The Globe's New Web Strategy is Extra Lives for Everyone

The Star recently redesigned their website. Not only does the new site serve up breaking news with style, but, as we discovered, it even makes the CN Tower into a cloud pooing machine. Developers at the Globe and Mail have likewise been very busy on the bizarre web idiosyncrasies front. Their site is now offering readers thirty lives.

This trick comes courtesy of Mathew Ingram, the Globe's online communities editor, who tweeted about it yesterday. Just go to the Globe's homepage and type the following on your keyboard, using arrow keys for the directionals (and without the punctuation):

Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, b, a.

A dialog box will pop up. Get rid of it with the "enter" key, then hold shift and space. A grey console window will appear. Type "contra" and press "enter."

Gaming nerds will recognize this sequence of keys as the Konami Code, a cheat code that allows players to gain unfair advantages in many videogames produced by the Japanese game-maker of the same name. The graphics that appear in the left and right columns of the page after entering the code are taken from an installment in Konami's Contra series. Entering the code in early Contra games gave players thirty lives, instead of the default three.

The Globe is not the first reputable company to implement the code on a website.

The Star might have a hard time besting this new functionality, unless someone over there has a Game Genie.

Via the Ryerson Review of Journalism Blog.