Top Ten Video Game Easter Eggs For The Lazy Gamer

Before being asked to do this “Top 10 Easter Eggs” post, I hadn’t really paid much attention to easter eggs. I certainly knew what they were - you don’t play video games for 30 years without discovering plenty of hidden objects, sounds, events, or minigames along the way -  but I hadn’t really paid attention to the phenomena as a whole.

Imagine, then, the cavalcade of potential entrants I was avalanched with when I hit the books to write up my version of this list. Unless I wanted to ape one of the many lists already out there, or give yet more publicity to the venerable Adventure dev credit or shooting John Romero’s head, I had to think of another way to go about this. 

The thing about easter eggs is that sometimes they take a ridiculous amount of effort to discover or pull off…and plenty of us don’t have time for that. Many easter eggs also come from games that have long since passed into the Video Game Hall of Antiquity.Part of the fun of the easter egg is going to see them yourself once someone else points out their existence to you.

Here, then, is my list of the Top Ten Contemporary Easter Eggs for the Lazy Gamer.

Picture of Jack in BioShock 

BioShock’s real easter egg is a discussion of Randian Objectivism. We’re still all talking about it, precisely because no one expects that sort of thing in a mass-market video game title. However, finding this picture of the protagonist we’ve been controlling throughout our tour of Rapture is another nice easter egg to find. Did you smile fondly upon him for saving those little girls, or curse his evil visage for harvesting them all?

Arkham City plans in Arkham Asylum 

It’s usually an intrepid or lucky gamer who stumbles upon an easter egg and then immediately logs onto the interwebs to claim his nerdly superiority…but this hidden surprise was hidden well enough that Batman: Arkham Asylum developer Rocksteady went ahead and told everyone. I figure they stuck this in there just in case there was a sequel…and then maybe told us once the call was made?

Black Ops Secret Terminal 

Mash your controller buttons enough and you can get out of the chair you find yourself strapped to at the beginning of Call of Duty: Black Ops. Walk around to the wall behind you and there’s a computer terminal that has plenty of goodies to view, and some modes to unlock. I almost didn’t add this to the list, however, on account of all the work that had to go into figuring all these codes out. Too much work! But I let that slide because it’s easy to get over there, and I’ll just give you all the codes.

GTA IV: Beating Heart inside Statue of Happiness

Niko apparently loves architecture enough to really want to explore the Statue of Happiness inside and out. There just happens to be something to find in there, which is good or else stealing that helicopter and all the rest would really be a waste of time. You know, time you could spend finding more easter eggs.

Gears of War 2 Toaster 

I’m not entirely sure why the Locust in the Gears of War series go to war with humanity in the first place. Yes, I’ve played both games, but maybe it’s covered in the Karen Traviss novels prior to the most recent entry in the series, which is the only one I’ve read. Or it might just be that the Locust Queen wanted some toast. Or an English muffin, maybe.

Borderlands Bandit Riding A Fish 

I’ve played the hell out of Borderlands. Me and the buddy I’m running through the game with have done almost every single quest just for the excuse to run around and blast the bejeezus out of things. We’re the guys in FPS games who just like throwing as many rounds as possible. I don’t remember seeing this lunatic riding the giant fish, however. We’ll be going back to find him in the very near future.

Halo: Reach DJ Brute 

This easter egg almost didn’t make the list because it might take too much effort to find, but it’s crazy enough to be worth it. I’m not sure whether it’s the dancing Grunts or the Brutes spinning wax that make the scene for me…although I would kill the Grunts last, so maybe that’s a clue…

Still Alive song jukebox from Left 4 Dead 2

Easter eggs are often self-referential, and Valve gives us a fine example with this jukebox in Left 4 Dead 2; and in Valve’s typical fashion of serving their fans well, they included this in the demo as well as the full game. 

GTA IV Ballad of Gay Tony RRoD Xbox 360 

The only thing that would have made this better would have been the ability to remove the Xbox from its shelf and toss it out a window, or bring it downstairs and run it over with a car, or shoot it with a rocket launcher. If it’s good enough for pedestrians, it’s good enough for a symbol of the nonsense 60% of us probably had to go through. I’m on Xbox #2 … but if this one red rings, I’m getting a Slim.

Modern Warfare 2 Button That Makes The Museum Want To Kill You

I call this “What Night At The Museum could have been.” This easter egg is actually pretty creepy, although I might have preferred it if the button hadn’t borne a warning label, but otherwise drew attention to itself. Might have increased the chances of people jumping out of their gaming slouch chairs.

There you go. Even the least ambitious of you should be able to find and enjoy most of those easter eggs. Now someone hand me my Easter basket filled with the eggs you didn’t bother hiding around the house out of respect for my desire not to turn over couch cushions and such. And don’t think I don’t appreciate it.

Dennis Scimeca is a freelance writer from Boston, MA. He blogs at punchingsnakes.com, and you can follow him on Twitter: @DennisScimeca.