- [Jay] Ah, video games, is there any better way
to waste an afternoon? I say, no. Providing they're not
outright lying to me, that is. Wait, what? That's right, your favourite video games deceive you literally all the time. From stats that mean absolutely nothing to hidden features developers
don't want you to know about, here are some of the most insane ways video games lie to you! (techno music) Need More Speed. Every video game ever made
has what we call mechanics. Whether they're as simple
as reloading a weapon or as complex as building a base, all of these features are mechanics. Sometimes, however, games
present us with a mechanic that doesn't actually do anything at all and you don't even realise it! Take speed boosts. In some games, like the
original Mass Effect, sprinting does, well, literally nothing. If you're in combat,
sure, it works just fine. But if you're traversing the world? Pushing the sprint button
doesn't affect your speed at all! It just brings the camera closer and changes your character's animation to give the impression
that you're moving faster. In reality, there's no difference in the speed of these two videos. This odd decision was probably
due to technical limitations. The hardware the game
released on back in 2007 was nowhere near as powerful as today's, so the devs had to force
the player to move slowly in order to give the game time to load. But this fake mechanic isn't limited to third-person shooters. Many racing games have
a boost or nitro button, which is supposed to give your
car a crazy speed increase to help overtake your rivals. However, in titles like Need for Speed, the boost barely increases
your speed at all! There's a load of intense visual effects and the field of view
gets closer to the car, which makes it feel like you're
going at the speed of sound. But, you guessed it, in reality, the change is minimal to
downright non-existent. It's all just smoke and in wing mirrors. Mind Games. Some games, particularly
psychological horrors, excel at screwing with a player's mind. Eternal Darkness: Sanity's
Requiem thrives on it. This 2002 GameCube horror title follows several characters
across different time periods as they contend with
ancient Lovecraftian evils. So far, so standard. But where the game really stands out is in its sanity mechanic. The more your character
is damaged by enemies, the more their sanity
meter will deteriorate, causing increasingly bizarre and unnerving things to happen, including the game downright lying to you to mess with your head. Like triggering a fake
blue screen error message to pop up, yikes! And if you think that
sounds panic-inducing, it gets worse. If you're doing particularly badly, the game will pretend to
delete all your saved data right before your eyes, oh man! That's the true horror right there. - [Player] This isn't really happening! - [Jay] Seriously, imagine not realising this was a part of the game. Some players literally went
to unplug their consoles before their data could be deleted! And the lies don't stop there. The devious devs behind Eternal Darkness also incorporated features
where the game pretends to lower the volume on
your TV, switch inputs, or even turn off the screen entirely! With all this going on, it'd be hard not to feel
at least a little unnerved. After all, there's nothing worse than feeling like the horror
is extending past your device and into your home. At least, until- Ha! Just kidding! I'm not going anywhere. If you want to keep your
sanity meter healthy though, I recommend you go and hit those
like and subscribe buttons. That way, you'll never miss out on any mind-blowing videos like this one. Okay, back to the deception. Just Made It! Is there anything more terrifying than a red health bar? No, there isn't. But there's no better feeling than surviving a nail-biting encounter with just a sliver of life left, right? This is something game developers know, which is why they lie
to you about it, what? Yup, a lot of the time, devs make the last little
fraction of a health bar worth more HP than the rest of it. So when you think you've only
got 10% of your health left, it might actually be around 40%! Games like Doom Eternal and
Assassin's Creed: Origins do this specifically
to ramp up the tension and give you more barely-made-it moments. Damn!, that's kinda cool, I guess, but it makes me doubt every
