If These Bugs Are Wrong, I Don't Want to Be Right
10 classic glitches that improved games
2/16/2009 6:38 PM | 28 Comments | Page 1 of 5
Game writers love to whine about glitches. We blame hurried development schedules, the luxury of patching, overly complex code -- but honestly, we're not sure why games are buggy. The only thing we know for certain is that things used to be different, dad-gummit.
The thing is, gaming history is full of glitches. They're nothing new. Combine human nature with code more than a few lines long, and you're going to get mistakes. In the happiest cases, though, programming errors actually make the games better than they would have been in a "perfect" state. Don't call them bugs. They're features.
Street Fighter II (arcade): Guile's Handcuffs
The bug: Playing as Guile, execute a Flash Kick a split-second after throwing an opponent. Your hated rival is now frozen in a stunned pose, "handcuffed" to Guile's side. Point and laugh accordingly, but be sure to break the handcuffs before the timer hits zero (by executing yet another glitch, Guile's "phantom throw"), or the game will hang.
It's a feature because: Any persistent button-masher can eke out an occasional victory on the novice-friendly
Street Fighter II, so at the arcade, you have to try for more than a simple win. If you want the admiration of your peers, you have to win with style -- i.e., by finishing off your challenger in the most humiliating way possible.
In terms of schoolyard bravado, nothing tops Guile's Handcuffs, the gaming world's equivalent of a noogie. Just get an early lead, handcuff your opponent, and run out the clock. Watch the demo video above, and you can practically hear Ken's player pounding the cabinet buttons in frustration. In its day, this move likely caused a lot of actual street fighting -- albeit of a slappier, weepier sort.
Mega Man (NES): The Pause Trick
The bug: Fire a special weapon like the Thunder Beam at an enemy. When your shot makes contact, rapidly press Select to pause and unpause the game. The enemy's period of invincibility (i.e., that annoying flashing effect that keeps him from getting hurt) wears off while the game is paused. When you unpause, he's vulnerable again, and with your Thunder Beam still coursing through his body, he takes more damage. As a result, many bosses can be killed with a single shot.
It's a feature because: The Pause Trick adds a
de facto "easy mode" to a game that, for many players, desperately needs it.
Mega Man die-hards swear off such chicanery, of course, but for the hapless schmo who's spent hours trying to defeat Dr. Wily's Yellow Devil, this glitch is a welcome respite. Since the widely known bug made
Mega Man accessible to a population of gamers who might otherwise have given up on the title, you could argue that this programming screw-up played an important part in broadening the Blue Bomber's early fanbase.
