In some cases, the collision detection is broken in Katamari Damacy, and you can end up falling through objects. (The easiest way I've seen this happen is if you're moving and some other object pushes you through a wall, but there's a video on YouTube [youtube.com] with a simpler way to trigger it.)
When it happens, the screen fades to black and the King of All Cosmos apologizes for the inconvenience and uses the "Royal Warp" to put you back on the playfield.
Dopefish (Score:2)
Strange there is no mention of the Dopefish [wikipedia.org].
Over the flag in SMB1 (Score:2)
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Mountain King - "Stairway to Heaven" (Score:2)
In the early platforming game for the Atari-era consoles, Mountain King, there was a strange region that you could get to from jumping left from the highest mountain. Somehow if you did the jump right, you'd find a ladder hanging in the middle of space. You could climb up, and the platforms and ladders were semi-random and would appear or disappear depending on your position, making for a very treacherous climb. You could get up a fair ways, but eventually you'd reach a place from which there was no way
The Guardian Legend J Password (Score:2)
The Guardian Legend NES game had a password system to save your progress. If you entered all Js as your password, you started in a strange location 80% of the way through the game with almost no health. I think the area was reachable in normal gameplay, but you needed a key that you didn't receive when using the password. (Therefore, you were locked in when using the password.) My friends and I spent much time wondering what it all meant.
Recently, zoogelio has reverse-engineered the password system and figu
Invisible wall points (Score:2)
I tried that latest Simpsons game demo. There were one funny thing about it and that was that Comicbookstore guy giving me points for finding an invisible wall
Marathon 2 Cheater Terminals (Score:2)
Marathon 2 had a couple of terminals you could only read if you cheated: the second message of the second terminal in What About Bob? [bungie.org] and the fourth terminal in Eat It, Vid Boi [bungie.org].
Metroid (Score:2, Informative)
http://mdb.classicgaming.gamespy.com/?g=m1&p=secretworlds [gamespy.com]
A similar glitch was found for Metroid 2.
I'm sure it was a bug... (Score:2)
Mirror's Edge PS3 - The mall's basement (Score:2)
It was as if I was in unused space looking through textures on the outside of the walls as if the textures were translucent. It's more accurate to call the room a courtyard. There was an entrance, two walls, and a ledge that led to a platform. I hopped onto the platform, looked into the gray ab
WoW dev area? (Score:2)
Ecco the Dolphin on Dreamcast (Score:2)
There was one level with underwater accelerators you were supposed to use to launch yourself into the air to grab high altitude items. I launched and swam with just the right timing that I actually bounced over the background mountains and into an "endless ocean" area with the negative contours of the island behind me. I had to reset the console after swimming around for awhile because there was no way back in. I tried to do it again afterwards, but only managed to do it the one time.
The Matrix Online (Score:2)
A member of our crew (guild) in The Matrix Online discovered a way to clip out of the world by getting hit by a car and knocked inside part of the world geometry. Once you were outside the world geometry you could walk around in the greyspace until you found odd little places like the interogation room from the original film, a loading construct that was all white with a couple of chairs, and the "Hall of doors" from the 2nd and 3rd films.
Shame that the game was such a letdown in terms of the monthly conten
More Halo love... (Score:3, Interesting)
There is a lot of fun exploration in Halo 1, and even some in Halo 2. In the second level of Halo 1, there are numerous places you can get to using the Warthog, the easiest of which is the plateau between the central valley and the valley where the UNSC men are hiding under ground. It is also possible to get up the sides of the valley with the first pulse generator, though it can be difficult, because the action freezes in most situations when the pulse generator fires. Also, using co-op and some clever gre
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Except, then you needed the melee to charge shields skull on to get the damn overshield so you could survive the fall when you landed.
H3 is made a lot tighter. You can still have lots of fun with skulls,
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The Halo wiki has a list of a bunch of "vacations" [wikia.com] you can take in Campaign mode to explore. Though, I think some of them are intentionally put there by Bungie knowing people will exploit every trick to try. Though, there are some that are kinda stupid and really just exploit the fact that once you're in Theatre mode, you have full access to the level and thus it's trivial to see every last bit by flying around. Though there are good ones available during play.
The nice thing in H3 is actually being able to
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I'm a cheap date: I'm one of the guys who when he was a kid kept driving towards the volcano in Battlezone.
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Mario Minus World (Score:2)
The Mario minus world is mentioned in another Crispy Gamer article: If these bugs are wrong, I don't want to be right [crispygamer.com].
Did you know that minus world is much cooler in the Japanese version? Watch the video!
The Minus World is a bug. (Score:5, Informative)
It wasn't meant to be found - it's actually a bug in the game. It's related to a space optimization used in the programming: rather than having a special type of Warp Zone for 4-2's warp to world 5, which unlike the other warps had only one pipe, they did a trick to make the world 5 warp still be a three-pipe warp zone. The trick they did was give the left and right pipes, which don't exist in the map data part, world targets of 36. 36 is the number of the blank display tile, which hides the number for you.
The bug essentially just causes the 36/5/36 Warp Zone data to be used in 1-2. Taking the left or right pipe causes the game to send you to world 36-1. As mentioned above, 36 is the tile index for blank, so you end up in " -1", giving rise to the name "Minus World".
The world number 36 overflows the index into the world table. In the cartridge version, it ends up mapping world 36 to the water area used by 2-2 and 7-2. Because 36 is greater than 4, it spawns the extra enemies used in 7-2's version of the level.
The world repeats forever because of how the "set pipe target" command in the object data works. The object data script says, "if world number is X, the next usable pipe sends the player to level Y". The object data only has such commands for worlds 2 and 7 of course, so nothing happens in 36-1. The particular RAM variable set by the command starts off a level set to the ID of that level. Thus when entering a pipe without such a command setting the variable, it reloads the same level.
The Famicom Disk System version of the game acts differently because the data past the end of the world table is different. It ends up loading a different level as a result. That sequence is a series of glitched levels that eventually lead to "beating the game".
Japan had both an FDS and cartridge version of SMB. The cartridge version is bitwise identical to the American version, thus containing our Minus World. In fact, early American versions of the game have the Japanese version inside along with a pinout adapter.
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Falling through the world was only real fun if you ended up in water while staring up at land. The view of the zone is very cool that way, but you had to hope you noticed the air bar ticking down. That could actually induce a good sense of panic while trying to port or find a breathing item, all while hoping there were no sharks in the zone also.
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That was a cool trick, but not exactly a "place you're not supposed to go" (and something just about every avid player found on their own, I'd tried turtle-hopping-for-one-ups just about everywhere, and there are several places you can do it though none are as easy and quick to overflow the life counter as 3-1). Now the Minus World [wikipedia.org] on the other hand was a place you definitely weren't supposed to go. I didn't find that on my own. It was kinda neat, though ultimately pointless. Checking out the wiki artic