Top 9 Urban Legends of Gaming
Steve Barton
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Numbers Stations of the Future
Game: Fallout 3
Numbers stations, in simplest terms, are shortwave radio stations that broadcast strange, artificial voices (typically women and children) reading off Morse code, letters, words, and numbers of course. It’s assumed these stations are used to transmit secret messages to spies. Call of Duty: Black Ops was built around that very idea. The idea was taken a little further in Fallout 3, after a series of odd encrypted messages were discovered being broadcast from an in-game radio station — Galaxy News Radio. Is it true or not? Well, Bethesda denounces all of the rumors as false, but of course they would when the legends tell of encoded messages that seem to predict the future.
After completing several prerequisites (such as destroying certain in-game landmarks) you can access a special numbers station with messages rattled off by a bored Three Dog — some inane messages like “Washed the car today, maybe Chinese for dinner” and some decidedly more terrifying, like “I can’t believe they’ve actually done it. Not long left. The noise. I can’t take the noise anymore. I have a pistol in the attic,” or “The Queen has died today. The world mourns as on days like this we are all Brits.” Of course, all of this was and still is hearsay, with no actual evidence to support the claims. And with Bethesda’s denial of the instances, that’s the final nail in the Fallout 3 numbers stations coffin — elaborate hoax or not, it’s still something to make you think.
Game: Polybius (Fictional)
What’s more terrifying than a video game that actually makes you go insane? Watching the movie Stay Alive, probably. We kid. But we’re not just talking plain old gamer rage here. More like insomnia, nightmares, and some cases even resulting in suicide. Though the story has been debunked several times over, there’s still that shred of truth that makes one think the arcade cabinet could well have existed at one point, or at the very least a less extreme version of the tale actually did occur, what with the game’s usage of bright, flashing vector graphics — which could affect those with epileptic tendencies.
As the story goes, a mysterious arcade cabinet appeared in the sleepy suburbs of Portland, Oregon in 1981 known only as Polybius. From several “sources,” it could be best described as closely related to the game Tempest — a colorful vector shooter. Popular is too soft a descriptor for the phenomenon supposedly induced by the strange game — apparently it drove players to the point of addiction. Lines would form around the machine as clusters of anxious players awaited a turn. Visits from government agents (men in black, supposedly) would be seen hanging around the machine as well. Soon, players were said to have suffered from nightmares, amnesia, insomnia, and eventually suicide. Supposedly the game contained several subliminal messages within as well, which also has never been brought to light.
There’s no hard evidence surrounding the existence of Polybius, but it’s another eerie legend that seems grounded in the realm of reality — who knows? You might well unearth one of the supposed cabinets one day. But don’t get your hopes up.
Categorized:Lists