level I've ever completed. In a similar vein, other games like 1994's System Shock give the last bullet in
your magazine double damage. This makes it more likely
you'll get a desperate kill in the nick of time, ramping up the drama. And its 2007 spiritual
successor, BioShock, outright makes you invulnerable
for a couple of seconds when your health gets low enough. Wait, um, am I bad at
video games after all? I need to lie down. Timer Trouble. I don't perform well under pressure. If a timer's ticking
away, I start to sweat, especially when that timer seems to be going suspiciously quickly. Ever notice when you play Mario that the countdown
timer goes from 90 to 30 in what feels like half the time? No, you aren't losing it. Mario seconds are faster! The exact time differs from game to game but a Mario second is usually
only around .6 real seconds! No wonder I get so panicked. But why is that? Well, it's probably partly to
stress out players like me, but it could also just
be a technical quirk. See, the original NES console that the first Mario was released on couldn't keep time in seconds. So instead, the game used
a shorter measure of time and it kinda just stuck. I'm still unconvinced though. I reckon Mario's creator,
Shigeru Miyamoto, just wanted to make us suffer while laughing in our faces. Pocket Monster Mishaps. Everyone's heard of Pokemon. But did you know that despite
its insane popularity, the original Pokemon games, 1996's Red and Green, literally lie to your face? Yep, back then, developer
Game Freak was a tiny studio that had a nightmarish time trying to fit all the data on that little Gameboy cartridge. Because of this, the first games shipped with a ton of bugs and broken mechanics. The battle system proved especially difficult for the team to nail. After years of tinkering, it was only just finished in time. And finished is an overstatement. Some moves straight up
don't do what they claim to! Focus Energy is supposed to increase your monster's critical hit rate, allowing them to hit harder, but, whoops! It actually cuts it dramatically! Right, plus, psychic type Pokemon were supposed to be weak to ghost moves. But instead, they're
completely immune to them! As you might imagine, this
is pretty damn infuriating when you're trying to
tactically win a battle. But the battle system
isn't the only fibber. Originally only released in Japan, in 1998 the first Pokemon games were published in the rest of the world as the updated Red and Blue versions. And these new versions
had their own issues. Most notably, kids who traded their Raichu to a guy on Cinnabar Island were shocked to read that
their Pokemon had evolved! Why? Because Raichu can't evolve. The game was straight up lying. So what happened this time? Well, in the original Japanese game, this trade required the
player to send over a Kadabra, which would then evolve into Alakazam. In the new version, they changed the monster
needed to a Raichu, but not the text that displays afterwards, making it seem like Raichu
had evolved when it hadn't. See, this is why I have trust issues. Don't Look Behind You. If you like your horror games, you've probably heard of Silent Hills, Hideo Kajima's tragically
cancelled Silent Hill reboot. Well, its 2014 playable teaser, P.T., is widely regarded as one of
the scariest games ever made. While it harbours a chilling secret most people don't know about, the gameplay itself is fairly simple. You walk down an eerie hallway, exploring and solving puzzles, while a terrifying ghost
called Lisa stalks you. Sometimes, you'll hear
sobbing and ragged breathing coming from behind you. Top tip, don't turn around if you do. (ominous music) Jeepers. Thing is, even when Lisa
isn't making any noise, many gamers still found themselves feeling like they were being watched, like, all the time. To get to the bottom of this, a hacker named Lance McDonald went trawling through the game's code and he found something super eerie. Turns out, as soon as
you grab the flashlight at the start of the game, Lisa secretly attaches
herself to your back. By locking the camera into one position, McDonald captured this
in all its creepy glory. (Lisa breathing heavily) She's literally always
breathing down your neck. You just don't realise it. Ooh.
