What better to celebreate Easter than looking back at some of our favorite hidden secrets peppered throughout our games libraries?

Easter eggs are old time immemorial, and serve an important purpose that makes gamers everywhere grin in delight. Most of the time the Easter eggs are little bits that devs leave in their game, small nods to pop-culture references that bring a truly enchanting sense of achievement when found by players.

Without further adieu, let’s just in and check out some of my personal favorite Easter eggs in gaming.

Diablo 2 –  The Secret Cow Level

Diablo 2 is one of my favorite games of all time, and features one of the most hilarious Easter eggs in video games history: the infamous Cow Level.

That’s right. There’s a secret area in Blizzard’s iconic demon-slaying ARPG where you fight cows…and take on the dreaded Cow King.

The Secret Cow Level can be accessed by combining Wirt’s Leg–which is found on Wirt’s body via a portal to Tristram in the Stony Field–with a Town of Town Portal book.

The cows are called “Hell Bovines”, and to make things even more hilarious, they actually moo. They moo a lot.

This level isn’t just for fun, though; it serves as a very valuable spot to find goods and level up for new players–I myself have helped hundreds of other players level up and snag loot from cow runs over the years.

But stay clear of the Cow King: once you slay him you can’t ever open the Cow portal ever again.

Halo – Half-Naked Guy & Dancing Marty

The Half-Naked Guy is one of Halo 3‘s most popular campaign Easter eggs, and was one of the more truly weird and…uncomfortable finds in the game.

And that guy in his boxers? That’s none other than Jason Jones, co-founder of Bungie Studios. What a way to be immortalized, right?

The cardboard cutout can also be found in a Halo 2 cutscene, although you have to zoom quite a way’s in to see him. The image shows up on the Gravemind mission and the Legendary difficulty must be active.

In the same vein, you can also find an incredibly goofy cutout ex-Bungie composer Marty O’ Donnell in the Halo 3: ODST campaign.

The egg shows Marty dancing hilariously in a .gif style repeating fashion with bubbles and little cartoon hearts emanating around him. The dancing is accompanied by some groovy tunes, too.

Diablo 3 – Whimsyshire

Blizzard made it clear from the start that the infamous Cow Level wouldn’t return for Diablo 3. But that doesn’t mean the fun is over. They’ve just become more happy, with sunshine, rainbows, cupcakes and unicorns replacing the raging Hell Bovines.

Whimsyshire is much more difficult to access, and to get in, you have to collect a ton of random objects strewn and dropped throughout the game. But it’s all worth it to show a new player the majesty of whimsy.

The place is strewn with killer unicorns who are hellbent on feasting on your bones, all the while presented in one of the happiest places on earth.

Bright colors, joyous clouds and even power-up cupcakes fill the area, making one of the most hilarious Easter eggs of all time.

The level can actually be pretty big, too, but it’s a finite zone just like the Cow Level so the fun won’t last forever.

Fallout: New Vegas – Indiana Jones’ Skeleton

Remember when Indy jumped inside of the refrigerator to survive the atomic blast in Kingdom of the Crystal Skull? The intrepid adventurer went unscathed during the explosion thanks to the fridge’s lead lining.

But the devs of Fallout: New Vegas disagree, and you can find poor Indy’s bones and trademark within the famed refrigerator, an obvious nod to the outrageous impossible scene. The completely ridiculous premise was just another one of the reasons why this little find is so special, and represents a good bit of humor from the dev team.

You can find this easter egg by going just a bit north from Goods Spring Source, and northwest from Jean Sky Diving.

Star Wars Rebel Assault II – Mystery Science Theater 3K Mode

This mid-90’s rail shooter saw a release on PC and the early PlayStation console, and features one of the most amazing Easter eggs of all time.

If you put in the code “OVRES” (that’s SERVO spelled backwards, as in Tom Servo) during the Theater mode to activate a secret Mystery Science Theater 3000 overlay mode.

The egg features R2D2, Darth Vader and C3PO taking the places of the iconic mover-goers to dish out some hilarious commentary over Rebel Assault II‘s cutscenes.

Halo 4 – Andy Richter and Conan O’Brian Bicker

Andy Richter and Conan O’Brian are actually in Halo 4. Who knew?

