Modern computers allow gamers to dig into video game data files to their heart's content, and this often throws up some interesting discoveries which perhaps should have remained hidden.
That certainly seems to have been the case with this latest Mario Kart 8 find. YouTube user Harm - who perhaps has a little too much time on his hands - decided to export the game's sound files on his PC and listen to them all individually. This rather unusual pastime has yielded a somewhat shocking secret: Mario Kart 8 has actual swearing in it.
Before you start reaching for your pitchforks and contacting your local member of Congress / Parliament (delete as appropriate), it's worth pointing out that it's impossible to hear this piece of bad language when playing the game normally on your Wii U. The audio clip which contains the single F-bomb has to be reversed and edited in order for the naughty word to be heard.
Here's Harm taking us through the process. Naturally, this clip has swearing in it - you've had ample warning up to now - so please don't listen if you're offended by rude words or are in an environment where others nearby might take offense.
As Harm says, it's highly likely that one of Nintendo's sound guys simply recorded some people talking in a crowded location and then reversed the audio and messed around with the speed to create the sound of Miis gossiping. This same sound engineer probably didn't even realise that the audio included swearing - or perhaps they did, and left the clip in thinking that no one would have the tenacity to actually sit through all of the sound files and play them in reverse. They clearly didn't bet on YouTubers like Harm.
Comments (60)
Hm.... haters gonna hate. I believe it was a coincidence or someone was really jealous with Mario Kart 8 popularity and then accused it with unclear proofs.
Wowsers, this guy has the kinda time on his hands I would kill for.
Link (my main) sounds like he's saying 'Hell yeah' quite a lot when he does a jump boost, but I guess that's a step or two down on people's cuss lists.
I used to love going through PC game files and getting sound effects and music that wasn't easily accessible. That was in the 90s and 00's though... Don't have the motivation for it anymore.
Sometimes I'd replace game sound effects with sfx that I thought were much better...or just plain funny.
...What? XD How the @#%$ did he find that?
I need time like that
How the fudge did he know?
OMG STOP THE PRESS!
...I still feel people have too much free time
I know digging stuff like this is fun but yeah. Whatever.
Some people have too much time on their hands, I swear...
Considering how much he had to go out of the way to even listen to that word, it's really not that big of an issue.
Some people have way too much time. No harm Harm!
@G-Boy
Lol he was going through the sound files because he knows how. Yep, hobby needed.
Okay, here's a rant that has nothing to do with Nintendo:
"Please don't listen if you're offended by rude words or are in an environment where others nearby might take offence."
How can people take offence at simply hearing rude words? If the word is not directed at you, how can you possibly "take offence"?! This whole "I was offended" by everything and anything is just ridiculous. It's like me saying I'm offended because someone said "soup" and I hate soup. Utterly moronic.
This is not a stab a NLife, btw; just the fact that we have to put swear warnings on stuff in case someone is "offended", is just stupid.
@RainbowGazelle I guess people nowadays get offended over everything including soup
Extremely hidden.
It's always weird how this stuff affects ratings. Look at the hot coffee incident with San Andreas. You couldn't access that in the game, but they still made them pull copies off shelves because it was in the files on the disc.
Lol @ shadow in the latest olympic games game 😂😂😂
It takes a special kind of nerd to find this.
Don't have sound on this computer, so haven't listened to it myself yet, but I suspect it's more of a coincidence than anything... not the actual word being said, just something that sounds like it when the audio's distorted.
A fool and his time are soon parted.
@troj27 Technically speaking that wasn't an actual swear, but a misheard grunt with lots of background noise. Anyone who knows Shadow knows he's constantly going 'hmph!' and so forth with grunts.
So that's who Luigi is giving the Death Stare
Harm - GET A LIFE !
No hard feelings, just what I wrote.
Jesus Christ!
@DragonEleven It's very clear that the f bomb is being said. It took a few listens, but once you hear it it's obvious. It's a woman saying: "How the F*** did she know"
I reckon they'll have to change MK8's rating now
I don't think this guy has 'way too much time on his hands' as a lot of people are making it out to be. He just figured out how to listen to the MK8 sound files, so he wen't through them just out of interest. Most of them are probably just sound effects that last a few seconds. It's not like he extracted, reversed and slowed down every single clip, just this one because he wanted to see if there was a hidden message or something.
I always wanted to know what being said in the Mii chatter on MK8, now I know. 8)
@SaKo but why would he choose to do it to this specific clip? The most obvious conclusion is that he either did this to more than one file, "just because" (which equates to "lots of time to kill") or because he's psychic (in which case, he's wasting his powers).
@gaga64 Because it's a clip of people talking in reverse. Who wouldn't want to know what they're saying?
@SaKo everyone on this site is super judgmental on how random people on the internet spend their time for some reason
People offended by the occasional F-Bomb have no place in this world until they learn to grow a thicker skin. People are people, faults and all. A bit of swearing now and then doesn't make you a lesser person or this world a lesser place.
It's almost laughable how little, insignificant things like these can be so upsetting to some, when the internet is full of rambling idiots saying far worse things than they would ever dare to say to someone in real life.
More on topic:
I do believe I've read about what Mii chatter is made of somewhere before, because the bit about them reversing the audio sounds pretty familiar to me.
