7. Dead Or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball's Nude Code
Another gem from the Electronic Gaming Monthly magazine's annual April Fool's hoaxes, this one centered on Dead Or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball for the Xbox. The game, which did an all right job simulating the summer sport, was more focussed on providing cheap cheesecake thrills to people who didn't find the regular jiggle-tastic Dead Or Alive fighting games titillating enough, and yet still hadn't discovered the wealth of actual pornography the internet has to offer. The pet project of notorious pervert and Ninja Gaiden mastermind Tomonobu Itagaki, the game did actually let you play volleyball...but also let you replay matches from a number of provocative angles. And each time you won you unlocked a new, skimpier swimsuit for your character. Yeah. Pretty creepy. It could have been worse, however, because at least you never actually see any of them naked! Which is clearly a mechanic players wanted in the game, as they went bananas for EGM's assertion that a nude cheat was hidden somewhere in the Xtreme Beach Volleyball. Riffing on the infamous Lara Croft nude cheat that springboarded off the fascination of nineties teens for the busty Tomb Raider heroine, the magazine claimed that a particular code would unlock a topless mode, even going so far as printing doctored photos (albeit with black censor bars over the offending female anatomy). They received an avalanche of hate mail from frustrated nerds who discovered it was all a hoax, but thankfully a group of enterprising hackers stepped in to provide a patch for the game that actually does provide some topless women in your volleyball game. We repeat: internet porn is a thing, guys.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
