5

Dark Souls' Creator Includes A Useless Item Just To Frustrate Players

Dark Souls is famous for being soul-crushingly ruthless, but perhaps the cruelest thing about it is a pretty little unassuming necklace. See, you begin the game by choosing a "starting gift" -- items like rings that boost your health, bombs that burn up enemies, or a pendant ... that does nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Namco
The game tells you this, to be fair.

Or does it? In an interview with Famitsu magazine, Dark Souls creator Hidetaka Miyazaki said he'd pick the pendant over the other items. Naturally, it didn't take long for the internet to fill up with theories about what the pendant could really do. The short description ("A simple pendant with no effect. Even so, pleasant memories are crucial to survival on arduous journeys.") was taken to mean that the object was somehow magically filled with blocked memories, like a high school yearbook. Long wiki pages and hundred-post threads were written about it, with players exhaustively exploring every niche in the game, trying to use the pendant everywhere -- multiple times, in case it finally did something when you were on your fifth playthrough.

4

Shadow Of The Colossus Teases You With A Secret Garden, Punishes You For Getting There

Shadow Of The Colossus has a lot of secrets: That's part of its charm, in fact. Everything is up for interpretation. For example, in the end credits, you're shown a beautiful garden that you don't actually seem to get to, in the game. Video game fans being video game fans, they figured that this place must exist somewhere in the game's world, and they had nothing better to do than look for it. It was easy: All they had to do was tediously climb the same wall for 20 minutes.

Sony Computer Entertainment
This game came out before streaming was popular. You did this alone.

3

Several Games Permanently Label You A Pervert

One of the most persistent stereotypes of the gamer is that they're forever 14 -- eternally obsessed with senseless violence, crude humor, and a teenager's idea of sex. We at Cracked, of course, can't sympathize with that at all.

Besides, it's just patently untrue. Anyway, here's a million-copy-selling game called Lollipop Chainsaw.

Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment
Imagine Rick Grimes on this cover.

LC tells the story of a teenage cheerleader who apparently traded most of her clothes for a chainsaw, which she puts to good use by killing zombies. One of the few pieces of clothing she does have is a short skirt -- why, if you rotate the camera to a certain position, your innocent eyes may accidentally get a quick peek at her panties. Doing so will unlock a special skirt-peeping achievement, forever tainting your otherwise noble gamertag with the pixel equivalent of sex offender registration.

Xbox Achievements
"Extra points for coming to this website and writing a whole paragraph on how you did it."

2

Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind Tricks You Into Killing Yourself Right Off The Bat

Morrowind is Skyrim's older, jerkier brother. Not long after starting the game, you run into an old wizard -- just as that old wizard is running into the ground.

Bethesda
"Whoa, free penis hat."

Obviously you pilfer the old man's corpse, in case any of his possessions are useful to you -- because that's just what you do in RPGs as well as retirement homes -- and you find a magic scroll. Use it on yourself and you'll find your acrobatic stats have just shot up to 1000. In other words, you can Hulk-jump.

Bethesda
"Did ... did I win?"

1

The Lost World: Jurassic Park Insults You For Finding All The Collectibles

In the 1997 PlayStation/Sega Saturn video game, The Lost World: Jurassic Park, Jeff Goldblum re-reprises his role as Dr. Ian Malcolm ... solely to call you a loser.

As all video games are legally required to do, The Lost World has a crapload of collectible items you must find to truly "complete" it. In this case, it is a bunch of "DNA keys" that you get by deviating from the main path, looking under rocks, or making ridiculously hard jumps. But it's aaaall worth it, because if you get all the keys, Goldblum himself appears in a secret video ending!

Electronic Arts
"If an all-female colony of dinosaurs can reproduce, there's still hope for you, buddy."

Malcolm begins by heartily celebrating your achievement ... before gradually becoming more despondent, telling you to turn off your console and go do something more productive with your life. The message ends with Malcolm abruptly rushing off as monstrous sounds and vibrations approach -- which is either a T. rex, or an army of betrayed nerds out for vengeance.

Tiagosvn is eager to read about your video game achievements on his twitter so that he too gets to laugh at them.

For more ridiculous gaming shenanigans, read The 5 Most Unreasonably Difficult Video Game Puzzles Ever and The 6 Most Absurdly Difficult Video Game Puzzles.

And be sure to check out 9 Types Of Coworkers To Make You Want Your Head To Explode, and let us know about other headsplosion-worthy employees we may have missed.

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