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Easter is upon us, and with it comes renewal, new life, and the blossoming of spring. More importantly, it yields the promise of glorious chocolate – made inexplicably better by its newfound egg structure. What is it about Easter eggs? My theory is that they must be made with some sort of special chemical that makes them more amenable to being egg-shaped, and that chemical also happens to have a brilliant effect on the taste. Here’s a few examples of great eggs in video games.
Precursor orb – Jak and/or Daxter
Technically speaking, an orb is spherical, but despite being called Precursor orbs, these collectibles were ovoid, like eggs. The sight of them, in the Jak and/or Daxter games, was always exciting. They didn’t do anything, but they were rare, and the feeling of collecting them was tough to beat.
Lizard eggs – Scaler
If anyone remembers Scaler, a game in which you play as a shapeshifting lizard and track down lizard eggs, then fair enough to you. It’s the archetypal forgettable collecty PS2 game, but the eggs in it were eggcellent.
The eggs – Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg
Billy Hatcher was a chap who rolled eggs around on the ground; these bestowed him with powers, which came in handy to battle Dark Raven. Developed by Sonic Team, the game was a pleasant platformer with colourful graphics and a cheerful tone – sunny side up, you might say.
Togepi – Pokémon
I’ve long had a soft spot for Togepi, a Pokémon that couldn’t, or wouldn't, commit to being born. So lazy is this little layabout, that it pokes its limbs through the shell of the egg that housed it, pops its head through the top, and doesn’t feel the need to do much more. I suppose busting out of a shell would be eggsausting.
The dragon eggs – Spyro the Dragon
The very best of the nothing collectibles, these little dragon eggs were delightful because they hatched into baby dragons. It was a simple and satisfying time to be alive, and hunting every last one of them down was tough – Spyro sure got plenty of eggsercise.
Agent 47 – Hitman
Perhaps not an egg in the very strictest sense, I would argue that one of gaming’s most iconic egg-like images is the back of Agent 47’s head. His head even has a little barcode on the back like some eggs have. Obviously he’s a serious man whose serious about his work, and I don’t want to make light of that. But once you’ve seen the comparison it’s tough to eggnore.
Pac-Man – Pac-Man
Another note on interpretation: Pac-Man, of Pac-Man fame, isn’t an egg – or, at least, I don’t think he is – but he does look a lot like a yolk. It’s a difficult thing to unsee, and that means that, by eggstension, Ms. Pac-Man looks like a yolk with a bow on it.
The eggs – all the Alien games
There’s nothing quite as chilling as the sight of the eggs in an Alien game. They spawn facehuggers, and they signal the likely presence of bigger, nastier aliens in the immediate vicinity. The adult aliens are terrifying enough, but it’s the feeling of walking into a room and seeing these fleshy pods lying in wait that really instils a sense of eggsistential dread.
Eggman (Dr Robotnik) – Sonic the Hedgehog
You can’t look at the success of the Sonic games – the early ones, at least – without eggknowledging the impact of Dr Robotnik. Or Dr Eggman as some call him, for the simple reason that he looks just like an egg – albeit an egg with a bushy moustache, goggles, pince-nez sunglasses, and a rubbery jumpsuit. He’s an iconic villain, always hatching a zany plan.
Wind Fish’s Egg – The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening
Of all the Zelda games – a series with no shortage of eggs – Link’s Awakening has the best one. The Wind Fish’s Egg was a marvel, sitting atop Mount Tamaranch like a polka-dotted palace. And, indeed, it wasn’t quite a palace, but it was a dungeon – one which opened with a crack of its shell. It’s probably the most eggnigmatic entry on this list.
Yoshi Eggs – Super Mario series
No list of eggs would be complete without bringing up Yoshi. Whilst not an egg himself, part and parcel of Yoshi’s iconic appeal is his habit of swallowing enemies and producing eggs. These little marvels had a variety of uses depending on the game, from hatching into special items to being used as projectiles. They are an essential part of why Yoshi eggsudes cuteness and cool.
Dizzy – Dizzy / Giddy – Wibble World Giddy
You can’t make a list of video game eggs without taking Dizzy into eggount. Dizzy is an egg. But while I have to objeggtively eggree that Dizzy is the real deal, growing up in my house meant playing the Amiga knock-off Wibble World Giddy, which featured a similar egg-shaped being, only with huge hands for some reason. Owing to this, my perspeggtive has been somewhat scrambled, but I can appreciate Dizzy, all these years later, as the quintesseggshell video game egg.
Egg.