(Jay shuddering) This enabled the devs to replicate the uncanny feeling of being watched and boost the scare factor while keeping the gamer none the wiser. Unfortunately for the
masochists out there, the teaser was pulled
from the Playstation Store when Silent Hills was cancelled. I'd quite like to sleep tonight though, so that's just fine with me. Doki Doki Danger. Man, after all that
horror, I need to unwind. How about an adorable-looking anime game? 2017's Doki Doki Literature Club presents itself as a cutesy dating sim that allows the player to
romance one of four anime girls. Only, when you first boot the game up, it displays this ominous warning. Seems totally out of place, right? Well, it's not. Despite the cute exterior, Doki Doki is actually a very disturbing psychological horror game that wears a dating sim as a skin suit. If you don't want any of the plot spoiled, I'd skip ahead now because it's really something
best experienced for yourself. The basic gist involves one of
the girls becoming self-aware and falling in love with the player. Not the avatar, but
you, in the real world. She then breaks the fourth wall and uses the game's code to influence and torment the other girls, hoping to make them unlovable to you. Sure, the game gives you a small, non-specific warning about what's to come, but nothing can prepare you for when it goes totally off the rails. No I can't go into detail here without risking getting demonetised, which should tell you
all you need to know. Let me put it this way, if you're looking for a game
that'll give you the fuzzies, this ain't it! Living on the Edge. Platforming games like Mario or Rayman are all about control. They need to feel tight and responsive or you'll get frustrated fast. But to accomplish this, devs have some seriously
sneaky tricks up their sleeve. The most shocking? Those platforms that you're running along are longer than they appear, eh? In pretty much every
good platforming game, you get a few extra frames to jump after running off a ledge. This mechanic is known as coyote time, after the Looney Tunes
character Wile E. Coyote. You know, he'd run off a cliff and stay suspended in
air for a few seconds before plummeting to the ground. You might think this deception would make all platformers feel too easy, but the reality is it
makes them feel normal. Most people don't have
lightning-fast reaction times and need those extra few frames to time the jump properly. In fact, any time a platformer
doesn't include coyote time, it's painfully noticeable. 2017's remastered Crash
Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy drastically reduced the
amount of coyote time it allowed players compared
to the original trilogy, and people struggled. So, this is one helping hand that I'm more than happy to get! Better Than One. Ridley Scott's Alien movies
gave me nightmares for years. Even today, I still can't eat eggs in case something jumps out of them. So, imagine my horror when
Alien Isolation released in 2014 and brought the experience
of being hunted relentlessly by an unstoppable Xenomorph
into the video game realm. Naturally, I just had to play it! The brutal beastie is
always present in the game, learning and adapting
based on how you play. But as I played, I kept feeling like it was getting way
too close for comfort, even though I hadn't made
any noise to alert it. Well, it turns out, there's more going on than
the devs first claimed. See, the Xenomorph
actually has two AI brains. The main one controls the monster and learns from your behaviour as it attempts to hunt you down. The second brain, known as the director, is the one you're not
supposed to know about. This brain always knows
exactly where you're hiding and occasionally feeds
clues to the main alien AI if you're doing too well. Say what? That hardly seems fair! Yeah, and that's not all. The Xenomorph also has, quite literally, eyes in the back of its head, so it can tell if you creep
up too close behind it. Jheez, there are all sorts of
processes like this going on, creating the illusion of a
sophisticated alien intelligence when in reality it's a bit of a cheat. You can't deny its effectiveness though. I had to buy a whole
new drawer of underwear after completing this game. Bare Faced Liars. By now, it should be pretty clear that game developers don't shy
away from deceiving gamers. But often they'll do so quite subtly. Well, not in the case of Telltale. If you've ever played one of their games, you'll know that whenever you
make any kind of decision, a message has a chance to pop up saying that a particular
character will remember it. It's supposed to add weight to your choice and make you dread any
potential plot consequences. The reality is, there often
aren't any consequences. The plot remains unchanged and the character in question reacts to you much the same as if you'd made a different decision! The message is purely superficial, which is outrageous
considering the whole point of their games is choices and consequence. Even so, this is far from
the most egregious offence. 1995's racing game Hi-Octane has one of the most barefaced
lies in video game history. As with most racers, the player can choose between
various different cars, each with different stats, you know, speed, acceleration,
all that good stuff. Only, in Hi-Octane's case, these stats are astronomical fibs. In reality, none of the vehicles have any discernible
differences whatsoever. They all perform the exact same! That's beyond lazy. Gaslighting your players because you can't be bothered
to implement real changes is some pretty scummy practise. Having said that, not all blatant falsehoods are bad. 2017's Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice follows the titular Senua, as she goes on a journey to save the soul of her departed lover. At the start of the game, the player is told that a dark rot will spread up Senua's arm
every time she respawns, and that if it reaches her head, all your progress will be lost. Yeesh, a permadeath system? That's rough, but it's also
a complete fabrication. No matter how many times the player fails, the rot will never reach Senua's head. So why even say it will? Well, one of the game's main
themes is fear and paranoia, particularly, the fear of death. To instil this fear into the player, the devs added the permadeath message but they didn't really want
you to lose all your progress and potentially quit the game. So, they didn't actually
implement the mechanic. The message alone is enough to make every second of
gameplay that much more intense! Damn, have you played Hellblade? If so, did the permadeath
lie affect your experience? Let me know down in the comments! Rubber Banding. Ever notice that when
you're doing really well in a game like Mario Kart, your AI opponents
suddenly seem to speed up and start hitting you with
everything they've got? Well, it's not just in your head. Some competitive games have
a controversial mechanic built into them called rubber banding. Basically, the better you do at the game, the harder the AI becomes in order to keep it feeling challenging. In Mario Kart, this
means the overall speed of your opponents will be increased if you're too far ahead of the pack, levelling out the odds. Conversely, if you're doing poorly, their speed is decreased and you have better odds
of getting good power ups. It's designed to stop players getting too frustrated if they're losing and keep the game interesting
if they're winning, but it's been heavily
criticised by some people. See, rubber banding
often just makes it feel like nothing you do in
the game really matters. If you're punished for doing
well, what's the point? And if you snatch a win
from the jaws of defeat, can you really be proud knowing that the game has
basically handed it to you? Hmm, now you finally understand why I always stay firmly in last place. Hero or Villain? Everybody loves a twist! Nothing beats a plot reveal
that makes you re-evaluate everything you thought
you knew about a story. But what if that twist
brings into question all of your own actions? 2008's indie darling Braid presents exactly that scenario. In this charming platformer, you play as a character called Tim, seeking out a princess
who's been kidnapped by a horrible and evil monster. Seems simple enough, until the player arrives at
the final world, that is. See, Braid has a funky
time reversal mechanic, and the last level actually takes place first in the story's timeline. When you begin the final level, Tim follows the princess
and works with her to try and stop an evil
knight from pursuing her. Only, after reaching her house
the level plays in reverse and it's revealed that
Tim was the evil monster the princess had been
fleeing from the whole time! She was rushing to the knight for help, not fleeing from him. Damn, I know I said I love a twist, but it's not fun realising you
were the bad guy all along! Imagine finishing Mario and finding out that the big M was actually a sadistic monster trying to kidnap Peach! Yeah, there'd be a whole generation of traumatised children. Sorry not sorry. A Different Perspective. First-person shooters are one of the most popular
gaming genres around. Is there anything more immersive than fighting a battle
through the eyes of a soldier? Probably not, just so long as
you don't look too closely! That's because you don't just see through the eyes of the soldier, you shoot through them too! Wait, what? "No," I hear you say, "you can clearly see the
bullets come out of the gun." Ha! That's what they want you to think. Ever noticed another player drop you from behind a box or something when only their head was visible? Infuriating, isn't it? And impossible, if they'd
actually shot from their gun. See, it's really difficult
to program bullets emerging from the barrel of a gun and lining up accurately with a crosshair in the middle of the screen. Usually, the bullets will
hit a little off-centre and the player would have
to compensate for this. Repeatedly missing your foes despite having them dead in your sights doesn't sound like fun, does it? So, the most elegant solution
is to have the bullets fire invisibly from a player's head, straight down the camera, while fake visible
