8 Infuriating Video Game Prank Callers

8. Shenmue 1 & 2

Ah Shenmue, one of the all time strangest games I've ever played, a title that manages to be in instances engaging and action packed, and then at others as slow as molasses as you watch a man wandering down the street and collect toys from machines. I guess in this sense it's a series which captures life in the full colour wheel, of the excitement and boredom that comes from being alive. I mean I personally have less murdered family and more duck racing in my life, but the rest of it is pretty close.

And in fact this blur between reality and video games came to a head with the re release of the first and second games, as players soon found out that all of the phone numbers in the game now existed without the final digit and began asking why.

Well it turns out that there was a very simple and practical reason for this, as the numbers shown in the original two games were actually in use by residents of the area on which the game was based. Therefore inadvertently the developers had provided a list of people to phone up and berate for the game taking so long to get a sequel or otherwise prank.

A lot of games avoid using real world phone numbers for this exact reason, but Shenmue being the dedicated soul that it was, decided that some poor old families would just have to put up with the drive-by diallers who found their numbers in the game.

Advertisement
 
Posted On: 
Contributor
Contributor

Jules Gill hasn't written a bio just yet, but if they had... it would appear here.