Which gaming urban legends are true?

You'd be hard-pressed to argue that sports fans aren't a little superstitious--these are people who have conniption fits if their lucky jersey gets lost before a game, because there is no possible way their team will triumph without magical fan hoodoo. That in mind, you could easily dismiss the Madden Curse--the idea that any player who appears on the cover of a Madden NFL game is doomed to injury--as more of the same. But then you realize that the correlation between cover appearance and athletic pain has been pretty high over the past 10 years, to the point that fans have actively voted down their favorite players to keep them off the front of that plastic cover.

Verdict: Football is a sport where three-hundred pound men plow each other over like speeding trucks. Chances are they would have been injured regardless, and the curse has confirmation-bias written all over it. While it can't exactly be proven or disproven, I think the existence of a Campbell's Chunky Soup curse that predicts the exact same thing is pretty telling: if you're famous enough to be the face of a brand, people on the field are going to hit you. Hard.

Polybius is the stuff that government mind-control conspiracy theorists dream about. Supposedly appearing in arcades in Portland, Oregon, in 1981, Polybius was a game so addictive that people came to blows over who got to play it next. They then succumbed to intense anxiety, night terrors, and suicidal tendencies, and black-suited G-Men showed up to study the effects of the game before it disappeared entirely. A copy was supposedly found in a storage locker in Oregon a few years ago before going missing, and anonymous internet commenters have claimed to be in possession of game ROMs, though they have yet to make an appearance anywhere.

Verdict: It's suspicious how this game seems to appear somewhere only to vanish again right after. It also bears a striking resemblance to an early version of Tempest that had more benign negative effects. Thus, we have two options: Polybius is the result of imaginations gone wild, or a conspiracy to make teenagers suicidal for… reasons. Eh, let's call this one 50/50--the US government did dose people with LSD without telling them, after all, so it's not entirely above this sort of thing.

Technology is a lot like math: it permeates almost every part of our lives, and 5/4 of people don't understand it. That's why every threat involving technology can be instantly scary, even something as simple as a PlayStation when exported into the wrong hands. Back in 2000, reports surfaced of a suspicious amount of PS2 consoles being shipped to Iraq, and it was concluded that Saddam Hussein wanted them for their chips. That somersaulted straight into the idea that the combined processing power of a dozen PS2's could be used to build a supercomputer, a missile guidance system, or a drone aircraft, and we should all fear for our lives against such a technological wonder.

Verdict: Considering the USA landed on the moon with technology comparable to a modern-day VHS player, this one could totally be true… maybe. Can you say weapons of mass destruction? Hussein was almost certainly stockpiling an array of PS2s for, umm, nefarious use. And by nefarious, we mean he liked the Persona series. Or he just wanted to bury a bunch of PS2s in the desert to one-up Atari.

So you're 10 years old, playing some Legend of Zelda, having a grand-ol' little kid time. It's all good, clean fun, smacking around bad guys and tromping into dungeons and--wait a second. Is that...? Once Legend of Zelda hit Western shores, there was a flurry of talk over the supposed "swastika map" that appears in the game's third level. While it may be backwards compared to a typical swastika, that's a pretty distinct shape, so it seems unbelievable that it would get past the development stage without someone noticing. So what, did Nintendo just want attention? Press for their new game? Is the Axis alliance alive and well?!?!?!?1/1/

Verdict: Not exactly. While the mirror of that shape is recognized as the infamous swastika in the West, it's actually a manji, a Buddhist symbol of good fortune--heck, the level’s even called “Manji.” In Japan this shape is about as controversial as a triangle, so it’s not as salacious as your pre-teen self remembers, and doesn’t speak to Nintendo’s supposed Nazi sympathies. Probably.

Ah, Killswitch--a game that turns the creep factor up to 11. Produced in the late '80s by Russian developer Karvina Corp (which has since completely vanished), it starred a young girl or an invisible demon, depending on who the player chose. Then she (because no one ever won with the demon) would travel through a coal mine, platforming and completing puzzles until she reached the end of the game--at which point it would delete itself entirely. Perhaps the final remaining copy was sold in 2005 to a man named Ryuichi Yamamoto for $733,000, and he planned to record himself playing it. However, only one video ever surfaced: a clip of Yamamoto at his computer, crying. Oh, um, wow.

Verdict: Creepily enough, this urban legend is one of the most likely to be true, since the technology to do it did exist. The why is harder to answer: if they were trying to send a message, they probably should have been clearer, but if their goal was to freak out a bunch of people for no reason, then mission accomplished. Also, the video of Yamamoto? As far as we can tell, totally doesn't exist.

Creepy or conspiracy, hopeful or just plain sad, many of these urban legends promise to torment us for years to come. But if Atari can teach us anything, it's that maybe, someday, there's a chance they’ll be put to bed. What urban legend do you want to see proved true? What do you think has merit, or is a total hoax? Tell us in the comments below, because the truth is out there.

And if you're interested in more, check out the creepiest urban legends in games and the most disturbing Pokemon rumors.