10 Video Game Myths We All Stupidly Believed As Kids

Video Games are full of secret treasures, but many of are total myths.

Back in the days before the internet killed publishing from encyclopedias to periodicals, gamers had only two sources for game news: expensive gaming magazines and word of mouth. As far as the magazine went, you had staples like Gamepro and Nintendo Power, and later Game Informer and Playstation Magazine to provide walkthroughs, reviews, secrets, and letters from the community. For the most part these were reliable, but only because by-and-large the information came directly from the game publishers as a form of native advertising. Even then, information was occasionally wrong or changed later. It was a slower, simpler world where published magazines were almost unto tomes written in stone. Many still refer to Nintendo Power about Super Mario 3 to crush the Card Flip game. As for word of mouth... it was much more exciting and, maybe, even credible to a degree. We all had a friend, with a cousin, who saw a guy get 99 lives and a crown in Super Mario Bros. Everybody had an older brother or cousin that could beat Ninja Gaiden, and in one life no less! Most of these however, nobody ever seemed to have documented... but everyone believed was true. These were before the "pics or didn't happen" days of gaming and a great many of these stories became myths - the El Dorados, Atlantises, and Holy Grails of Gaming. We believed in them, we searched for them, and we ground our thumbs to the bone for them. Unfortunately, we now know that for many of these just weren't true - or were only slightly true and then crazily exaggerated. And for the most part, they couldn't be true - at least not without massive cheating and glitching. But we stupidly believed in them anyway...

Contributor
Contributor

Brandon grew from the awkwardness of his youth into the awkwardness of his adulthood. He is the author of the Eat Your Serial Press title "Ten Years Gone: Pomp and Circumstance" and is a contributor on Maglomaniac, Polite on Society, and What Culture.