6. A Secret to Everybody
World of WarCraft | 2004 | PC
It's a no-brainer that a game as huge and geek-driven as World of WarCraft is going to be packed with in-jokes of varying degrees of subtlety. Even so, it's always a surprise to see a PC game transcend platform bias and pay homage to a console franchise, in this case the Legend of Zelda series.
If you're ever wandering around the Un'Goro Crater region of WoW, you might bump into a hooded, green-clad gnome named Linken. He likes to hang out at the Marshal's Refuge outpost, and the quests he offers - which have names like "It's a Secret to Everybody" and "It's Dangerous to Go Alone" - are all clear Zelda references, and a few feature familiar items meant to elicit knowing nods from fans. Complete his quests and you'll earn his boomerang - which can stun targets - as well as his "Sword of Mastery." Nice.
5. They're all gonna laugh at you
Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes | 2004 | GameCube
Weird things happen when game makers team up to work on new projects. Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes, for example, was a three-way collaboration between Metal Gear creator Konami, Nintendo and developer Silicon Knights, and it's packed with little references and in-jokes tied to all three companies. Sharp-eyed players will be able to pick out more than a few references to SK's previous project, Eternal Darkness, and bits of Nintendo memorabilia are scattered throughout the game, most of them in nerdy scientist Otacon's lab.
But the in-joke masterstroke comes during the scene that Metal Gear Solid fans remembered more vividly than any other: the fourth-wall-shattering encounter with psychic bogeyman Psycho Mantis. This time, in addition to creeping players out by reading their memory cards and making their controllers twitch, he animated the room around him with hallucinatory, Eternal Darkness-inspired horrors. Most notable among these were the three portraits behind Mantis, which were photos of Japanese film director Ryuhei Kitamura, who directed The Twin Snakes' action scenes; Metal Gear creator Hideo Kojima; and Silicon Knights founder Denis Dyack. These three luminaries spend the whole sequence laughing bizarre chipmunk laughs at you and doing their damnedest to steal the scene from Mantis, who's too busy snarling at you to notice he's being upstaged by the men behind his proverbial curtain. Take a look:
