9 Popular Myths You Probably Believed About Video Games

At some point in your life you were a sucker and believed something completely untrue. Whether you were that gullible or just naïve, it's still a fact of life that at some point we were all fed lies about something, and we believed it.

For me, I always fell for the variety of folk lore and urban legends in video games that people would convince me about.

Now, to be fair many gamers fell for these myths in a time before the internet was readily available, but the question is: how many of these did you fall for?

Myth 9: Marill was "PikaBlu."

Now this myth was pretty widespread, especially when #Pokeémon was just gaining momentum with their first generation games; Red, Blue & Yellow. Pikablu was at one point rumored to have evolved from Raichu, or be a gift from Professor Oak for speaking with him a hundred or a thousand times (the number always changed).

This became a popular rumor when images of Marill leaked and everyone assumed that it was a new variation to #Pikachu rather than a completely new Pokémon. Of course, this rumor was quickly squashed when Marill ended up being so easily caught in the Generation 2 Pokémon games.

Myth 8: If you get lost in the woods, you become skull kid.

This myth has to do specifically with The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, and it goes something like this: When you enter the into the Lost Woods as an adult, you need to leave within 20 minutes or you'll turn into a Skull Kid and get a game over.

Myth 7: Bowser was a human once.

This myth was created to give some backstory as to why Bowser hated #Mario. The story goes that Bowser was once a human and somehow (accidentally on purpose) Mario got Bowser turned into a giant koopa. Bowser grew to hate Mario for what he had done, so now he kidnaps Peach out of revenge.

Myth 6: Holding/tapping certain buttons would help you catch Pokémon.

Another popular Pokémon myth was that if you pressed Down and B while your Pokéball shook three times, it would increase the probability that you would catch the Pokémon you were attempting to catch. On every Game Boy I owned, the B button and the down arrow would be permanently mashed at all times as I played through the various Pokémon games because it sure seemed like it worked.

A popular variation: tapping the L and R bumpers rapidly on #GBA would help increase the chances of catching a Pokémon.

Myth 5: You could make Lara Croft nude.

This myth circulated like wildfire, because every pre-pubescent gamer boy thought nudity was the most coveted treat in gaming. Now that's not to say that I believed this rumor, because it seemed a bit outlandish, yet it never stopped gamers from trying to achieve the impossible: catching #LaraCroft without her top. There were a dozen different ways that you could achieve this in the game, everything from:

• Completing the game in under 30 minutes.
• Beating the game while only using pistols.
• Beating the game without sidestepping
• Beating the game without using the L1, R1, L2, or R2 triggers
• Completing the obstacle course in a minute or less
• Tapping the buttons to the beat of the Spice Girls song "Wannabe"

Yet, no matter how hard you tried, Lara was never seen naked in the game short of a hack or mod of #TombRaider.

Myth 4: The secret promiscuous wild west Aeris.

This meaningless, derogatory myth claimed that if you renamed Aeris "SLUT" in #FinalFantasy7 she would speak with a western accent and her word choices would be filled with promiscuity. Of all the strange Aeris myths, this was one that gamers should have known better about, yet there were countless games started with naming her SLUT.

Myth 3: Free NES cartridges for beating 'Super Mario Bros.'

Everyone loves free things, right? So it's easy to imagine why this myth caused a stir among gamers of the time.

On the original Super Mario Bros cartridge for the Nintendo Entertainment System it was said that you could receive free NES cartridges. All you had to do was defeat the entire game 4 times, in a row, without dying once. If you could accomplish that a 1-800 number would display and after calling it, you would receive a coupon for 4 free NES cartridges. Sound too good to be true? That's because it was.

Myth 3: Free NES cartridges for beating 'Super Mario Bros.'

Duck Hunt was a rite of passage for many gamers as it was their first introduction to the world of 8-bit gaming. As you progressed through the game, it quickly became one of the more frustrating games on the market. And still to this day watching that pixelated dog hold his belly and laugh when I missed a duck is one of the most frustrating moments of my gaming history. I wasn't alone and that is how the myth started: that it was possible to kill the dastardly dog.

First it was only possible on the arcade mode, according to legend, then you had to stand a certain distance away from your tube tv, reach level 99, and then you could kill the dog. Well, there were a million ways that it worked, so said the myth, but each one was a total lie.

Myth 1: You could jump the flagpole.

One of the most reattempted trick in gaming history is in the original Super Mario Bros game. At the end of the level is a flagpole, and it was believed that on every level a player could jump over the flagpole if they got it just right.

Hours of frustration were spent attempting to leap the flagpole only to be disappointed to realize that it was only possible in two controlled situations. On World 1-1 while using a widescreen TV that abuses the vertical and horizontal looping and on World 3-3 by using a platform on a string.

Either way, it never stopped players from attempting to defeat the game at every chance.