bullets fire from the gun. Now, not all games do this, but ones that don't are
few and far between. So next time you load up Call of Duty, just find the coziest hiding spot you can and poke your laser eyes
of death over the edge. Thank me later! A Little Help. There's nothing fun about losing, something game devs know all too well. So some will secretly make
adjustments under the hood to lessen the blow of failure and keep you playing
for as long as possible! Both Spyro the Dragon and Resident Evil 4 can dynamically reduce the
challenge in their levels based on the player's performance. For example, if you end up failing loads of times at a certain point, the game might remove some of the enemies in the area you're struggling in, all without you ever being told. In other games, like BioShock, the devs do their best to prevent frustration from the outset. The menacing Big Daddies
have their run speed reduced when you aren't looking at them to avoid confusing off-camera deaths. On top of that, enemies
with ranged weapons will always miss their first shots, to give the player a chance to react without being blindsided. Other shooters like Spec
Ops: The Line do this too. And although it's unconfirmed whether bigger games like Call
of Duty harbour the feature, I wouldn't be at all surprised. I mean, it makes sense! No matter how good you get, getting shot in the back without
warning will never be fun. But what about those players
that just aren't good? Well, in some multiplayer
games like Gears of War, new players are given a
significant boost to their stats for their first few kills. See, devs figured out
that players who performed poorly in their first match were unlikely to play again. So, they made it easier,
but only for a little while! A few matches in, and the playing field would be levelled. In a similar vein, some games, like modern Call of Duty titles, use a skill-based matchmaking
system in their multiplayer. The idea is to match players
of a similar skill together. That way, gamers are always
likely to get a few kills and not have their asses handed to them by a more skilled player. Unfortunately, this system also leads to more boring matches. If you improve at the game, you're just paired with better people. So it never seems like you're
actually honing your skills. Man, I miss old Call of Duty... Luckily, other devs have
employed better tactics to make their games more fun. 2016's XCOM 2 is a
turn-based strategy game where soldiers fight aliens. Each attack you make has
an accuracy percentage. The higher the percentage, the greater your chance of hitting. The devs rightfully realised that it's not fun to miss an attack with an 85% accuracy rating, so the game secretly boosts the accuracy of these moves to 95%! Feels good, right? Some Lego games play similar tricks. In massive firefights, the game only allows a
handful of the enemies to reliably hit you
with their projectiles. All the rest are just there to make the scene feel more chaotic. They'll still fire at you, but never actually hit! Man, it really makes you think. Are you playing the game
or is the game playing you? Eye Spy. I love open-world games. But what if I told you that mountain you can see in the distance utterly ceases to exist when you look in any other direction? Now hear me out. Modern games can be big. And it takes a whole
lot of processing power to render massive, detailed game worlds, forcing developers to come
up with tricksy solutions. Take 2017's Horizon Zero Dawn, a huge and groundbreakingly
beautiful open world game for its time. So beautiful, in fact, that the devs couldn't actually render it. At least, not all at once anyway. Instead, they used a neat little trick called frustum culling. It might sound like a horrid
form of body modification, but it's really a genius technique for rendering hefty game worlds. The basic idea is everything you look at gets fully rendered, while everything outside
your field of vision doesn't. Then, as you turn around
to face another direction, the new areas are generated
quickly just out of sight and the old ones are removed. This saves your console
from having to load the whole world at once, enabling silky smooth performance without sacrificing on
graphical fidelity, sneaky! So yes, in many games,
anything you can't see literally doesn't exist! The only thing behind you is a cold, uncaring void of computer code, jheez. Way to kill the vibe. Having said that, being able
to turn away from somebody and erase their existence would be pretty useful
in real life sometimes. After all this time, we'd like to officially introduce you to: myself, Jay, and Wesley. We are the narrators here at Be Amazed. But we also know you guys
tend to have a favorite for certain videos and topics. So, are you Team Wesley? Or Team Jay? Please click on the
poll in the description to let me know! Man, all this gaming talk's
made me wanna kick back on the couch and turn my console on. Maybe I'll just stick to Tetris though. That can't lie to me, right? Which of those devious deceptions
surprised you the most? Let me know in the comments below, and thanks for watching!
