"Easter Eggs" in Games, Books, TV etc

[Caledfwlch]

Not entirely sure where this thread should go, so apologies if its the wrong place.

What are peoples fave Easter Eggs - the concept tends to be more in Games than anything else, but it does happen, and of course, they are often hidden in DVD Menus etc.

My fave non game EE was related to the awesome SFF show by JJ Abrahms, "Fringe"
Fringe featured these strange bald men in suits, called the "Observers" who would appear in the background and watch events unfold, make cryptic comments and scribble in notebooks.
At the US Superbowl one year, just before going to break, the camera panned the audience, and zoomed in on... Observers sitting and watching the game, all part of a clever advertising scheme. I believe the Observers also appeared in other places.

Games are strewn with them.
In Dragon Age Origins, there is a cutscene with a crater in the ground within which lies a baby, and an elderly couple are stood over it, wondering where it came from, and decide to adopt the baby.

The Games Company, Bioware love putting EE's from their 2 main game franchises, Dragon Age and Mass Effect, it actually makes you wonder if both are in the same universe - the Continent of Thedas in DA is not an alternate reality Earth, or an Earth in the past (Middle Earth in Lord of the Rings is supposed to be our world but far in the past) So it's possible that the DA world exists somewhere in the Mass Effect Universe.

In one of the Mass Effect games, there is a museum of either preserved alien creatures, or statues of them, and it features an Ogre from DA. In DA Inquisition, you go to Hallam Shirral, the former Elven Palace, now the Winter Palace of the Empress of Orlais, in the Trophy room, is the mounted Head of a Krogan from Mass Effect.

 

[Vladd67]

I suppose the nods towards Firefly in Castle could be classed as Easter eggs.

 

[Vertigo]

My favourite goes way back to the early '80s, just because it must be one of the first. Back then there was one of the original computer adventure games (if not THE original) knocking about known as colossal Cave (originally written in the late '70s). This was a pre graphics adventure game for the youngsters out there, with descriptions of where you are to which you typed in commands. Within the game was a famous 'magic' word 'xyzzy' which jumped you to a particular location. This word 'xyzzy' has since appeared in all sorts of random computing locations from other games to operating systems. My favourite appeared in an early desktop HP computer (just about predating the IBM PC) in which you could type a command 'system' followed by the name of a component of the computer (eg a memory board) and the system would come back with a description. If you typed in 'system xyzzy' it came back saying ' I see no caves here.'

Must be one of the earliest computer easter eggs.

Another early one was a sequence (that I've forgotten) that you could put into Lotus 123 that initiated a short graphic making fun of Microsoft Excel (its main rival at the time).

We also accidentally did one of our own in which we put some code in for a joke and then forgot to remove it before release. The program would suddenly stop and present the demand 'give me a cookie' and would not continue until the user typed 'cookie.' The fallout from that little prank hurt! Also I hasten to add that we were not the first to implement that particular prank.

 

[Overread]

There's a few cases of Will Smith (or his son) playing with warhammer models in his films - I forget which but it's happened a few times.

Starcraft 2 is chock full of easter egg things hidden around the maps; mostly from previous games that they've made. Warcraft 3 also had quite a few including a hydralisk (starcraft unit) hiding on one of the maps. This is before you get to the commentary when you click on units, one of the few games where each time you repeat click on the same unit you get a different line - about 6-10 lines total. The dropship pilot references the lines read by the one from Aliens whilst there's, again, a slew of other references thrown in.

I'd wager Blizzard probably have the most easter eggs of nearly all games barring possibly some mmos.

 

[Vertigo]

Oh another favourite from the old days, though not quite an easter egg really. There was another text based adventure game based around The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Within that book there is mention of the Bugblatter Beast of Traal and the correct way to deal with said beast, as any HHGTTG enthusiast will tell you, is to wrap your head in a towel (go google it for explanation). In the game you collect a Bugblatter Beast of Traal gun at one point and when, later, you are attacked by the beast and attempt to use the gun the response is 'I never told you the gun worked did I?" and you die. Of course what you are supposed to do is wrap your head in the towel you should also have collected earlier.

As I say not quite an easter egg but a nice echo of the books humour.

 

[paranoid marvin]

If you look carefully, on the gravestone of Samuel L Jackson's character in The Winter Soldier is a quote from Ezekiel 25:17, which I found quite amusing.

In games, Sam and/or Max tended to find their way into many Lucasarts games.

 

[Jax]

In games, Sam and/or Max tended to find their way into many Lucasarts games.

It is the same with the Final Fantasy games, that always have a pair of characters called Wedge and Biggs

 

[hitmouse]

Oh another favourite from the old days, though not quite an easter egg really. There was another text based adventure game based around The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Within that book there is mention of the Bugblatter Beast of Traal and the correct way to deal with said beast, as any HHGTTG enthusiast will tell you, is to wrap your head in a towel (go google it for explanation). In the game you collect a Bugblatter Beast of Traal gun at one point and when, later, you are attacked by the beast and attempt to use the gun the response is 'I never told you the gun worked did I?" and you die. Of course what you are supposed to do is wrap your head in the towel you should also have collected earlier.

As I say not quite an easter egg but a nice echo of the books humour.

Hotblack & Desiato is a firm of estate agents in Surrey.

 

[AlexH]

I suppose the nods towards Firefly in Castle could be classed as Easter eggs.

I wondered why the guy in Castle looked familiar.

 

[SilentRoamer]

Ready Player One is like one long Easter Egg rolled into a scrumptiously delicious nostalgia sandwich with a few sprinkling of excitement and awesomeness along the way.

 

[Vladd67]

Hotblack & Desiato is a firm of estate agents in Surrey.

I saw a branch down the road from London Zoo.