Happy Easter, if you celebrate it! In honor of Easter and spring, everyone here at Binge Gamer wanted to chip in and buy you all a gift. Then we realized that we have no money. And that you probably didn’t get us anything…awkward.

So instead, our “gift” to you is this list of cool Easter Eggs in some of your favorite games. There are tons and tons of Easter Eggs out there to find, so we’ve narrowed it down to our favorite dozen. Yeah, I know, I know – you probably already knew about a lot of these…but isn’t it fun to go back and hunt them down again?

Want to give us a gift back? Leave a comment with your favorite video game Easter Egg!

Diablo/Diablo II/Starcraft/World of Warcraft – The Cow Level
Shortly after the release of the original Diablo way back in 1998, a rumor was started that claimed there was a secret level in Diablo where you fought cows. Depending on what message board you frequented at the time, the instructions all differed on how to access the cow level, but none of it mattered as there was no actual cow level in the original Diablo.

However, the rumor persisted and eventually had grown to become what some would consider mythical. In fact, the persistence by some that there was a hidden cow level drove Blizzard, the game’s developer, to remind people that there was no cow level with the Starcraft cheat “there is no cow level”. Entering this cheat awarded you an instant victory.

Finally, the cow level came to be in Diablo’s sequel, Diablo II. After jumping through a few hoops to get the items required for this secret level, the player could open a portal to a large, mostly empty area filled with cows ‘Hell Bovines’. They all walked upright, and were led by “The Cow King”.

The mythos of the Cow Level continues to be referenced to this day – one of the tops shown on World of Warcraft’s loading screen is “There is no cow level”. You know, just in case you were curious. Now, speaking of Blizzard…

Warcraft/Warcraft II/ Warcraft III/Starcraft/Starcraft 2(?) – Pissed Quotes
Odds are everyone knows about this funny little easter egg hidden inside every Blizzard RTS on the market, but if not I want you to do the following: Boot up Warcraft III (or Starcraft, or whatever). Now, click on a unit… okay, now click again. Now, again. Again. Again. Again. Again. Again. Once more. There you go. You see? The peasants quote Monty Python at you. In fact, depending on what game it is and what unit you harass, you’ll get quotes from Monty Python, ‘Army of Darkness’, ‘Apocalypse Now’, King of the Hill, Top Gun, Star Trek, and of course, Robocop.

World of Warcraft – Shout Out to Zelda (Last Blizzard one. Promise)
There are a number of “shout outs” in WoW, but I love Zelda, so I had to include this one. In Un’Goro Crater, you’ll find a character whose name is Linken. Linken has amnesia, and doing quests for him will have you bringing him all sorts of Zelda-esque items, like the raft from the original Legends of Zelda and a picture of Princess Zelda. Complete his quests and he’ll give you a sword and a boomerang, an obvious reference to Link’s boomerang in the Zelda games.

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas – Some Naughty Artwork
After you complete the “Big Smoke” mission (the one with the Russians), go back to the Atrium. You can walk up and look at the statue in the center – it’s a guy masturbating! Not that we think you like looking at that kind of thing…

Sonic & Knuckles – No Way? No Way!
Ignore the “Wayne’s World” reference for a moment, that’s not the egg in question. The easter egg that made this screen so special was found by any gamer who plugged a non-compatible cartridge into the Sonic & Knuckles cartridge and, out of either curiousity or frustration, pressed A, B and C at once. What happened? You unlocked a minigame called Blue Sphere. Every Genesis title unlocked one of these stages to play, however if you wanted to play them all you had to plug either the original Sonic the Hedgehog or Sonic Compilation into the device.

So how many stages were there in all? Over 100,000,000. Have fun with that.

Halo 2 – Exploding Heads
Complete the level “Arbiter” on whatever difficulty. (You’ve probably already done this, so cool.) Go back to it again on legendary. As you’re playing, there’s a part where you’re supposed to follow the heretic leader in your banshee. Instead, fly a banshee straight down to see three tall pillars. On top of the middle one, there will be a group of grunts dancing around an oddball. Pick it up, and now when you shoot someone in the head, it will explode like you implanted a grenade in their brain.

Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne – In Memoriam
Near the beginning of Chapter Seven, you reach a cleaner’s lift. If you follow the lidge around the side of the building rather than enter the window, you will find another open window. Inside this window is a small memorial to Miika Forssell, a fan and friend of one of the game’s developers who had passed at the age of 20. A touching tribute.

The Sims – Spooky Ghosties
If you played The Sims for a good long time, you probably had a pretty big family. However, just like real life if we’re not careful we will die. Say you played with a family of eight or so, and theu all died in your house. If you moved a new family into the same house the old family died in, every night at about midnight the ghost of one of the former family members will appear. The old family haunts your new one!

Resident Evil 2 – Rebecca Chambers: Point Guard
This is one of those easter eggs that one of your friends finds when you hand them the controller when you run to the bathroom, but tell them they can’t play for you. When you’re in the S.T.A.R.S. office on the second floor of Raccoon Police Station, you will notice a couple of easter eggs. The first one — the obvious one — is an image of the full S.T.A.R.S. team pre-mansion incident, posing for a group photo. The other easter egg took a little more digging to find.

If you clicked on Wesker’s desk, you were given the message “It’s trashed. Someone must have searched the desk…” Simple enough, right? Nothing to find, let’s move on, right? Not if you were persistent. If you examined Wesker’s desk fifty times, you were rewarded with a roll of film that, when developed, turned into an image of Rebecca Chambers in a RPD basketball uniform. A real reward for the truly patient.

Call of Duty 4 – One Last Mission
Please tell me all of your CoD4 fans out there have done this…If you haven’t, cream in your jeans and settle down for one more level of play. Beat the game, first. If you sit through all of the credits, you’ll receive a special level in an aircraft. Even though everyone and their mom knows about this, I had to include this on my list because it opens with Captain Prince saying “I am serious, and don’t call me Shirley.”

Conker’s Bad Fur Day – The Tragic Fate of Banjo and Kazooie
James isn’t a fan of the Banjo-Kazooie series, and after practically begging me to include this one, I finally gave in: Near the start of the game, inside ‘Cock & Plucker’, you can find the stuffed and mounted heads of both Banjo and Kazooie. Banjo’s head is above the fireplace, and Kazooie’s head is the handle of an umbrella inside the closet.

And last, but never least…

Anachronox, Battlezone, Chili Con Carnage, Congo Cube, Daikatana, Descent III, Duke Nukem 3D, Eternal Daughter, Hitman 2, Jazz Jackrabbit 2, Max Payne, Psychonauts, Quake, Quake II, Quake III Arena, Rise of the Triad, Shadow Warrior, SiN, Sin Episodes: Emergence, SuperTux, TAGAP, and many others – Dopefish
Ever since his first official appearance in Commander Keen 4: Secret of the Oracle, Dopefish has become the ultimate indistry in-joke, appearing in more games than we can list. That is why Dopefish will live forever.

Ok, your turn – what’s your favorite video game Easter Egg of all time?

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