Ten of the Most Entertaining Glitches in Gaming • MMO ATTACK

Where modern gaming is concerned, it’s starting to become less a question of if there’s going to be bugs, and more where said bugs will be found. These bugs are a mixed bag: they can be irritating, aggravating, and inconvenient. In rare cases, they can completely ruin a play experience, leading to a no-win scenario. Sometimes, however; a title will wig out in such a way that one can’t help but laugh.

Seeking out these glitches becomes a pastime in and of itself; their discussion and presentation becomes an art form. Today, we’re looking at some of the most memorable, absurd, bizarre, and entertaining bugs in the history of games.

Stronghold 3: Wolves and Ladders

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhC3nfYo55o
We’ll start with something a little simpler: ladder-climbing wolves. See, Stronghold 3 wasn’t exactly well-received at launch. The game shipped with a laundry list of bugs, one of which was the fact that wild animals were perfectly capable of climbing up guard towers to slaughter the men manning them. It serves today as a lesson in quality assurance: if you’re going to develop a game, you’d best be damned sure you’ve tested it first.

Oblivion: Melons. Melons Everywhere

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fn5EUIsP-uI
One of the most often-abused glitches in Oblivion (aside from paintbrush staircases) was the well-known item duplication bug. There were several ways to pull it off, but one of the most common (which has long since been patched out) involved the use of arrows. Using this simple exploit, you could cram an area with a flood of whatever items your heart desired. For some reason, most people defaulted to melons.

Halo’s Helicopter Tanks

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkvQtGsbYQA
A rather long-standing glitch in the Halo games involves the Scorpion tank. See, it might be heavy armor, but it’s always wanted to fly through the sky, free as a bird. It’s possible to help it realize that dream: if you talk to it in just the right way and make it have angry sex with either a warthog or a wraith, it will begin flailing through the air, ricocheting off anything that gets in its way; its undercarriage spinning like the rotors of a helicopter.

The Mighty Spycrab

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSw9pAnMwZU
Here’s one example of a glitch that ended up steamrolling out onto the larger Internet. Due to a minor and unforeseen bug in how characters in Team Fortress 2 are modeled, a few simple button taps can see anyone playing as a spy tromping around the battlefield like a crab. True to form, Valve cheerfully embraced the error, and it quickly ballooned into a meme.

Animal People(Red Dead Redemption)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7q7v4F8r9Og

Clearly, the Old West has some pretty twisted stuff going on behind the scenes. Alien experimentation? Mad scientists? Rogue geneticists? Radioactive mutation? Whatever the cause; whatever mad, twisted genius is responsible, the world of Red Dead Redemption is peppered with half-human half-animal hybrids, such as wolf-men, horse-men, and (seen above) the legendary Donkey Lady.

Oblivion: Less-than Intelligent AI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8hetpJxXSw

When Oblivion first launched, its Radiant AI was touted as fairly revolutionary. It didn’t take long for that illusion to be shattered. NPCs run off cliffs, plow the carpets inside their houses, forget that you peppered them with arrows in a five second span, run directly into obvious traps, jump in front of your spells and ranged attacks, and genuinely behave like blank-faced buffoons. But hey, at least they stick to a schedule now, right?

The Cat Fountain

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNw2YcAK9Wc

Hailing from Minecraft, the cat fountain is one of the wonders of the gaming world and a beautiful, amazing piece of modern art. Making one of your very own is simple: just spawn a bunch of ocelots in creative mode, and then build a tower up to the top of the skybox, leaving only a single block of space. After that, some clever positioning will result in a constant, never-ending stream of cats. Never mind political philandering or social systems; the answer to all the world’s problems is right here.

Giants in Space !

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-hKxOhOQ3U

My first encounter with a giant in Skyrim went as follows: I saw a mammoth blundering around a wide plateau. Not realizing what horrific fate I was consigning myself to, I decided to take a closer look. At this point, I was unaware of the fact that giants – an otherwise peaceful folk – enjoy a quiet existence as mammoth farmers, and that messing with one of those mammoths is the quickest route to an early grave imaginable.

I also wasn’t aware that those giants had a hell of a physics-defying left hook.

I never knew what hit me. Suddenly, I was sailing into the stratosphere, higher than I’d ever gone before. For one glorious moment, the entire province of Skyrim stretched out below me, and I felt as though I were one with Akatosh. Then gravity happened, and I had to reload.

Welcome to New Vegas. Know Any Exorcists?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ToKIkw3LIoQ

That video above…I’m not actually certain whether to laugh heartily or to sequester myself in a room with a cross and a vial of holy water. If that footage is to be believed, the New Vegas village of Goodsprings has a bit of a problem with possession – or at the very least, the town doctor does. As he speaks to the Courier about the wounds they suffered and how he healed them, his head spins around and his body contorts as though he’s playing host to an other-worldly presence.

One can’t help but wonder, as the video fades to black, if the courier in that video ever managed to make it out of Goodsprings.

Goldeneye 007: Geddan

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJSt91Ed5d0?
Last, but certainly not least, we’ve one of the most legendary glitches of all time; a bug which spawned an entire Internet sub-culture around it, inspired a new form of dance, and catapulted an otherwise unknown artist to fame. It’s simply called…Geddan. See, Goldeneye had a rather curious bug where if you tilted the cartridge (or partially removed it) during play, every single character and vehicle on-screen would start flailing and spasming in an otherworldly epileptic fit.

Got any hilarious glitches of your own that you know of? anything I missed? Gimme a shout in the comments!