Google: “Do a Barrel Roll (Z or R twice)!”
November 4, 2011 —How many of you have played Star Fox 64? For those of you who don’t know what that is, Star Fox 64 is a classic Nintedo 64 shooter game, featuring Fox McCloud and his team of mercenaries: Peppy Hare, Slippy Toad, and Falco Lombardi. Star Fox 64 remains popular to this day, but what is even more popular is a small phrase that Peppy Hare occasionally states throughout the game. When you’re faced against a line of heavy fire, Peppy will say, “Do a barrel roll (Z or R twice)!”. A barrel is a special function of the Star Fox aircrafts that deflects incoming attacks, while spinning around in a complete 360. It is very useful for protecting yourself against enemy fire.
However, the barrel roll phrase has become a rather interesting Internet meme and is often stated whenever someone is performing a 360 horizontal spin. Google decided to get a little creative with that meme yesterday, and if you haven’t tried it out, it’s definitely worth your time. First, go to the Google search page. Next, type in “do a barrel roll”. Hit enter, and the entire page will rotate 360 degrees. You can also type in “Z or R twice”, and the page will still rotate. For those of you who don’t know what the “Z or R twice” thing is, those are buttons on the N64 controllers that you press twice to perform a barrel roll. Pressing Z twice will cause your aircraft to spin counterclockwise, while pressing R twice will cause you to spin clockwise.
The “barrel roll” is not the only hidden trick on Google. Over the past few years, Google has implemented several interesting tricks into their search engine. If you’re interested, check out this article:Beyond Barrel Roll. You can have a lot of fun with this!