They two comedians lend their voices to a duo of soldiers onboard the UNSC Infinity, and deliver about 10 seconds of bickering commentary. They can be found during the sixth campaign mission entitled Shutdown, and are pretty easy to find.

It’s a nice little nod that surprised me when I first played the game, and added a nice touch of hilarity to an otherwise serious and somber game.

Call of Duty: Black Ops II – Playing Atari Games in Nuketown

In Nuketown 2025, Call of Duty: Black Ops II‘s retro 50’s style “home of the future” map, you can actually play old-school Activision games from the Atari days.

What you need to do is headshot all of the mannequins in the map in less than 1 minute 30 seconds, and walk over to the terminal and voila–you can fire up some old games like Pitfall, Hero, River Raid and Kaboom!

Oh and don’t worry about getting shot up while you enjoy some classic gaming–you’re actually invincible while you play.

Dead Island – Jason Vorhees

Everyone knows Jason Vorhees: he’s the brutal hockey-mask wearing maniac who practically built the campy 80’s style slasher genre.

We’ve seen the Friday the 13th murderer re-created in iconic game form on the NES, but Techland resurrected the machete-slicing baddy for their zombie game Dead Island.

Vorhees is a higher-level boss within a secret area, and he’s complete with his trademark hockey mask and machete. It’s great to see a horror movie nod from Techland, and given Dead Island perfectly fits the woodsy theme of Camp Crystal Lake, this cross-over is a no-brainer!

Dying Light – Easter Eggs Galore

Techland’s zombie survival sim Dying Light has a ton of Easter eggs.

Rather than showcasing and chronicling every single hidden secret, I’ve picked a few of my personal favorites that can be found below:

Super Mario Parkour

There’s a hidden pipe within the game that actually transports you to World 1-1 straight out of a Mario Bros. platformer, but rather than going 2-D, you’re left to traverse the colorful environment in first-person.

The level is complete with Goombas, coinboxes and a flagpole at the end, and you can even find a blueprint schematic for an item that lets you glide around the map like Mario in his Tanooki suit!

Excalibur, The Sword in the…Zombie?

King Arthur’s mystical blade is one of the many secret items peppered throughout the game, and was one of the first Easter eggs to be unearthed.

The EXPcalibur is stuck in a zombie’s corpse rather than a stone, and you’ll have to press the activate button repeatedly for a good minute or so to pull it free. Once you snag it be sure to wait around for the Blueprint, as the sword actually breaks pretty fast since it’s so powerful.

Silence of the Lambs

Remember Buffalo Bill? Of course you do. No one will ever forget that creepy bastard, or the iconic well prison he kept his victims in.

Dying Light pays homage to the iconic Silence of the Lambs film by recreating that very dry stone well. The Easter egg is actually revealed during the “Where’s My Mother?” side mission, and once you find the key to the basement, you discover a woman trapped in the macabre prison and free her.

Battlefield Hardline – Couch Kills and Secret Reloads

Haven’t you always wanted to drive a couch in a game and run people over?

Thanks to Battlefield: Hardline‘s excessively awesome Easter eggs, you can do just that. The couch is called the “American Dream” and can be found in the Dust Bowl multiplayer map.

You’ll have to be playing the Hotwire Mode in order to jump on the couch and start running down enemies. Plus every time you score a kill onboard the couch, it registers as a ‘Murica kill.

If a drive-able couch wasn’t enough, Hardline also has a host of rare reload animations that are pretty damn hilarious.

These range from reloading your gun with a third arm, a stylish rocket launcher flip reload, a comically huge clip reload, and more. Check below to see them all!

Half-Life – Room of Gaben

Just about every PC player has a special spot in their hearts for Valve creator Gabe Newell.

Affectionately known as “Gaben” by Steam aficionados (that is to say most of everyone who owns a PC) and the games industry, Newell was immortalized in a vary peculiar Easter egg featured in the first Half-Life game.

The “Gaben Room” is a square room that’s painted rather creepily in small pictures of Newell’s face, making a rather bizarre nod to the “cult of Gaben”…or maybe it was a joke about the Valve’s bosses’ supposed narcissism?

We don’t know why it was made, but we do know that it’s awesome…in a very uncomfortable way.

