Some things just don't add up sometimes.
Usually games are pretty well marketed and publicized.
But sometimes they're meant to be illusive or they're
kept secret to hide potential sinister motives.
No matter the history, these games remain
a mystery to this day. Hey guys Arcade Cloud here.
And today we're counting down our top 5 most mysterious
video games. If you're new to our channel go ahead
and subscribe and hit that bell. Give this video a thumbs up
and share it with some friends. It's free. Starting us off today
at number 5
we have the scariest game title on our list
'Hall of Tortured Souls'.
A new Souls game? No. Actually,
this one was developed by Microsoft. Not from Soft
OK. So
it's not a game on it's own technically.
Funnily enough, this is a game that's hidden in none other than
Microsoft Excel. It's only in
Excel 95, however. It features a first
person perspective and a lot of colored walls.
Microsoft was actually working on a port of Doom
for windows 95 at the time and
the Microsoft office team allegedly got a portion of the
code they were using to port the game and made this
with it instead. The developers names are on the walls
inside the game world and if you type "Excel FKA"
in reference to Doom's "ID FKA" code,
you're able to walk through a certain wall into a gallery of old photos
of the Microsoft team. Who would've thought that
the worlds most relied on spreadsheet making
data processing platform would have a Doom tribute hidden
in it. Some conspiracy theorists think that
this is more proof in an ongoing theory that Bill Gates is the antichrist.
I mean, believe whatever you want,
but,
i think the name "Hall of Tortured Souls"
is an in joke about the
backbreaking work the Microsoft team did in the office on the daily.
And plus, how could the antichrist live
with himself if he donated as much as Bill Gates does to charities?
It just doesn't check out. It's still a pretty cool
easter egg though and there's not a whole lot of info
About why it was kept in the software for its final release.
So maybe this WAS the work of something supernatural.
Who knows. Its not like any interviews from 95
exist pertaining to the secret, so i guess we'll never
truly know. Moving on to some more mysterious
entries here. At number 4 we have Pokemon
Black. No, not the official Pokemon Black.
This game was supposedly for the original Gameboy and
Gameboy Color. And had a black cartridge
that was simply labeled Pokemon with empty space beneath the logo.
It's unclear of where this game originated because
the first recorded mentioning of it was from a
Creepypasta. Now i know a lot of you will be skeptical here
about the validity of this pasta as most
Creepypastas tend to be full of lies, but in this
particular pasta, nothing paranormal happens
outside of the game.
A lot of these alleged "haunted games"
come with stories about how the game made players go insane
or hurt themselves or others, but this one is actually pretty
tame. As the story goes,
the author purchased this cartridge at a flea market.
The game wasn't widely distributed
so it seemed like this one was one of few or the only one in existence.
The gameplay was pretty much identical to Pokemon Red
but you had an additional pokemon other than your starter
at the beginning of the game called "Ghost".
It has one move called "curse"
which makes the screen go black during battle while the pokemon being attacked lets out its cry
but lower in pitch than normal.
The battle screen would come back up and the pokemon would be gone.
The author inferred that the pokemon had died.
If you were battling a trainer, after defeating this trainer, the battle commands would come back up
you could select run to end the battle normally or you could use 'curse' again.
If you did, the trainers sprite in the overworld would also disappear.
When you left the area and came back, in place of the trainer
there would be a tombstone.
After completing the game and beating the elite 4
the game fades to black again, showing the text "Many years later".
Your in game character is now an old man and the overworld is completely empty.
If you travel back to Pallet Town and stand on the very first tile you start the game on
you're shown every pokemon you used 'curse' on as well as every trainer.
Then, after another cut to black, you're thrown into a battle against Ghost, but you don't have any pokemon.
Your only option is to fight, which reduces your health.
Once your health goes critical, Ghost attacks making your screen turn black again.
Once you get to this point, there's no progression,
so the only option is turn the game off and back on again.
When you do, the file has been erased and the only option is 'New Game'.
Now I've actually dabbled in Pokemon ROM hacking in the past,
and i can tell you that if I managed to make that many edits
to the games code, I'd be posting it everywhere i could.
Not just making a single copy and selling it to a flea market
Again, whether or not this story is true is still a mystery.
But it is pretty freaky to think about playing something that morbid with the Pokemon name on it.
At number 3 today we've got a game called 'Kill Switch'.
Not a lot is known about this game as it's an urban legend.
There's not a whole lot of proof that it ever existed,
but there is gameplay footage on Youtube.
