GameCentral readers talk about the most ridiculous things they’ve ever heard someone say about video games, from Pokémon on PS1 to Half-Life 3.
The talking point for this weekend’s Inbox was suggested by reader Cranston, who asked what are the most patently absurd, and laughably untrue, things someone has tried to convince you are real? From phantom consoles to non-existent sequels, we wanted to hear the most preposterous lies ever uttered.
Everyone knows that guy at work, or that kid in the playground, that can’t help making things up and we got to hear about some real classics (and quite a few jibes at Microsoft execs) although we think the one about hacking the library with a ZX Spectrum was probably our favourite…
Lost evidence
Back when my younger brother started secondary school (in September 2000) one particular twerp in his class claimed he had a ‘prototype’ GameCube. That’s right, over a year prior to even launching Japan, this 11-year-old lad had got himself a prototype of Nintendo’s next generation console. Oddly enough… no one ever actually saw it. This could have been slightly believable if his dad happened to be a top-end Nintendo executive, as opposed to a cab driver.
Another school friend was adamant that the marine in the original Doom was called Martie. Codswallop of course, but he alleged to have proof of this in the SNES instruction manual for Doom. He ‘lost’ the manual funnily enough. This is the same friend who claimed I was lying about the existence of Rick Dangerous 2. ‘There was no sequel!’ he claimed. There most certainly was.
Adzz1986 (PSN ID)
Rumbled at last
Back in the PlayStation 2 era we were discussing gaming at work and one of my mates chips in ‘Those PlayStations are dodgy, I set it up in the lounge OK but when I started playing a game the controller kept giving me electric shocks. I took it straight back to the shop and got my money back’. We laughed and try to tell him about the rumble effect but he was having none of it.
Johnny Alpha SD
Old claims
As a kid I used to hear quite a lot of weird rumours like one company’s mascot appearing on their rival’s console. Stupid things like Sonic appearing on a Nintendo console, who would believe that?
The dumbest things I can remember however were the suggestions of PlayStation 2 games working on a PS one, just with toned down graphics. I have not heard many similar claims recently except for misunderstandings regarding the Wii U.
PazJohnMitch
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Special laser
I find that people actually working in game shops can be more guilty than most for spreading ridiculous rumours.
One I remember from 2006 was that when the PlayStation 3 comes out ‘It will have a special laser that will burn an ID number into your game discs so they won’t work on anyone else’s console’. As if any games company would even try to have restrictive DRM like this. Erm…
Another was that Kinect would ‘definitely’ cost £80 at launch. (Real price: £130). And Sony for pretending that the PlayStation 3 was massively unstocked at launch, so the best way to ‘guarantee your launch PlayStation 3′ was to buy a PSP at the same time from HMV for a combined price of £675!
Many people did believe they could make money buying up PlayStation 3s (as the Xbox 360 had sold out in 2005, then was selling for silly money online) and were left trying (and failing) to sell them on eBay or in small ads for the asking price.
Jean-Paul Satire
Blame me
This is more what I told one of my friends. I told him that by nudging the right analogue stick forward on the PlayStation 2 pad it would give the car a speed boost on Gran Turismo 4. He believed me and I was chuckling to myself. It came back to bite me though as he used my slipstream to overtake me on the straight of Fuji speedway track and go on to win the race claiming he had won after employing my ‘tip’ and not the slipstream.
Truk_Kurt (PSN ID)
Executive nonsense
Anyone watching the launches of the newest consoles will have heard the silliest things ever said about gaming.
bobwallett
Tough luck
I do not recall hearing any video game nonsense myself, but I once told a fib to a school tough who wanted to ‘borrow’ some games from me. He asked me what computer I had, and suspecting his intentions were less than honest, I told him I owned an Atari STr, with 6 jigabytes of memory. To my amazement he said he had the same, so I proceeded to quiz him on the other specifications of his ‘computer’ to which he replied ‘Uh, the same as what you’ve got’. Needless to say he didn’t get to ‘borrow’ my copy of Turrican II.
Now that I think of it, a friend once told me that you could access a secret level on the Master System version of R-Type by flying into something on the fourth level. I always though he was pulling my leg until recently when I decided to check it out and to my amazement it was actually true!
TrevorMcFurr (gamertag)
Always playing: Earth Defence Force 2025
Strange dream
Hmmm… the silliest thing someone else has ever told me about video games? Well, I distinctly remember someone once saying a new console was coming out that would carry out a mandatory Internet check once every 24 hours – no connection, no play – wouldn’t allow you to freely rent, sell, lend or trade in games or play used games and you’d have to connect the supplied camera and have it stitched on, watching you all the time or it wouldn’t work. That was pretty ridiculous, right?
dyniner(PSN ID)
Catch up on every previous Games Inbox here
Vigilante shop assistant
As a former staff member at various game shops, I have told some pretty big porkies. Now before you all start shouting at me for being an idiot, I would like to clarify that I mainly used to do it to regular customers to wind them up and have a bit of a joke. Yes, Half-Life 3 is a PlayStation 2 exclusive due next week. Yup, Pro Evo and FIFA are combining into Pro Fifuloution. And most definitely the next Need For Speed going to be set in the Star Wars universe.
One ridiculous thing I said fairly regularly, and very much in spite, however, regarded parents buying incredibly unsuitable games for their young children. As a staff member there is very little you can do to stop parents buying games like Manhunt and GTA: San Andreas (yup, this was a while ago) for their children. So my manger and fellow staff members used to make things up if the parents wouldn’t listen to the credible reasons that their children shouldn’t be playing it. You know, because the highly imitable violence of Manhunt or the grossly inappropriate language of GTA wasn’t enough of a reason for seven-year-old Timmy not to play it.
As such, Manhunt had unlockable hardcore porn movies, GTA had a mission where you had to kill disabled children and both had various other preposterously abhorrent features.
In hindsight, I could be accused of taking the law into my own hands, but I really stand by my actions. Violence is one thing, but the fact that Manhunt used various household items (plastic bag, I’m looking at you) and the very prolific use of the N-word, amongst others, in GTA, well, that stuff really isn’t for kids. A bit of violence is fine in my opinion, even blood and guts, but a few games really took it too far.
Plus, I used to love the look on the smug chav teenagers’ faces when their parents refused to buy them 50 Cent: Blood On The Sand because of the fact that you could have full penetrative virtual sex with animals (okay, that one was purely spite – but in retrospect I saved them £40 and the awful experience of that dreadful game).
StalinsEpicTash
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