Video Game Glitches You Have to See

Almost all video games have some sort of bugs or glitches. The complexity of modern games makes it almost impossible to create a game that never misbehaves. In most cases a glitch does not affect the game or more annoyingly causes the game to freeze or shut down. There are however, a number of glitches that are so ridiculous, funny or downright weird that they gain notoriety. Here is a list of some of the worlds most famous video game glitches.

Goldeneye

Goldeneye is a truly classic video game. The 1997 classic first person shooter was developed by Rare studios for the N64 console. The game pioneered many groundbreaking elements that has since become mainstays of the genre. The game has reached such popularity that it will receive a remake on the Nintendo Wii in the fall of 2010. However, despite the superb quality of the game, it also has some of the world's most famous glitches.

One of the funniest glitches in the game sometimes is set off when the alarm in the first Surface level is triggered. Occasionally the guards will appear with incorrect face textures. The most famous is the guard that has a face on all four sides of his head.

Goldeneye also is home to a glitch that spawned a massive internet meme. The so called Get Down bug can be created by slightly tilting the game cartridge. This will cause a bug in the game that sends some in-game characters into a crazy spinning dance. The spastic dance was set to music and uploaded on youtube where a number of spin-off movies soon appeared.

The game also is vulnerable to a texture memory overflow bug. This can be set off on different levels by tricking a large number of guards into a room they can't get out of. Setting off a mine in a crowded room will result in a number of glittering panes to appear.

Interestingly enough, even the Goldeneye game box has an interesting glitch. The box art shows Pierce Brosnan as Bond aiming a gun. The hand holding the gun is often mistaken as the right side of Bonds face. This gives him a very odd look.

Pac Man

Pac Man is one of the most iconic video games ever created. The little yellow dot has appeared in numerous spin offs and sequels and is constantly referenced in popular culture. When the game celebrated it's 30^th birthday, search giant Google replaced their logo with a playable Pac Man clone where the game labyrinth spelled out the name of the company.

Pac Man is not only one of the most recognized video games ever, it also has one of the most infamous glitches in any video game. The game theoretically has no ending as it keeps running until all lives have been lost. However, if the player reaches level 256 a number overflow bug causes the so called kill screen to appear. The kill screen splits the Pac Man level in half with the left half being the normal Pac Man level but the other half is a scrambled collection of random symbols and letters. The level is supposedly still playable, but no player has ever been able to show that they can beat the Kill screen.

Pac Man also includes another famous glitch that is very difficult to recreate. Occasionally, when Pac Man turns into an enemy at the exact time when his mouth is completely closed, the collision detection will fail and Pac Man will run straight through the ghost.

Super Mario Bros.

Super Mario Bros. is one of the best selling video games of all time. The game launched gamings most iconic figure in Mario and laid out the blueprint for video games for decades to follow. Naturally, with the game being played by millions of people for hundreds of hours, a few bugs and glitches have been discovered.

A funny glitch in the game can be exploited in World 3-1. By trapping a Koopa shell on the lower end of the finishing staircase it is possible to jump on the shell without moving it. Keep jumping and with a little luck Mario will go into a sequence of jumps in place. Soon the game will start awarding extra lives for the jump combos. However, once the player collects the 129^th life, the life counter rolls over and is interpreted as a negative number. This means that the next time the player dies he immediately is taken to the game over screen.

The most famous Super Mario Bros. glitch is the Minus World. The minus world is a secret level that can be reached from world 1-2. At the end of the level it is possible to get stuck in the warp pipe and the game will send you to world " - 1". This world is a copy of world 2-2, but when the game is finished the warp pipe takes the player back to the beginning of the level effectively trapping the player in an infinite loop.

Other notorious glitches

Video game glitches are too many to begin to list them all, but there are some that are worse or funnier than most. Here is a quick list of some other famous video game glitches.

In the game Smurf Rescue in Gargamel's castle, if you back out of the final screen right as you rescue Smurfette, she briefly removes her top in a rare instance of PG-13 smurf behavior.

In The Twilight Princess, if you save and quit the game in the Big Cannon room before talking to Shad he will not be in the room the next time you load the game. This means you will never be able to get out of the room and can never finish the game.

In the original game Donkey Kong game, very briefly removing the batteries before reinserting them while playing could cause some funny glitches. Ranging from Mario freezing in air to Four armed Donkey Kongs and a host of other peculiar mishaps.

Sources:

http://errors.wikia.com/wiki/Pac_Man_-_Infamous_Kill_Screen_Bug

http://www.mariowiki.com/Minus_World