Is it a remake made because of the legends success?
Maybe. But it looks pretty similar to the screenshots of the game that were supposedly taken some time ago.
The game is a survival horror game and a short one at that
taking place in an abandoned mine shaft.
You take control of one of two characters named Porto or Ghast
The game was developed by a company called Karvina Corporation and was released in 1989.
Only five thousand to ten thousand copies of the game were created
and once you completed the game, the game would erase all traces of itself and become unplayable.
People actually petitioned Karvina
to release more copies of the game,
but they refused. releasing a statement in 1990 that read-
Seems weird. Why would a company not want to make more money on their game?
As the urban legend goes, a sealed copy of the game was found suddenly on Ebay
and was sold for $733,000
to a man named Yamamoto Ryuichi.
Sorry if i butchered that, my Japanese isn't very good.
He made the promise that he would record gameplay of the game and post what he found to Youtube.
The only video he posted however was a video of him crying at the character selection screen.
This video has since disappeared which seems pretty suspicious,
but still people aren't quite sure if this is all fake
or there's actually a hint of truth to this story.
Moving on to number 2 now with 'Berserk'
Now this game actually does exist its a well-documented, REAL game.
It's a basic arcade shooter with some robots,
and an evil smiley face called 'Evil Otto'
It was actually one of the first arcade games to use speech synthesis
something that would be used more often in games in the future,
but it was a groundbreaking new feature at the time,
making it a fairly big hit in the arcades.
It seems pretty innocent, but actually this game has been linked to 3 alleged deaths,
two of them being officially proven.
We're going to talk about one of these deaths today, but not both as we've got our number 1 to get to.
The story goes that a young college student named Jeff Daily had just beaten the high score to the game
and afterwards he collapsed and died of a heart-attack.
Was the high stress of the action-packed game enough to literally kill someone?
Enough to stop their heart?
Well... no.
It turns out that Daily had a preexisting heart condition and according to the arcade owner, he was fairly obese.
He had run upstairs to the second floor of the arcade to play the game, so he was already out of breath from the moment he got there.
So is the game a killer?
Probably not.
Did it have something to do with his heart-attack?
Maybe
The story is definitely creepy and thanks to my paranoia, I'm not touching 'Berserk' with a ten foot joystick. No heart failure for me, thanks.
And finally at number 1 today we have, of course, 'Polybius'.
The legend is so famous its gotten featured in an episode of the Simpsons.
Many, many people have created replica arcade cabinets of it
and it lives on as one of gamings biggest conspiracy theories.
The legend has it that this game existed for a very brief period of time in Portland, Oregon and it's suburbs.
Only one copy of the game existed or very few of them at least.
The gameplay was very similar to 'Tempest', an Atari game, and people would line up in the arcade to play it.
Allegedly this arcade game was co-created by the US government
as part of a secret mind control experiment on the public.
The reports are varried, but most agree that the game had subliminal messaging onscreen
That would slowly condition the players while they were lost in the swirling colors and intense visuals
"Men in Black" were supposedly seen coming to collect data from the cabinets,
as if to check in on the results of the mind-altering effects.
Players were reported to have insomnia,
paranoia,
and experienced hallucinations.
Some accounts even suggest that it led players to depression and suicide.
Some people speculate that the game could have even contained an aerosolized drug
that was sprayed at players to enhance the effectiveness of the mental conditioning.
Now while all of this is pretty spooky stuff,
The scariest part is that there might actually be some truth to this legend.
Atari, the makers of 'Tempest', had collaborated with the US government to create a military simulation
for training new tank drivers,
and public experiments like this have been conducted by the US in the past.
NK Ultra comes to mind, a widespread experiment on the effects of psychoactive drugs and mental conditioning.
There were few survivors, and most of the records were burned.
Except for a few.
And when those came to light, the US erupted in paranoia.
I mean, how scary is it that you could just be taken off the sidewalk and forced to endure mental and physical torture?
BY THE GOVERNMENT.
So it's no wonder this urban legend got such a good grip on the online gaming community
It could be true.
The evidence is inconclusive,
but honestly, i think that maybe, just maybe, that might be what the 'Men in Black' wanted it to be.
Laughed at as an urban legend and nothing else.
There you have it our list of the top 5 most mysterious video games.
Do you agree? Did we miss something?
Let us know in the comments down below.
And don't forget to subscribe for more great videos from Arcade Cloud every other day.
Take care and GAME ON.