Another one of my favorite Easter Eggs.

Boot up Diablo (the original) and use Print Screen to grab a copy of the title screen where you can start a new game and whatnot. Now, close the game, open up your favorite image editor program, and use the Paste command to dump the screen image into the program. You should get something that looks like this:

Looks innocuous so far, right? Big red demon, some title screen junk, and nothing at all about Natalie Portman. As a wise Jedi once noted, however, "Your eyes can deceive you; don't trust them." Take your image, select the "Paint Fill" option, and dump any non-black colour (blue seems to work best) into the area between Diablo's horns on the upper part of the image.

Hello...what have we here?

Why...yes...yes she does. Thank you for reminding us, Blizzard!

Also, check out their other little bit of subliminal advertising: a subtle suggestion that one should purchase their other mega-hit title at the time, Warcraft II. Oh, you sneaky, sneaky artists...you knew we'd have to find it eventually, didn't you?

On a slightly unrelated note, there's another bit of silliness hidden in Diablo. Upon entering level 16, Diablo greets you with a hellish-sounding demonic taunt spoken in a long-dead language. What on earth could he possibly be saying...?

Diablo1.wav

Those who are familiar with backwards masking (as used by John Romero in my last Easter Egg entry) might just recognize that sound for what it is: a reversed sound file. Would you like to know the truth? Do you think you can handle it?

Last chance...I'm telling you, you don't want to hear this.

*sigh* All right, if you insist...

Diablo1Reversed.wav

Well...that was certainly a surprise. Who knew Diablo was so conscious of his enemies' health and well-being?

*huggles*

Areala