Chrono Trigger – Secret Developer Room

Chrono Trigger is known as one of the best games of all time, and harks back to the golden-age of JRPG mastery. It also houses one of the most creative Easter eggs in gaming.

The secret is actually one of the many endings of the game, and can be accessed by unlocking the “Dream Project” ending.

After you beat the game and unlock the ending, you actually get to interact with in-game NPC’s of all of Chrono Trigger‘s developers. This remains one of the most memorable Easter eggs I’ve ever experienced, and I had no idea how I unlocked it back in the day.

According to the Chronopendium website, there are two ways of obtaining this ending:

“Firstly, on a New Game +, go straight to the Telepod before even going to 600 A.D. Use the sparkle on the right Telepod to fight Lavos. Otherwise, this ending can be found by defeating Lavos during the Ocean Palace Incident.”

Chatting to each of the developers in their SNES pixellated forms was enchanting. It was a kind of metaphysical experience, something I hadn’t experienced before, and it was a kind of magical bridge between creator and player.

And I’ll never forget Eiji Nakamura’s character telling me to “get a life!”…ahh nostalgia.

Wrap-Up

With so many games released over the last few decades, there are probably millions and millions of Easter eggs out there, with many more that have yet to be discovered.

Secrets and glitches are and will continue to be an integral part of the gaming world, with a distinct cult following that’s determined to shed light on every little mystery that video games have to offer.

We know we’ve missed a ton of secrets, and we’d love to hear some of your favorite video game Easter eggs that you’ve found over the years!

The post My Favorite Video Game Easter Eggs appeared first on VR World.

Developer: Techland
Publisher: Warner Bros. Interactive
Release Date: Jan. 27, 2015
Platform: PS4, Xbox One, PC
Genre: First-person Survival, Action, Horror
MSRP: $59.99

Disclaimer: A digital copy of the game was received for Dying Light review on PlayStation 4.

Dying Light might look like any other zombie game, but I assure you, it’s not.

Yes it is made by Techland, and no it isn’t just another Dead Island clone. It’s something special and unique that represents the culmination of everything the developers learned from their mistakes with the previous games.

While Dying Light does borrow heavily from the core mechanics of Dead Island, the game has a deft and fluid grace that its predecessors lacked thanks to its new parkour-based locomotion.

And it also takes some of the best elements of the former series like crafting–adding makeshift blowtorch modules onto garden sickles or electrifying a police baton–as well as a RPG progression system.

Drop-in/drop-out co-op is also included, and is responsible for a good portion of the game’s replayability and fun factor.

Complimented with a bigger open-world sandbox filled with quests and activities and unique day-to-night transition that seamlessly changes a players role from hunter to hunted, Dying Light is one of the most entertaining and truly fun zombie games I’ve played in any generation of consoles.

Now let’s take a closer look at the bloody streets of Harran. Are you afraid of the dark? You should be.

A hero’s (zombie) journey

The overseas city of Harran is in flames. Misshapen monstrosities roam the streets, and the dead walk the earth, tearing swaths in the remaining population. The tropical resort has become a hellish nightmare that only gets worse when sun sets: that’s when the real terrors come out.

Society has splintered off into survivor factions, all fighting for precious supplies like weapons, food, and antizin, a drug that delays the symptoms of the zombie virus. But antizin is used as a commodity by Rais, a brutal despot who extorts survivors with his band of machine-gun toting ruffians.

Players take the role of GRE operative Kyle Crane, who acts as the central agent of change for the city of Harran.

Crane is a nondescript hero who must juggle a number of alliances to uphold his undercover status, ultimately leading to a true test of his morals and willpower as things become more and more dire for the citizens of the Tower.

The story has a distinct dramatic flair, with a few twists and turns, but overall is a decent backdrop to a ruined world. The stage is set by a soldier who soon realizes that his mission will ultimately compromise his humanity–standard fare in the weight of secrets upon a truly good-hearted hero.

But it becomes more and more dynamic and winding the more you progress, taxing our hero more and more. At one point Rais captures him and forces him to fight in an arena against undead, which ends up going quite amazingly well.

B-movie style

To me Dying Light feels distinctly like a B-movie, and that’s one of the many reasons I love this game.

