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101 things you didn't know about games

Gowans

Member
This just popped up on Digg its about a month old from GamesRadar but thought it would have been shared on GAF sooner, nearly missed it.

GamesRadar Feature

Obliviously for Gaf this will not be 101 things we didn't know for some :D
Lets share, discuss & add more.


1. The play area of GTA: San Andreas is roughly 17 square miles. That’s about five times the size of Liberty City and four times the size of Vice City.

2. Cancelled Megadrive 32X game Ratchet & Bolt boasted a boss character that was 30 screens tall, and packed some 33 weapons.

3. God Hand’s Chihuahua races feature a dog called Mikami’s Head, a reference to the Resi creator’s claim that he’d rather lose his head than see Resident Evil 4 converted to PS2.

4. The maximum achievable score possible in a game of Pac-Man is 3,333,360 points.

5. Unreleased titles in the Oddworld series include The Hand of Odd, Squeek’s Oddysee and SligStorm.
Big Screen, Main Screen

6. Sega’s Space Channel 5 had a lawsuit brought against it by Lady Miss Kier, once a member of Deee-Lite, over similarities between her and lead character Ulala. She lost.

7. The first ever product released by Sony was a rice cooker.

8. PS2 robot action game Armored Core Nine Breaker has a training mode that features some 150 lessons.

9. The strangest videogame cameo? That would have to be Alien Hominid in an episode of The Sopranos.

10. Bizarre PS2 RPG Metal Saga (unreleased in Europe) features an ending sequence you can access from the introductory cut-scene.

11. In the original arcade Donkey Kong game, Mario was called Jumpman and he was a carpenter, not a plumber.

12. A six-digit number can be found on the Scorpion tanks in Halo, which refers to the birth date of the game’s art director, Marcus R. Lehto. His initials also appear on Master Chief’s boots.

13. The first ever videogame Easter egg is considered to be that found in Adventure for Atari 2600, where the player could access a room displaying the name of the game’s creator.

14. First-person shooter Doom 3 contains a reference, found on an in-game PDA, to Brit sitcom The Office.

15. Guy Cihi, who played James Sunderland in Silent Hill 2, is a high-powered venture capitalist who was unexpectedly cast while taking his daughter to audition for a different game.

16. There are 504 pieces of character equipment in Final Fantasy X on PS2.
Big Screen, Main Screen

17. Michael Jackson, in some form or other, has appeared in Sonic the Hedgehog 3, Ready 2 Rumble Round 2, Space Channel 5 1 & 2, GTA: Vice City and, obviously, Moonwalker.

18. Back in 1995, Nintendo claimed that over 100 third-party titles were in the works for its subsequently stillborn Virtual Boy system.

19. Everybody Loves Katamari features a bonus level that involves collecting one million roses. It doesn’t have to be completed in one go, thankfully.

20. FIFA 2001 is the first and only game to date to use a "scratch and sniff" CD. The disc smelt of turf.

21. Fable: The Lost Chapters features Peter Molyneux’s gravestone.

22. Red Dead Revolver was originally being made by Capcom, before it sold the rights off to Rockstar.

23. US-only PS2 and Xbox boobfest The Guy Game (seriously, a DVD-style quiz based on ladies flashing their breasts) was banned when it transpired that one of the contestants was underage.

24. Halo 2 is the bestselling Xbox title ever, selling some eight million copies. It’s closely followed by five million for the original Halo.

25. Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind contains a secret talking crab tucked away on a small island, who’s also a trader.

26. The title of PS2 game ICO is a pun on the Japanese word for ‘let’s go’.
Big Screen, Main Screen

27. In the original Animal Crossing for Nintendo 64, unreleased outside of Japan, you have to input the time and date every time you boot up the game.

28. Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime used to be the senior director of national marketing at Pizza Hut. While there he launched the Bigfoot Pizza and The Big New Yorker.

29. Squat braniac Raz wasn’t always intended to be the lead character of Psychonauts. It had initially been an ostrich.

30. Before going on to create classic games like Outrun, Shenmue and Virtua Fighter for Sega, Yu Suzuki had considered becoming a dentist.

31. Tomb Raider's Lara Croft was originally called Laura Cruz.

32. Nintendo has never given Mario an official surname, even though ‘Mario Bros.’ suggests that it’s Mario Mario.

33. PS2 game Asterix & Oberix XXL 2 features over 100 parodies of videogame characters/titles, including Pac-Man, Tetris, Tomb Raider, Street Fighter and Super Mario Sunshine.

34. The development code name for Half-Life was Quiver, after the Arrowhead military base in Stephen King's novella The Mist.

35. The very first Dynasty Warriors game was actually a one-on-one beat ‘em up.

36. Gran Turismo 2 featured some 650 cars, a total that Gran Turismo 3 couldn’t pip.
Big Screen, Main Screen

37. According to the Entertainment Software Association, the average US game player is 33 years old, and has been gaming for 12 years. Not in one session, we’re hoping.

38. Former Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi owns a majority share of the Seattle Marines baseball team, which is now managed by former Nintendo of America head, Howard Lincoln.

