Welcome to our top 10 quirky guide to the gaming universe, where we uncover weird records, hidden secrets, and absurd tales that prove video games are more than just pixels and joysticks.

Top 10 Quirky Highlights

10 The Elder Scrolls Game That’s Bigger Than Britain

Many role‑playing enthusiasts spend their time following the main storyline, ticking off quests and soaking up tutorials. They methodically clear the primary plot before even considering the optional side‑quests that litter the world.

But there’s a different breed of player—those who treat open‑world titles exactly as the name suggests. Whether it’s wandering the snow‑capped peaks of Skyrim or cruising the sun‑soaked streets of San Andreas, these explorers love to roam wherever the map permits. Of course, every virtual continent has its borders, and the size of those borders varies dramatically from one game to the next.

The second installment of Bethesda’s legendary Elder Scrolls series, “The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall,” boasts a map that the developers claim rivals the land area of Great Britain—perhaps even surpasses it. In most contemporary open‑world games, a sprint across the map takes a handful of minutes; in Daggerfall, the same journey can consume days. The current record for traversing the 874‑mile span from Land’s End to John o’Gorates in the real world sits at just over nine days, whereas the fastest known Daggerfall run clocks in at 61 hours and 54 minutes. Real‑life hikers would end up with blisters, while virtual travelers contend with centaurs, spriggans, and the occasional wereboar.

So while Daggerfall’s scale dwarfs most modern titles, it also trades the usual fantasy fauna for a more… traditional set of mythic creatures.

9 A Weird Dark Souls World Record

Speed‑runs, high‑score challenges, and lightning‑fast race‑times dominate the world‑record scene for most gamers. Yet one determined player decided to rewrite the rulebook by completing the notoriously unforgiving Dark Souls using an eclectic arsenal of controllers.

Benjamin “Bearzly” Winn of Edmonton, Canada, earned his place in the record books by finishing Dark Souls on PC nine separate times, each run employing a completely different input device. His roster of controllers reads like a gaming‑hardware hall of fame mixed with a carnival of the absurd.

He tackled the game with a Wiimote, an Xbox 360 controller wielded with a single finger, a steering wheel, a dance‑mat, a voice‑controlled microphone, a Rock Band guitar, a Rock Band piano, a Rock Band drum kit, and finally a pair of Donkey Kong bongos. Each controller presented its own unique challenges, turning a already brutal game into an even more chaotic experience.

Credit where it’s due—Bearzly’s achievement is as much a testament to perseverance as it is to creative problem‑solving.

8 ‘Duke Nukem Forever (Took) Forever’

The gaming community isn’t exactly known for its patience, especially when developers promise a release that keeps slipping further into the horizon. When a title is delayed for an extra year, expectations skyrocket; if the final product falls short, the backlash can be ferocious.

One of the most infamous sagas in recent memory is the development of Duke Nukem Forever. Announced in 1997, the game didn’t finally see the light of day until 2011—a full fourteen‑year wait, roughly the time it takes for a child to progress from birth to the end of primary school, complete a bar or bat mitzvah, and sprout a respectable amount of facial hair.

When the long‑awaited release finally arrived, players were greeted by a title many consider one of the dullest games ever made. Even the iconic “Enforcer” twin‑rocket launcher, a signature weapon of the series, never made it into commercial hands for fans to purchase.

7 That’s The Name Of The Game

Everyone’s heard of big‑name sports and action titles like Tiger Woods PGA Tour, Mike Tyson’s Punch‑Out!, and Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater. Yet the gaming world is littered with oddly specific celebrity‑endorsed games that most of us have never encountered.

These niche titles often surface when a well‑known figure lends their name to a game that either never gains traction or is intentionally obscure. Some are straightforward—like the 2008 Nintendo DS cooking simulator “Who’s Cooking? with Jamie Oliver,” which simply lets players follow the British chef’s recipes. Rumor has it that a hidden easter egg can make Oliver break down in tears if you manage to concoct a turkey‑twizzler gumbo, though that story remains unverified.

Another curious example is the 1986 Commodore 64/ZX Spectrum title “Peter Shilton’s Handball Maradona.” The game puts you in the shoes of England’s goalkeeper Peter Shilton, yet the Argentine legend Diego Maradona appears in the title solely to cash in on the infamous “Hand of God” incident from the 1986 World Cup, despite Maradona never playing in any English league.