Wow...I'm glad that if I get bored enough, I step outside or work on my house, instead of fiddling away at a game on the computer. Still though, pretty neat to see and hear this, and now, waiting to see what people say about the Wii U's opening menu when the Mii's arrive...hmm...are they swearing too? Maybe that's why some of them look like they're fighting with one another!!!
I think people are being unfairly judgemental here.
This guy enjoys spending his time doing this. Too much time on his hand? No, this is his hobby.
If you enjoy training for a sport or collecting die cast toys, or whatever, that's what you choose to spend your time doing. Therefore, the argument of "you have too much time" could really be applied to anyone.
This man in particular has chosen to spend his time doing this and I think it's a pretty cool hobby to have. Cut him some slack.
I remember this one time I play a kid song in reverse and somewhere in the backward lyrics it says, I f**k yo momma. True story, forgot which song it was though.
I actually think this is pretty cool. I would probably do something like this if I knew how.
I think Bayonetta's "FLOCK OFF!" is more "mature" than this reversed, pitched up, crowd conversation that Nintendo may or may not have generated itself. Non-story. Heck, you can here non-pitched reversed up F-bombs on pop radio.
Big deal. Plenty of swearing goes on by the Mario Kart players!
Damn I was hoping for Mario or Luigi.
I have no idea why people even think to go through things like this let alone in enough detail to discover such hidden words. But I guess we all need other hobbies besides gaming!
Slooooow news period...
@RainbowGazelle I'm offended by swearing, I think it's vulgar.
I guess Harm was very happy to have found something (anything) after digging through audio files for a while, so he thought he would share it with the world, but that was absolutely uninteresting. He would have shared even if the phrase was "I spent the night with Mike", "I really like eating snails" or "My belly aches, I feel bloated"..
If people are offended by this, then they never played Warioworld and Wario land 4! There is clearly swearing in those titles, for everyone to hear!
@Prizm Did the same back in the early 90's.
A mac, an app like Audicty (it was free at that time) and some free time an voila!!
@SaKo I'm not questioning why he was interested in that clip, just trying to suggest why some people think it might have taken a lot of time and effort to find that specific one
Was hoping for some Donkey Kong swear words...
I think Wario and, Luigi maybe, said "OH MY GOD!" in the Japanese version of Mario Party 1, which is maybe swearing depending on how easily offended you are (and why their voices were replaced in the west).
The swearing isn't hidden when you get hit with a red shell, then a blue as you then slide off the final turn of lap three of 200cc Rainbow Road.
Obviously he has this much time on his hands. What else is a Wii U owner to do with such little games this holiday season?
But in all seriousness, I don't think he spent hours upon hours looking for these things. He probably got lucky and found the right file and (as he said) thought those Miis sound like high pitch people with their voices reversed and got curious. Won't lie, I probably would have done the same thing if I found those files and came to the same conclusions (provided I even copied the game to my computer in the first place).
Now this is my kind of Mario Kart experience
It didn't actually take a lot of time for this. Maybe an hour at most. Converting the files to a listenable format is quite literally a 5 second process with the right tools and most of the sound files are between 1 and 20 seconds in length. This one was an abnormally long one and that's where my hunch came from.
I do a bunch of stuff related to modding Mario Kart 8 and those things take much, much, MUCH longer to do than something simple like datamining. Why does it matter if I spend a lot of time on these things if it's something I enjoy?
I know it's a pointless discovery but I don't see the issue, really. It's not problematic, just kinda cool and funny since you never usually find these kinds of things.
So the sound editors at Nintendo are using the same techniques The Beatles used for their records!! Sweet!!!
Knowing the ESRB's history I wouldn't be surprised if this caused the game's rating to change to T.
@kingdomharms Thanks for sharing this. It /is/ kinda cool and funny. I swear, the commenters on this site are so negative. Remember that hoax nx controller? The 3d printed one with the oval screen? Well on neogaf, the reaction was 'woah, what a wild ride! Ya got us good, fella, nice one.', and here it was 'what kind of idiot would waste our time like this? He should be sacked for using the company equipment!' etc etc.
I like hearing about little details like this. Please don't be discouraged from making another video if you come across anything else interesting while file exploring
This is some playground rumor stuff, next you'll tell me I can have a gun in Zelda and see Princess Zelda naked!
I don't get all the jabs about him having too much time on his hands. These are analytical skills that will come in handy in the future. I did the same stuff on PC 15-20 years ago and built up my knowledge of audio editing. From that I learned how to visually read wave files, how to quickly recognize reversed and pitched audio, experience in applying effects like reverb and compression, etc.
I later used those skills that I learned to create sound effects tracks for amateur stage productions, sfx and music mixes for Halloween haunted houses, and sound effects for video productions (decent knowledge of audio editing helps immensely when making your own videos for YouTube, etc).
There's also the investigative skills of locating such audio files in obscure places, working out how to convert them, etc. Those skills are also transferable to other areas. Bottom line is that hobbies like this can land you a job in the future.
@RainbowGazelle
I understand their intentions, the wording is just really bad.
@Anti-Matter I think you're confused lol this is just a funny minor fact and there is no accusation. Nobody could possibly have a problem with this (and they don't).
I was hoping to hear Luigi go all out against his brother and Peach.
@Vriess "You're my own brother!"
I'm Getting A Bit Scared Because Mario Kart 8 Is One Of My Favorite Games.
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