Gaming's Top 10 Easter Eggs

Pokemon Red/Blue - Missingno

If 'put an item sixth in your pack list', watch an old man demonstrate how to catch a pokemon, fly to Cinnabar Island and surf up and down the side of the island means anything to you, you no doubt learnt the Missingo cheat. Not so much an easter egg as a glitch in the system, this event had the nice impact of giving you a large number of whatever item was sixth in your pack - always good for those rare candies and Master Balls.

Donkey Kong (Atari 800) – LMD Discovered 26 years after its creation, in the Atari port of Nintendo's Donkey Kong, a convoluted and difficult set of events will afford the player the princely reward of...the developer's initials appearing. Landon M. Dyer was in charge of porting the game to the Atari.

Google Earth – Flight Simulator Though now it appears under the “Tools” menu, for a while this was only accessed by pressing Ctrl+Alt+A in Google's popular virtual Earth. It's certainly not a patch on Microsoft Flight Simulator or anything, but it's pretty neat nonetheless, especially considering it's a “game” in a non- game.

GTA San Andreas – Gant Bridge Tower San Andreas' answer to the Golden Gate Bridge features on top of its southern tower a plaque, accessible via jetpack (or helicopter, if you're good). Rather ironically, it says “There are no Easter Eggs up here. Go away.” Arguably one of the best-known video-game Easter eggs.

Portal 2 – Bonus song While only being released last week, Portal 2 actually contains several Easter eggs, most notably a bonus song, “Exile Vilify” by indie band The National, which is played on a radio in a secret chamber in the game. The song was recorded specifically for the game!

Curse of Monkey Island Aside from the set of (extremely good) Point 'n' Click adventure games it has under its belt, Lucas Arts is forever intertwined with Star Wars. So much so, that in Curse of Monkey Island's swordfighting section, the final battle has lightsaber effects if you press Ctrl+J. I'd take Guybrush over Vader any day.

Marvel Vs. Capcom Capcom has a wealth of characters to appear in their fighting games, so sometimes even the popular characters don't appear in a release. In the original Marvel Vs. Capcom, old favourite Ryu is missing his rivals Ken and Akuma. But but doing a special input, he can borrow their smooth moves. Sadly, that ability doesn't show up in Marvel Vs. Capcom 3.

‘Food Nipple’ Grunt – Halo Positioned as the cannon-fodder enemy of the Halo series, grunts serve little purpose other than to be killed easily. However, on the frantic final escape section of the original Halo, one grunt is hidden off the beaten path. It will not attack, but when approached will spout such a hilarious series of ramblings that it is well worth the possibility of level failure just to hear it.

Sonic Adventure This fun but divisive title was Sonic's first foray into 3D; but it's not the first 3D game Sonic Team's done. NiGHTS into Dreams was a beautiful scrolling shooter for the Sega Saturn; and it returns as a cameo in the Casinopolis stage. A NiGHTS-themed pinball machine gives you a pretty fly-by of one of the game levels if you get a high enough score.

Easter Egg – Grand Theft Auto: Vice City To finish off we return to the Grand Theft Auto Series. Rockstar North took the Easter egg concept very literally for one of its secrets in Vice City; if a helicopter is flown to a certain pad, the player can jump through a wall to a secret room. What lies in this hidden room? An actual (digital) Easter egg, of course.

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