The Konami Code doesn’t just help you beat videogames anymore. It can also unlock news reports of a zombie invasion.
The Konami Code is one of those things that’s managed to outlive its original use and become a part of geek culture. Originally, it let players skip levels and gain extra lives in any number of games like Contra and Gradius. Now, entering the code can unlock news of a zombie attack on a major news site.
At least, it could until yesterday. It turns out that someone on Newsweek‘s web team must’ve been a gamer from the 1980s, because typing in the code would suddenly flood the front page with news stories about a zombie invasion.
According to these articles, the East Coast of the United States was under attack from hordes of the walking dead. Subsequent articles would investigate the origin of the zombie infection and would also advise readers to perfect their headshot skills.
Apparently the Powers That Be at the magazine were unaware of the easter egg on their site until it became infamous on the Web and someone brought it to their attention. “Now that we’ve all had a laugh,” a spokesperson said of the joke, “we will be removing it.”
The feature has very promptly disappeared from the side, which is a shame. It’s cute and bizarre and was obviously the result of a lot of hard work by some talented people. If the magazine kept the joke online (albeit including a disclaimer about how the stories aren’t real), there’s no doubt that web traffic would see a huge increase.
Source: Geek.com
Image courtesy of Geek.com