Perhaps the most bizarre celebrity‑themed game is the 1991 Japanese release “Gorby no PipelineDaisakusen,” available on platforms like the MSX2 and Famicom. This Tetris‑style puzzle game tasks players with constructing a pipeline from Moscow to Tokyo to improve diplomatic ties between the USSR and Japan. The cover features a cartoonish Mikhail Gorbachev, complete with his recognizable birthmark. Ironically, the Soviet Union dissolved just three months after the game’s launch, and a planned sequel featuring Boris Yeltsin’s vodka distillery never materialized.

6 A Crowd‑Funded Nightmare

Enduring a fourteen‑year wait for Duke Nukem Forever was a test of patience, but the saga of Star Citizen eclipses even that in terms of prolonged anticipation. The project began with a Kickstarter campaign in 2010, spearheaded by British developer Chris Roberts, famed for the Wing Commander series.

Despite raising a staggering $339 million in pledges, the game remains perpetually “in development,” with no concrete release date announced. The sheer scale of the fundraising effort and the continued absence of a finished product have turned Star Citizen into one of the most talked‑about potential scams in the digital era.

5 Game Over

We’ve all wasted time on low‑budget, no‑frills titles that feel more like a chore than entertainment—whether it was a cheap 300‑in‑1 PC bundle or a random flash game on Miniclip. Among this sea of mediocrity, one title stands out as the epitome of a bad game: the unlicensed 1995 shoot‑’em‑up “Hong Kong 97.”

Designed by Japanese hobbyist “Kowloon” Kurasawa, the game features horrendous graphics, abysmal level design, and a storyline that follows “Chin,” a heroin‑addicted super‑soldier and distant cousin of Bruce Lee. His mission? To eradicate the entire population of China, a premise loosely tied to the political turmoil surrounding Hong Kong’s 1997 handover from Britain to China.

While often crowned the “worst game of all time,” Hong Kong 97’s claim to fame isn’t solely its poor gameplay. The title’s “Game Over” screen displays a photograph of an actual corpse, sparking a wild conspiracy theory that the dead individual was Polish boxer Leszek Bączyński, who allegedly committed suicide three years before the game’s release. Some speculated that the image might have been a murder victim, perhaps linked to Chinese retaliation over trade disputes.

Investigation later revealed that the grisly photo was lifted from a “Faces of Death” mondo film, specifically a clip showing a combatant from the Bosnian War. So while the game remains a low‑point in gaming history, its macabre backstory is even more unsettling.

4 Chris Houlihan And His Secret Room

The title of this entry may sound ominous, but the story behind it is surprisingly wholesome. In 1990, Nintendo Power held a contest that asked participants to submit photos of themselves alongside Warmech from the Final Fantasy series.

The lucky winner, a teenager named Chris Houlihan, was rewarded with a hidden room in the Super NES version of “The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past.” This secret chamber, known among fans as “Chris Houlihan’s Room,” remains a permanent easter egg, granting the victor a slice of gaming immortality.

3 The Guy Who’s Been Playing Sports Management Simulator For 333 Years

Dedication to one’s craft is a celebrated virtue, and no one embodies that more than German gamer Sepp Hedel, who has spent an astonishing amount of time mastering virtual football management.

Hedel’s marathon career began with the 2017 edition of Football Manager, where he first took the helm of FC United of Manchester, steering the club for half a century. He then migrated to India, managing Bengaluru for two hundred years, before returning to England to lead Hereford FC. Over the course of his virtual tenure, he amassed 45 league titles across 83 seasons, logging a total of 1,940 hours—or roughly 81 real‑world days—behind the controller.

2 How To Make A Horror Game Gorier

Even the most graphic horror titles are limited by the fact that players remain safely behind a screen. Yet the desire for ever‑more visceral experiences has inspired developers to create hardware that bridges the gap between virtual gore and physical sensation.

Following the 2005 release of Resident Evil 4, a niche manufacturer called NubyTech introduced a blood‑splattered Chainsaw controller compatible with both GameCube and PlayStation 2. While some dismissed it as a cash‑grab, the device offered players a tactile way to feel the game’s brutal action—an approach reminiscent of Bearzly Winn’s unconventional Dark Souls controller lineup.

