Video Game Hoaxes You Probably Fell For

Game developers love to fill games with unlockable secrets, hidden characters, and easter eggs for dedicated fans. So you can't blame people for falling for the occasional video game hoax. We've all spent time trying to find some supposedly hidden character or area, or crack some apparent code. Here are some of the most popular video game hoaxes.

Even though the original graphics look like a pile of blocks now, Lara Croft of Tomb Raider was pretty hot when she first came out. Fake pictures showing Lara in the buff started showing up online, and everyone knew at least one person who claimed to have gotten a supposed "nude code" to work. It doesn't matter how pictures your friends claim to have found online, the code didn't exist. Based on the graphics of the time, that's probably a good thing.

The whole point of Pokemon is that you have to catch them all. The rarest Pokemon was Mew, who was only obtainable in the game during live events. Some fans believed that one was hiding under a delivery truck near the S.S. Anne. Supposedly, you had to figure out how to move the truck first. Many players spent countless hours trying to figure it out how—only to really find out that they had wasted all that time.

Everyone can calm down: Minecraft isn't haunted. A story circulated that the ghost of the creator's dead brother inhabited the game world. A creepy looking character would appear and cause general havoc, and is usually not seen moving. Sometimes he would dig holes and drop small pyramids around the map. In reality, it was just a fictional story that people took seriously. This game is clean.

While it's completely believable that Luigi would be in a Super Mario game, he really isn't in Super Mario 64 (unless you're playing the DS version). In the courtyard, there is a statue that has inscription which reads "L is real 2401." Many gamers assumed that this was a hint about Luigi, and that 2401 was somehow related to unlocking him. It was thought that 2401 was the total number of coins in the game, but there are actually many more. It's still unclear what this message is referring to, but it definitely isn't Luigi being hidden somewhere in the game.

Sometimes, it seems like people want to fall for a hoax. Super Smash Bros. Melee combined characters from several different gaming franchises, but Sonic and Tails are not included. The rumor started as an April Fool's joke in EGM magazine. Maybe it's a bad idea to believe anything crazy you read around April Fool's day?

Every Mortal Kombat game has included hidden characters. Fans just don't know when to stop, however. In the first game, players believed they could unlock a red ninja named Ermac. He was supposedly a super fast version of Scorpion. In reality, Ermac actually stood for "Error Macro" and there was no actual red ninja to unlock. Ermac eventually became a real character in later Mortal Kombat games, but he isn't in the first. The same goes for Hornbuckle and Nimbus Terrafaux.

One thing that Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas has in common with the real world is that people are searching it for the mythical creature known as bigfoot. He was rumored to roam the woods around San Andreas, and at one point, Rockstar may intended to include him. He only appears in modded versions of the game and other Rockstar games.

Due to a mistranslation from Japanese to English in Street Fighter 2, players thought there was a secret character named Sheng Long. There was supposedly a very complicated (and time-consuming) way to unlock this character. This involved playing through the tournament without taking a single hit, and then wait for time to run out against M. Bison without either player taking damage. In reality, doing so would just result in a complete waste of time.

It's always fun to imagine playing one game using a character from a completely different game. Players who mistook an April Fool's joke thought it was possible to unlock the Street Fighter character Akuma in Resident Evil 2. Of course, they had to play through every scenario of the game multiple times using only the handgun. Not only was it not real, it just doesn't seem worth it. After all that, would you even want to play the game anymore?

One of the most shocking moments in gaming history came in Final Fantasy VII when Aeris is killed. Players couldn't believe it happened, so they latched onto any rumor that said it was possible to save her. Unfortunately, without her death, the rest of the story doesn't make sense. Aeris has to die and we all just have to move on.

After a certain point in Fallout 3, there's a radio station that can sometimes be picked up that will sometimes play morse code messages. It was rumored that these messages actually foretold very specific real world events, some of which have come true. The only prediction that these messages make is that some people have way too much free time on their hands.

Sometimes programmers cut a section from a game, but leave behind clues about what could have been. In GoldenEye 007 for Nintendo 64, there's an island in the dam level that's visible in the distance. There's no way to reach it without cheating. There were tons of rumors about what secrets the island held, but in reality it's just an empty piece of real estate.

Every little kid tried to jump over the flag at the end of every Super Mario Bros. level. There were rumors about extra lives, coins, warp zones, or new levels. While it is possible to jump over the flag, it can only be done on world 3-3. And it doesn't lead to any secrets. It's actually just a glitch in the game, and Mario will just get stuck in an unending loop until time runs out and he dies.

Probably the creepiest video game hoax of all time is Polybius. It's a game that might not even exist, and it supposedly causes psychological trauma to anyone who plays it. The story goes that the mysterious cabinets appeared in only a few arcades across the country. Local kids would become addicted to the game, and every once in a while several Men in Black would show up and collect data from the machine. Those that believe in the game claim that the government created it as some sort of experiment. It's rumored that some arcade cabinets still exist, though none have turned up publicly.