If there’s one thing that gamers hate, it’s glitches. Imagine paying $70 for a game you’ve long wanted to play, only to find that it’s a glitch-filled mess that should never have been released. Of course, while most glitches ruin gameplay, some arguably improve it. Granted, these don’t come along often, but every once in a while, a glitch will offer an exploit or other advantage that makes a game better. We’ve dug through the archives and found these three glitches that gamers didn’t need to complain about, thanks to the benefits they inadvertently provided.
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1) Space Invaders
When Space Invaders debuted in the late ’70s, it quickly became one of the most popular video games of the 1980s. It’s challenging in all the right ways, as the player must face off against an ever-quicker fleet of alien ships. As they get lower, they get faster, scaling difficulty. The funny thing about this was that it’s actually a glitch. When Space Invaders came out, it was coded for hardware that couldn’t handle all the necessary sprites at once. As a result, they begin slowly, but the longer they’re on screen, as more are destroyed, they speed up — the glitch became one of the best aspects of the game.
2) Super Mario Bros.
While it’s one of the most significant video games of all time, Super Mario Bros. is filled with glitches. This is evident in the Minus World and other areas of the game with clear issues. One of the best glitches is the wall jump, which is now a standard mechanic in almost every Mario game, but in the beginning, it wasn’t supposed to be possible. Players discovered that if they hit a vertical surface just right, they can time their next jump to have Mario scale up high walls, avoiding mobs and progressing. It’s not easy to pull off until you know how to do it, but once you do, it’s a glitch worth exploiting.
3) Grand Theft Auto
The Grand Theft Auto franchise is one of the biggest in gaming history, but it almost wasn’t. Initially, it was meant to be a racing game called Race’n’Chase, but during development, a glitch surfaced that improved the game and ultimately saved the franchise from early cancellation. The glitch caused police cars to recklessly bash into the player’s car, due to a problem with the police car’s pathing code. Basically, they tried to ride through the player’s car, but couldn’t, which made for a dangerous chase. This formed the core mechanic of what became Grand Theft Auto, and a franchise was born — from a glitch!
Did you ever find any great game glitches and exploit them? Leave a comment below and join the conversation now in the ComicBook Forum!
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