1 Taking Obsession A Tad Too Far

The gaming world is rife with urban legends and creepypastas—stories like the “Ben Drowned” tale surrounding The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask, or the infamous Polybius arcade myth that allegedly caused severe physical symptoms for those who played it. Among these, the alleged “Final Fantasy VII House” stands out as a particularly unsettling narrative.

While the veracity of the story remains uncertain, it mirrors the complexity of the Star Citizen saga, weaving a tale of two individuals—dubbed “Jenova” and “Hojo”—who allegedly lured people into a shared living space. According to the legend, Jenova convinced tenants that they were reincarnations of characters from the game, effectively creating a real‑life cult based on a fictional universe.

Given how many hours gamers devote to immersing themselves in virtual worlds, the line between fandom and obsession can sometimes blur. Whether the Final Fantasy VII House is fact or fiction, it serves as a cautionary reminder of how powerful and potentially consuming video game narratives can become.

10 Video Games That Impacted Gaming

About The Author: CJ Phillips is a storyteller, actor and writer living in rural West Wales. He is a little obsessed with lists.

Virtual Reality (VR) is still relatively new, and its gaming application is even newer. The first headset that was suitable for VR gaming was the Oculus Rift which didn’t become commercially available until 2016. Developers expected an immediate demand for VR games and headsets. In reality, the VR gaming market grew slowly at first.

There were problems with motion sickness and the lag between a player’s action and the feedback to the headset (called “latency” in the jargon). By the time Valve launched Half-Life: Alyx in 2020, the developers had solved some of these problems. Headsets became cheaper, and the range of games increased. Google has introduced a range of cardboard headsets, bringing the price down to an affordable level for everyone.

As people interact with a virtual world, their reactions are often funny to watch. The reason why we find watching VR gamers so amusing is easy to find. Players are immersed in a situation that we might be able to see on a monitor, knowing what is coming and that the game is completely fake. For the player, the VR world is real—even though they know deep down it’s just a game. Here are our top ten funniest moments in VR gaming.

Related: Top 10 Things That Will Shatter Your Perception Of Reality

10 A Screamin’ Good Time

In this video, the player repeatedly tells himself that he doesn’t like what is happening to him. Judging by his reactions, this is undoubtedly true, but it begs the question of why he doesn’t take the headset off. We’ll see other videos that make us ask the same question. I suppose the answer must be that he wants to see what happens next and is afraid of looking weak if he gives up.

Notice that the man does a fair amount of screaming. What good does he think that will do? Screaming is not rational, so why do we do it when we are scared?

The amygdala is a structure in the brain’s center that processes those emotions triggered by fear. A scream in the amygdala prompts our brain to be more alert and heightens our powers of analysis. This may help you escape a haunted house, but a fat lot of good it will do you if you jump out of a plane and your parachute doesn’t open.

Still, it’s funny to watch people reacting primitively.

9 Down the Rabbit Hole

You have to admire Mom’s persistence in this clip. She’s willing to give VR a go, even though she’s scared half to death. Her family finds her antics hilarious because they know she is safe at home and not where she believes. Of course, Mom would know this, too, if she could think about the situation rationally. But the thing about virtual reality is that it affects the brain on a more primitive level.

In Lewis Carroll’s enduring classic novel Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Alice follows the White Rabbit into his burrow and finds herself in a nonsensical, surreal world. Her experience doesn’t help her much in a place where her logical rules often don’t apply. Very similar to the experience of donning a VR headset.

Mom has gone down the rabbit hole, and, at one level, her brain is convinced that this is a true experience.

8 This Game Has Teeth

The girl here is a little wary about what her boyfriend tries to persuade her to do. He’s honest enough to admit that he hasn’t played the game before, so he doesn’t quite know what to expect. The girl has experience with VR gaming, so she is aware that this undersea world is artificial.

Still, on occasions, primitive emotions come to the surface. This game is distinguished by the fact that the player has no control over what happens to her. She is in a protective cage and is warned that something is coming. As many of our players do, she says she doesn’t like what is happening. Still, there’s not much she can do about it if she wants to finish the game.

