Easter Eggs and Cheat Codes - Draft 2: In Depth

Continuing on!
I have already drafted out what easter eggs and cheat codes are and how they started out, but I would like to continue by giving some examples as part of my second draft. I will also look at some of the most useless cheats in video game history.

Second Draft
As I have already mentioned in my previous post, easter eggs come in many different forms. Ranging from simple text or pictures crediting the designer to actual mini games within the software. Many times easter eggs are humorous and purely intended for entertainment, but as my first example shows easter eggs can also be used to reward fans. In 1990 Nintendo held a contest in which one player would be randomly selected to make an appearance in a Nintendo game. Chris Houlihan won the contest and received a secret room in The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past.

(source: mashable.com)

Another example of an easter egg can be found in the game Hitman: Absolution, in which the player can kill every nearby vulture instead of his target and then watch said person getting run over by an ice cream truck that mysteriously appears in the desert.

(source: mashable.com)

Finally in the game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, a sign can be found on top of the Gant Bridge that reads "There are no Easter Eggs up here. Go away.", which ironically is an easter egg itself.

(source: mashable.com)

These easter eggs show the great variety in humour that developers have hidden in popular video games as well as different ways of hiding them, whether it is shooting what seems like harmless parts of the scenery or climbing up huge bridges. You can find more here: http://mashable.com/2013/10/22/best-gaming-easter-eggs/

Just like many easter eggs are worthless and purely intended for entertainment, some cheat codes actually have the same purpose. An example to this would be in Grand Theft Auto III, where one cheat code can turn pedestrians to go crazy and attack everything in sight, while another cheat code can give weapons to pedestrians. Both combined can lead to an entertaining sight as pedestrians within the city start shooting each other and causing mayhem. Completely useless, but fun nonetheless.

Another rather useless cheat which can be found in many games is the "Big Head Mode", which turns the characters heads into a massive size. Here is an example of this particular cheat code from the game NBA Jam:

(source: gamerjokckies.com)

You can find more of the worst cheats here: http://www.toplessrobot.com/2013/10/the_eight_most_worthless_cheats_in_video_game_hist.php

While there are quite a few useless cheats which are intended to increase replay value, not all of them do so. Some cheat codes actually enable the player to skip parts of the game or grant the player ways of playing through the game a lot easier (unlimited ammo, god mode, etc.). A famous example of this is the Konami Code, which is a cheat code for the NES port of the 1985 arcade game Gradius. While testing the game the developer found the game too hard to play and decided to include a small bit of code that instantly gave him a full set of power-ups.

Conclusion

As you can see, both cheat codes and easter eggs have similar origins and purposes. Both are put into video games by their developers and usually left in on purpose. Finally, both cheat codes and easter eggs can be entertaining to players and are ways for developers to express their sense of humour, which makes them a great addition to video games.