Glitching through the years

Home consoles have been around for decades, allowing people to explore digitally rendered worlds in their own living rooms. For as long as there have been consoles, however, there have been people who push the limits of games, finding holes in the code that produce odd, surprising and even humorous results. This process of intentionally seeking out programmer errors and exploiting them is known as glitching.

Mario, perhaps the most recognizable gaming icon of all time, consumed my days as a child. I would play often, and when I wasn't playing I was discussing strategy with my friends. Once, in the third grade, my friends and I were engaged in an esoteric conversation about the benefits of shooting fireballs at turtles, when a fifth grader approached us. He looked down and explained in his mighty voice that fireballs were for weaklings. Why use fireballs, he exclaimed, when you could walk through walls, become invincible, or even warp to the final level?


After a lengthy discussion and several jaw dropping revelations, the fifth grader agreed to come to my house where he would show my friends and me how to delicately circumvent the rules of the game and emerge victorious. Among the tricks he taught us was one where the player could gain 100 lives, enough to complete the game with ease, by jumping on a turtle at the right time and place. Another glitch involved walking through a wall to reach a hidden area where the player could warp to the final level. At the time I was surprised that a person could break the rules of seemingly intact games, and this newfound power thrust me into the world of glitching. I have actively pursued programmer errors ever since.




As I grew older, games became more advanced and glitching ascended to higher levels. No longer was I limited to walking through walls on a side-scrolling game like Mario, I could now explore 3D environments and exploit the physics and computer behavior of games to achieve amazing results. In the game Rush 2 my friend and I discovered that it was possible to escape from certain levels by gaining speed and hitting a well placed jump or ledge. While this glitch didn't benefit us in any way, it was fun to discover the limits of games.




I got my Xbox when I was in high school and was thrilled to be playing games like Halo, a first person shooter. My friends would come over to my house and we would spend hours competing against each other, sometimes playing one vs. one, or upping the stakes and engaging in a team battle. While this was fun, we were limited to one TV screen, one Xbox, and ourselves. However, Halo 2 came out several years later and was equipped with online capabilities. Now I could sit in my basement and battle with my friend across the internet as he sat in his basement.

As we began to play online we soon discovered that our proficiency at glitching gave us an advantage over other players. We could escape to building tops and wreak havoc on the opposing team, to their dismay, or carry extra weapons and unload clip after clip of ammo into enemy forces. By taking advantage of subtle errors in the code we were able to win almost every game. This didn't last long however, and the developer issued a "patch", or an update for the game that fixed many of the problems, as well as a warning that threatened to ban glitchers. Despite developer efforts, gamers are constantly discovering new glitches and developers are continually updating games to prevent them.

Ever since then I had refrained from glitching in online games for moral and selfish reasons (namely, that I didn't want to be banned), but in a recent game of Halo 2 I managed to take advantage of a glitch (for research only, of course) and reach a very high building with the sniper rifle, where I could kill opponents at my leisure. To me they looked like little dots far below, running in circles, but I could zoom in and have a wide open opportunity for a head shot. After several minutes of carnage and a score of 25 to 4, my opponents weren't very pleased and had this to say:

Opponent 1: "Oh my gosh, check out the glitch whore."
Opponent 2: "Yeah, that's so lame, anybody who needs to do that to win is just... lame."
Opponent 1: "Gosh!"
Opponent 3: (whiny child) "Gaaaawd. This sucks."
Opponent 1: "Every time I re-spawn I just die. Dude, you suck, I hope you die today. Go fuck yourself!"

After that last sentence the opposing team left the game within seconds, taking a loss and giving my team a win. Based upon my research, and having had been in their shoes countless times before, I am more aware of what a problem glitching can be in multiplayer games.

However, glitching is not an intrinsic evil. Like any new knowledge it can be used for whatever purpose it's discoverer intends. With that, I leave you with an example of fun and harmless glitching. This appears to be a secret that the developers implanted into the single player mode of Halo 2 on purpose, and it requires glitching. On the level "Metropolis" there is a hidden weapon with vast power located far above the regular level on a building that is not accessible unless glitching is implemented. In this case the player has obtained the overshield, making him resistant to damage. He then sets the warthog on a bridge, hanging the front wheels over the edge. By standing on the corner of the warthog and firing a rocket launcher at the ground the player is blasted up into the air, far higher than is allowed by the game physics under normal circumstances.

Starcraft 2, Perfecting Perfection (re-write)

Starcraft and it's expansion, Brood War, are hugely popular and have sold 9 million copies since their release in 1998. Considered by many (including me) to be the best RTS (real time strategy) game ever, it has recieved numerous awards, and is consistently rated among the best games ever, such as on IGN's "Top Games of All Time". Nearly 10 years later, Starcraft is still going strong, and is practically the national sport of South Korea, which has televised matches complete with screaming fans. Despite it's success, or maybe because of it, Blizzard has not released a sequel. Recently however, rumors of Starcraft 2 have been swimming around the internet. It is believed that Blizzard will make some sort of announcement about a new game in the coming days, could it be Starcraft 2? Various bloggers think so, citing the countdown on the Blizzard website that coincides with the announcement date. But is there any way that Starcraft 2 could hope to live up to the reputation of the first? The balanced gameplay, fluent controls, compelling storyline, and easy to use multiplayer would be difficult to match, much less surpass.
The first time I played starcraft was on a dark and rainy morning in 1999 when I was 14. It was at my friends house and he showed me what to do one step at a time. I didn't even notice the thunder as I collected minerals and pumped out zealots. While playing through the campaign missions I had no idea that I was participating in a game that would become a phenomenon. After returning home I ran to Media Play with my hard earned allowance and walked home with Starcraft in my hands. A few days later, in my basement, when I first played Starcraft online against actual humans, my friends clustered closely around the screen and watched as I suffered a humiliating defeat. My friends made similar attempts and failed miserably. Everyone online was so good at the game, creating enormous armies that I couldn't hope to defeat. After hours upon hours of play and countless losses, I learned to make more than one gateway, mine vespene early, upgrade my units, and slowly my record began to improve, I now had several glorious victories under my belt. I remember being surprised that each of the three races were equally powerful and that I had an equal chance of victory with any of them. Whenever I had an hour of freetime, or even if I had homework to do, I would play Starcraft. Even after several years the multiplayer was still fun and challenging because the other humans I was playing against were as good or better than I was. As I grew older and became busier I played less and less and now I only get a game in every couple of weeks or less.
However, the possibility of an imminent Starcraft 2 announcement interests me. I really, really want it to be an exceptional game if and when it comes out. Starcraft is a tough act to follow, but if any team is capable of creating a new masterpiece, its Blizzard.