my most memorable easter egg (since its really the first one i can remember using) was in Wolfenstein 3D for DOS. if you hold down the keys "I - L - M" at the same time, you gain all the guns, full ammo, full health, and all the keys. i'm pretty sure it displayed a message or something because of it, but I can't remember it now.

also in the GBA remake of FFIV, in one area, there's a couple kids dancing/spinning in a circle and if you go up to one of the kids and "talk" to him, he says, "served!" as an ode to You Got Served possibly. the world may never know.

and finally, a question. when did they change "easter eggs" to "cheats?" i remember one of the old madden football games where you could enter "easter eggs" to dumb down the refs, give invisible heads to the ball carrier, secret teams, make the refs uber sensitive to penalties and whatnot. but many of these "easter eggs" could've also been known as "cheats." did the definition ever change, or were they always two completely separate categories of "game breakers?" (wanted to use the word easter egg, but using the word to describe the definition isn't exactly efficient.)

Back in the days I thought it was one sign telling the future (and it did).

in Final Fantasy 1 for the NES if you check the tomb stone one says "here lies the legendary Erdrick" as a salute to dragon warrior.

Not sure it counts as an Easter egg, but I have always been a fan of games that reference the history of the company. For example, Symphony of the Night's various allusions to previous installments, Contra 4's referencing and unlockables involving all of Contra history, and the wealth of Nintendo history in the recent two SSB games.

Question: What do you want to see most in a easter egg?
1) A reference to other games?
2) A reference to real life events/persons?
3) Something else? Whatever that would be...

Which easter egg do you wish existed the most, but is actually just a rumor (a-la use strength on the car to catch mew)?

I felt really satisfied when I saw "You are a super player" written in coins at the end of the last of the secret levels of Super Mario World.

My favourite is rescuing the creatures at the end of Super Metroid. Pointless, and you got nothing for it, but it was tied in to Metroid Fusion and made me feel all special inside, and made me absolutely giddy at the end. It was like, Samus is this hard core ass kicking chick, but she still takes care of the animals, and they help her. It's the whole female maternal instinct I think.

Also, people bitching that Samus got "sexxed up" can go jump. Sure, it might not be flattering, but your bitching gives girls the impression that good looking girls are somehow less capable, or that capable girls shouldn't look good. It's all for sales, but Samus' sex and sexuality has always been my favourite Easter Egg, ever since the greatest WTF ending of the original.

Topher may enjoy this one. Back in the day I used to do a lot of homebrew hacking with Gamesharks on PSOne. I used it to pull out all the Japanese versions of the Acura's in Gran Turismo 2, as well as swap engines, drivetrains, and handling physics from all sorts of cars and Frankenstein them into one mega car. If I remember correctly, there were well over 10 cars that were hidden in the US version that could only be pulled out of the game by using a Gameshark, including one badass Mercedes.

On a more retro note, would you guys (and gal) consider the warp whistles in Super Mario 3 to be easter eggs? Seriously, and I know it was briefly discussed during the Mario Madness episode, but how the hell were you really supposed to even find the first two without being shown?

Oh yeah, Dyson, Chad, Colette, and Rev: I had a bit of a snafu ordering the controllers for you guys. It'd seem that placing 4 orders from the same billing address back to back and shipping to 4 different locales gets flagged for fraud. I spoke with the people at Keepgaming and you should be getting them by next weekend if all goes well. Oops.

"Oh man, I forgot about the two star fox hidden areas. KapKomi, Is that the one with the Slot Machine boss? THat was a good one. Weren't both easter egg areas dead ends- as in the end of the game but without defeating andross?"

I think the second hidden area your talking about is the Blackhole, which just switched you from course 1 to 2, so you still got to fight andross

but the Out of Dimension level ended with letters that spell "the end" and a endless onslaught of enemy that would eventually kill you unless you turned off the game

@ 3r0t1c n3rd:

The konami code is useful in MSG3, when fighting The End, if you input the code while on the map screen, it shows you The End's location

Ah, Easter eggs. Well played. I imagine you've already recorded, and I hope you mentioned the alleged first Easter egg ever, the one in Adventure for the Atari.

What's better?

An easter egg that is a homage to another game, or a inside joke.

Or an actually painted egg somewhere in the game?

The MGS games always have the best easter eggs. The PS1 in MGS1, Psycho Mantis knowing you've been playing Castlevania, the Codec video's in MGS2, hidden magazines in MGS3, the little frogs hidden everywhere, just a cornucopia of easter eggs. GTA comes in close second.

Manuel Calavera in "The Curse of Monkey Island".
The big heads in "Virtual Cop 2"
The 0 level in "Toe Jam and Earl"
Sonic 1 inserted in the Sonic and Knuckles.
"Spyro" demo in Crash Warped
Crash Warped demo in Spyro
Space Invaders in "Mortal kombat 3"
the small themes on Daytona USA
StarCraft 3D in Warcraft 3
GIANT KILLER SPIDERS !!!!!!!!!! BUUUHAAAAHAAAHAA.. *ahem* in "command and conquer retaliation"
"Snake versus Monkey" in MGS3
Extra tracks in "Sega Touring Car" pending the date that you are in.
Wire frame mode "darknight conflict" pending on the date.
Hidden musics on the 2º CD of "7th guest"
Crazy taxi hidden camera angle (a controller has to be in the 3º slot)
Hidden level in Dungeon Keeper pending on the date.
Alternate opening of the GameCube
The original Asteroids in Asteroids for the PS1

The spyglass room in Breath of Fire where you look into the telescope and spy a super-deformed chun-il from street fighter doing the flash kicks.