An interesting advantage of VR gaming is that it can help people to get over phobias. If people can have fun with sharks, they may be helped to overcome their fear.

7 Stepping Off into the Deep End

This one is interesting because it’s a challenge shared by people you know who would probably be too ready to make fun of failure. As you will see, the premise of this game is simple. Players have to walk a short plank suspended high over a city. If they get to the end, they can step off the end and fall to the ground. The graphics clearly show an imaginary place; there’s no attempt to fool the players into thinking this is real.

Our brains are divided into the reptilian (or primal), the limbic, and the neocortex (although some use different terms). When our players are walking the plank, the reptilian section is dominant. This is the most primitive of the three parts and controls vital functions such as balance, breathing, heart rate, and temperature. Rationality is not part of its function; it is concerned with basic survival.

The dominance of the reptilian brain explains players’ reactions in all of our videos and explains why we, who are using more rational parts of the brain, find VR games hilarious to watch.

6 Releasing Steam

Although the player reassures himself that he is safe inside a room, rationality flies out of the window once he has his VR helmet on. He babbles occasionally and swears a lot. There’s a lot of swearing in some of our videos, and most of it is stronger than the occasional “dammit.”

Swearing is a safety release that allows us to relieve tension, and the stronger the swear word is, the more effective the action is. This player is always clear in his mind that his experience is completely artificial, taking his helmet off to give himself a break before plunging back in. A good idea if you are beginning to feel overwhelmed by the experience. But our player can’t resist diving back in. The VR world is challenging, fun, and addictive.

5 Safety First

Here, we see a mixture of experiences of people who are not used to VR gaming. We have seen them in other videos. The players shut their eyes, scream, and contort their bodies while onlookers laughingly remind them that they are safe.

What is particularly striking about this video is the number of times that people blunder into objects in the real world. This can be dangerous, especially for inexperienced users immersed in a virtual world with no spatial relationship with the actual.

I suppose the lesson is that you shouldn’t use VR technology unless you are in a safe environment. This is one reason why some gamers prefer to play in arcades. There they are monitored and can immediately share their experiences with others.

4 This Game is Sick

This compilation backs up what we’ve said about other videos. At one point, one of the players says, “I get dizzy,” and this can be a problem with VR technology.

Many players report feeling dizziness or nausea when using VR helmets. Basically, this is the difference between what the eyes are telling the player and what the body is actually doing in real space. For example, if a player is climbing stairs in a game, but the body knows that it is really on a flat floor, the player can get disoriented.

This feeling can be heightened by something under the impressive name of “vergence-accommodation conflict.” This occurs when, in VR, the eyes are focused on something that seems to be far away but which, in reality, is on a screen right in front of the eyes.

But watching people whirl and stagger as if they’ve over-indulged at the Christmas party can be comical.

3 Don’t VR Alone

This video highlights the fact that people shouldn’t use VR alone. You might find—in fact, you probably will—that everyone else in the room is laughing themselves sick. Not funny to you when you are going through a terrifying experience. Never mind, you will have your turn to laugh at the others, and it’s better to be safe than sorry.

I wonder if it might be a good idea to incorporate a proximity sensor into VR headsets so that people get a warning if they are too close to a real object.

2 With Metaverse, It’s Only Going to Get Better

The commentator on this video points out that space is important. He’s talking about having enough room to play safely. It’s a point we’ve already made, and it’s certainly true. However, in VR, two different spaces collide—the real world and the imaginary.

The fact that the Facebook group has changed its name to Meta tells us something about the unlimited ambition that drives the company. It is now dedicated to building a Metaverse. The idea behind a metaverse seems to be the construction of an alternative reality that is internally logical but allows users to perform actions in the “real” world.

Gaming will undoubtedly be an important feature of the Metaverse, and companies are developing new technologies to make the experience more real. More real and more fun for everyone.

1 Fast Food Futures

I don’t know if “funny” is the right word to describe this last clip. “Surreal” might be better. The normal activity of ordering a meal in McDonald’s becomes an interactive shooter game with graphics from an early Duke Nukem.

The only limits in VR are the limits that we place on our own imaginations. The gaming world is changing, and the changes aren’t just limited to gaming. VR can change the way that we interact with the world. How we live, work, play, and relate to others might change dramatically.