Having seen a ton of horror movies and monster flicks, it has a decidedly cultish flair that seems to marry classic Romero sentiments with outlandish Troma-style gore. And the music feels very Carpenter-esque (something of a mix between Halloween III and Manhunter‘s creepy synth-tones).

And like a lot of campy B-movies and cult flicks, Dying Light makes use of no-brainer concepts like keeping safe zones completely devoid of ladders or stairs. Some zones are even built on floating piers, away from prowling undead.

Small things like these speak wonders and make traditional pop-culture zombie franchises look rather foolish by comparison.

It has style, it has its own allure that is suffused with a number of visceral horror elements that make it stand out quite clearly when compared to other zombie games. It’s a delightful mish-mash of both subtle fear and obscene blood and guts that shines an intimate look at the genre as a whole.

This is mostly fleshed out by the game’s day and night transitions.

During the day, players are pretty much free to do what they like: scout for items, molotov an entire horde of undead, tackle sidequests or just soak up the rays on a tropical beach. In the daytime, you’re the hunter.

But during the night? You’re the hunted. You’re prey.

Terror rules the night. The symbolism of night being dangerous and full of evils (as GRRM would say, the night is dark and full of terrors) has always interested me. So it’s with no small enjoyment that I found myself utterly captivated by the disorientation of being hunted in the dead of night.

Night is when the Volatiles, those super-powerful agile zombies, come out and play. And not all the parkour in the world can save you once you have a horde of those horrors on your back.

To even the odds Crane has a UV light to ward them off, and there are also UV light traps strewn through the city, but overall stealth is your best bet at night.

Strategic undead warfare

Combat is the most enjoyable part of Dying Light, and it’s a delicious meal that has all sorts of dishes and tastes.

There are so many different ways you can take on zombies in the game. If you’re the type that likes to bathe in zombie blood, jump right in and start swinging with a meat cleaver for some slicing-and-dicing.

You can use the multitudes of spike traps or explosive pools of gasoline to annihilate groups, or pick them off with well-placed shots from a rifle. Be aware that Walking Dead rules apply here, and loud bangs will attract tougher menaces to deal with.

Crane is a very nimble fighter, and in many ways he kind of reminds me of the Waterdancer Syrio Forel. His dodge move allows him to easily hop out of the way of an incoming Demolisher’s strike, or a skull-crushing swing of a two-handed rebar maul.

The kicks are another amazing feature. When I played Dead Island: Riptide as John Morgan, I kicked and kicked and kicked some more. I loved it. And this game adds the kick as a simple secondary feature, letting you disarm and sometimes even stun enemies.

Strategy and preference make up one half of combat, and really it’s all up to you how you dispatch the undead.

I myself love using firecrackers to get zombies massed together, and then tossing a molotov to slowly burn them out. When you level up your Survivor tree things can get much more interesting.

For example you can use freezing throwing stars to immobilize troublesome baddies in place, or toss a toxic grenade in their midst for some slow poison damage. You can even use some flammable liquid and combo off of your fire-enhanced weapons for explosive damage.

Loot, sweet loot

Items are the other hemisphere of combat, and Dying Light one-ups Dead Island in a few key ways. You can still pick up swords and axes and hammers–the basic advantages of melee weapons over guns still stands–but Techland has raised the ante a bit in terms of customization.

Every item can be upgraded and fit with a custom mod for double the carnage. Upgrades only raise stats like damage, durability and handling, whereas mods will imbue the item with interesting elemental affinities.

Also a lot of these affinities can combo off of specific materials and items–we’ve already explored how flammable liquid combos off of fire weapons, but the same is true for conducting liquid and electrically-charged crowbars, swords, etc.

There are a ton of unique items peppered through Harran, some of which are secrets. There’s the Excalibur sword hidden in a zombie corpse, the devastating sick bomb that’s awarded to you after a tedious game of checkers, the ultra-powerful Korek machete (named after a Techland employee) and a number of other goodies.

Sometimes, though, the best items are the ones you make yourself. Other times you’ll want to go ahead and just upgrade a Korek machete with a King’s Mod and just go to town.

Bloody chaos and parkour

Combat is a visceral, bloody and brutal experience.

