The Top 3 Video Game Pranks of All Time A comedy article
by Luke McKinney 11,088 110 02/22/2010 01:31 AM 7297 views
The most successful pranks depend on the audience wanting to believe. This makes gamers a more fertile field for hoaxes than a conspiracy theory convention between the tinfoil factory and the grassy knoll. You've got rabid fans, an addiction to hype, and an entire industry built on identifying and exploiting the market's most fundamental desires.
No wonder they sometimes do it for fun instead of profit.
Here are our Top 3 Videogame Pranks of All Time.
1. Valkyrie Wilde: Full Frontal Assault
PlayStation Magazine parodied not only Lara Croft but her entire fanbase, faking "Valkyrie Wilde: Full Frontal Assault." The game took Tomb Raiding to the obvious next level by doing away with clothes entirely (an excellent extension, as at the time "nude cheats" for Lara were an entire subset of gaming pranks by themselves).
The article was an excellent mockery, the fictional developers using the phrase "naked babe" more times in one conversation than anyone who's ever seen one would, before going on to satirize Dead or Alive years before it came out, by bringing out a Breast Cam.
IGN pulled one of the most professional gaming pranks ever in 2008, hiring a full cast and crew to film a trailer for a "Legend Of Zelda" movie. The trailer was extremely well-made, more enjoyable than many TV series, and succeeded in triggering a tsunami of comments. Over two thousand four hundred on the originating article alone, never mind the thousands of forum discussions across the Internet, every single one of which went:
"Look at this awesome/sucky trailer!" (depending on whether they're trying to look super-cool and unimpressed-with-things or not.)
"What date is today, and the claimed release date, genius?"
"Aww, dammit."
3. Super-Skill Shen Long Insanity
Electronic Gaming Monthly uber-pranked everyone by combining the most popular game, the most desperately desired payoff, and the most whirlwind-kick-yourself-later clues that it was a hoax, all in the same page.
The trick described a hidden character in Street Fighter II -- which at the time was on par with discovering your neighbor was Elvis, Jesus's secret thirteenth disciple -- and a truly sadistic method of unlocking him: beat the entire game without taking a single hit, then survive against mass-murder-machine M Bison without hitting him either, for a full ten rounds. We can confidently say that Capcom owe EGM 10% of their profits for that year.
Where the trick moves past cruelty and into natural selection is the "April Fool's Contest" at the bottom of the page: reminding readers that there's a false story somewhere in the magazine and challenging them to find it.
Many didn't.
Did we miss any great videogame pranks? Let us know in the comments below!
I always hated those damn animated sprays in Counter Strike Source of the terrorists that are firing at you. You end up spraying the Shakespeare out of a wall and reveal your location for no reason.
Duke Nukem Forever is the biggest running prank in gaming history. We have been waiting 13 years for a game that probably doesn't even exist - and we're still waiting.
Artist's rendering of what DNF may have looked like
You missed to say that Capcom eventually decided to add Shen Long (Calling him Gouken) in SF4...all due to the fact that ppl were asking for that character!
Also one of the greatest pranks in the videogaming world was the Virtuaboy!! Cuz once u go red...U WIND UP BLIND OR DEAD!!
Store
11,088 
110 
14,218 
17
