10 Celebrity Musicians Hidden In Your Favourite Video Games
Why play as LeBron James when you can shoot three-pointers as Adam Yauch?
Easter eggs within video games are now very much par for the course. Games like Grand Theft Auto, the Batman Arkham series and Halo are rife with homages to fans, references to the lore of the series and nods to the hard-working individuals who put in an almost incomprehensible amount of effort to make some of our favourite interactive titles.
Among these hordes of secretive goodies, there is a different type of surprise in some games that are hidden through the veil of production and casting as opposed to collision and cheat codes.
Some games use their association with a celebrity as a way to give their marketing and PR a shot in the arm. Occasionally, there are times when subtly or a gentle and low-key approach serves as a way to surprise players and long time fans by having a movie star, band frontman or sports legend pop up in some form or another.
In this list, we're looking specifically at when musicians have made a guest appearance in some well-known (and some not so well-known) titles. Sadly, this means I cannot include the masterpieces that are Shaq-Fu and Michael Jordan: Chaos in the Windy City.
Believe me, I tried.
10. ZZ Top/Blues Brothers - Space Quest I: The Sarien Encounter
While the bearded rockers are technically in the game with their likeness, they were unofficially used by developers Sierra On-Line in the graphic adventure, Space Quest I: The Sarien Encounter.
As I covered previously on this site, Space Quest I had a lot of pop culture references thrown in by its two developers, Scott Murphy and Mark Crowe. They included references to everything from the late Toys ‘R’ Us to Lost in Space and Stark Trek II: Wrath of Khan. ZZ Top were amongst these nods.
A good chunk in, the player goes to the Rocket Bar in Ulence Flats (which is remarkably similar to Mos Eisley and its cantina) in order to make their way off of the planet Kerona. In this establishment, there is a band playing that bears a strong resemblance to the sharply-dressed men.
After legal action from the band was taken against the devs, the performers were changed to look like an alien version of The Blues Brothers instead.