You get up close and personal with the zombies–the game makes you feel when you hit that perfect critical and smash in their heads, bringing the total panicky terror when you’re overrun by dozens of undead.

Sometimes it can be satisfying, other times it can get out of control. I myself keep things interesting by complimenting my melee strikes by using throwing weapons, traps, and other mechanisms of destruction.

In terms of movement, the game flows exceedingly well thanks to its new parkour system. This pretty much gives you the freedom to explore and move across any area of the game, sprinting across rooftops or wall-jumping and leaping across high distances.

The parkour is smooth, and to me it’s smoother than Mirror’s Edge simply because you don’t have to keep that momentum going at all times. Plus later on you get a wall-jump that pretty much makes it so you can grasp any ledge, no matter how high it is.

That being said the parkour can be finicky at times. Early on you’ll learn what ledges you can grasp (anything without barbed wire) versus those you just can’t. And sometimes you’ll miss anyway. It happens.

And there’s a grappling hook. Yes, it’s amazingly fun, but you won’t get it until you’re level 12 in Survivor rank.

Skill progression

Speaking of ranks, there are three major RPG skill progression trees: Agility (running, jumping, sliding, parkouring, etc), Survivor (saving NPC’s, doing missions, side quests, grabbing air drops) and Power (killing zombies in any fashion, whether with weapons or traps).

Each tree has three tiers, and my favorite is the Survivor tree.

You can use it to create some pretty badass items, from elemental throwing stars, shields that can actually soak up damage and inflict status ailments, boosters and tonics too buff your armor and stamina, and even makeshift grenades.

Add to that a massive open-world sandbox filled with tons of easter eggs, hidden items, blueprints and volatile zombies and you’ve got the city of Harran. The in-game world is pretty huge and there’s a ton of side quests and NPC’s to interact with, along with a sprawling metropolis replete with different sections and areas.

In short there’s always something to do in the game, and all of it is pretty entertaining.

Co-Op

The co-operative play is amazingly well done.

Even when I’m playing with a full team of four I have hardly had any lag, and we pretty much decimated everything that was in our path. It’s a great way to blow off steam for some mindless chaotic fun, and to earn a lot of cash looting the dead zombies.

The only gripe I have with co-op is that all the players have to be in the same spot to initiate a mission or quest. A lot of the time random players will scatter to the four winds, but if someone’s trying to kick off a quest, you can actually teleport to their location in a jiffy.

I’ve had a blast with the co-op so far, and I’ve actually met a few new friends who I join for some high-stakes questing–and they even showed me a thing or two about Easter eggs, especially the incredibly amusing Super Mario Bros. parkour level.

Quirky NPC’s

I have to give a shout out to some of the most odd and comical NPC’s I’ve encountered in my time as a gamer.

Dying Light is full of unique characters who actually have character. It’s very refreshing to come in contact with a guy who’s willing to give me an impression before he just sends me on a fetch quest.

Some memorable NPC’s include those idiosyncratic twins Tolga and Fatin, who, after sending me on a fetch quest, initiated in a very entertaining bit of banter where they argued about who’s smarter Cornelius or Dr. Saius.

“Orangutans are smarter”, Tolga tells his half-wit brother in an obvious tone, “Cornelius didn’t even have a PhD.”

Then there’s Edwin Snowberg, a horror movie director who actually flew into Harran just so he could get cheap footage for his next zombie movie, Zombie Annihilation IV: Dying Lunch. Snowberg sends you on a mini-game where you blast zombies with a shotgun, and rewards you with cash. I love it.

Conclusion

Dying Light is zombie survival sim done right.

It keeps the tried and true Dead Island formula but patches up so many things that the original series missed out on, including free-flowing parkour, a more dynamic open-world, and more satisfying combat.

There’s a massive level of depth to the game that can be explored in so many ways, whether it’s with a friend (or group of friends or strangers) in co-op, or simply alone. The storyline is pretty decent and has some memorable characters like Jade and Rais to fill things in, but all in all the mechanics make the game what it is..

With a range of amazingly satisfying strategic-based combat mechanics, massive level of replayability, dazzling graphical fidelity, quirky NPC’s and a huge artillery of quests and side quests, Dying Light is pretty much my new favorite zombie game and we’re confident that after you try it, it’ll be yours as well.

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