39. Keita Takahashi, director of the PS2 Katamari Damacy games, cites both Picasso and Little Shop of Horrors as part of their inspiration.

40. In the early stages of Final Fantasy XII’s development, there were plans to let a second player join in the game.

41. In 2001, a pair of art students created a version of Pong known as the PainStation, where losers could be inflicted with genuine whip, heat or electrical damage.

42. David Hayter, the voice of Solid Snake in the Metal Gear Solid games, wrote the screenplay for the movie X-Men.

43. Nearly half the disc space on Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is taken up with dialogue.

44. When GTA first appeared (at E3 in 1997), attendees were told that to drive from one side of the game's city to the other would take players around three minutes.

45. In Halo 2’s Metropolis level of its single-player campaign, a giant football can be found tucked away on a rooftop.

46. Before settling on its nonsensical ‘Simlish’ dialogue for The Sims, the game’s creators experimented with languages such as Ukrainian, Navajo and Tagalog.
Big Screen, Main Screen

47. A total of 57 games have been released for Nokia’s N-Gage phone/handheld gaming hybrid.

48. The sprouting, titular Pikmin from the GameCube games were named after Shigeru Miyamoto’s dog.

49. Sega’s classic sunshine racer Outrun has appeared on 19 different formats.

50. A game of Animal Crossing on GameCube can last up to 29 real-time years, potentially.

51. The inflated breast size of Lara Croft was the result of designer Toby Gard accidentally adjusting the model's chest to 150% its intended size and being persuaded by other designers working on the game that the ballooned boobs should stay.

52. In Japan, the PS2 release of Viewtiful Joe was subititled ‘A New Hope’, thanks to Episode IV of Star Wars.

53. A certain soldier in God of War emits the ‘Wilhelm scream’, a stock sound effect that’s been used in TV and movie productions for over 50 years. You’ll also hear it in Metal Slug, Lost Planet, Scarface and LEGO Star Wars.

54. The most powerful weapon in American McGee’s subversive but not-very-good action game, Bad Day L.A.? The nailclippers.

55. In Japan, four Dreamcast titles have been released in 2007.

56. Steve Downes, the man who provides the voice for Halo’s Master Chief, is a DJ for a radio station in Chicago.
Big Screen, Main Screen

57. Capcom’s gladiatorial combat epic Shadow of Rome gives you a point bonus – known as ‘Urine Trouble’ – for attacking someone who’s just lost control of their bladder.

58. There really is a game called ‘Communist Mutants from Space’, y’know. It’s a Space Invaders clone released for the Atari 2600 in 1982.

59. Doom-programming genius John Carmack is a voluntary employee of Armadillo Aerospace, a Texas-based company dedicated to ‘orbital spaceflight’.

60. The development team responsible for porting Resident Evil 2 to the N64 went on to become Rockstar’s San Diego studio (that made Red Dead Revolver, Midnight Club, Table Tennis).

61. “Nintendo” translates as “Leave luck to heaven”.

62. Final Fantasy got its name from the fact that its creator, Square co-founder Hironobu Sakaguchi, intended it to be his last video game, using up the remainder of Square’s money after a number of unsuccessful projects.

63. Terry Butcher, current manager of Brentford FC, provided commentary for the inaugural Pro Evolution Soccer back in 2001.

64. Alongside Pandemic’s Full Spectrum Warrior, a more advanced, strategy-led version known as Full Spectrum Command was developed for army use, and never released to the public.

65. At present, 24% of Americans over the age of 50 play videogames, compared to just 9% back in 1999.

66. In late 2005, Sony hired graffiti artists in seven cities across the US to promote PSP, leading to one mayor issuing a cease and desist order.
Big Screen, Main Screen

67. The song lyrics that feature in cutesy PSP puzzler Loco Roco were deliberately written as gibberish, so that they’d never be localised and sound the same the world over.

68. Capcom is short for ‘Capsule Computers’.

69. Although you’ll rarely see them, Yoshi does have teeth.

70. In the UK, Rayman is the bestselling PlayStation 1 game of all time.

71. Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory was banned in South Korea, thanks to it featuring the destruction of Seoul, its capital city. The ban was lifted at the end of 2006, however.

72. Resident Evil Zero is the only non-spin-off Resi title to remain exclusive to a single format, the GameCube.

73. ‘J Allard’ is actually J Allard’s name. It was changed from James Allard.

74. Ace platformer Psychonauts managed to sell fewer than 90,000 copies on PS2, Xbox and PC combined. Boooo.

75. All of the carrier pigeons found in Capcom’s Killer 7 are named after female characters from Bond movies.

76. Saints Row on Xbox 360 features over 130 licensed tunes, including some 40 pieces of classical music.
Big Screen, Main Screen

77. Possessing a copy of Manhunt in New Zealand is a criminal offence.

78. Almost 5,000 games were displayed at E3 2004. 1,000 of them were brand new, while 16% of the games on show were classed as ‘educational’

79. Each of Gran Turismo 4’s 700+ cars took approximately one month for a designer to create.

80. In the US release of Gameboy RPG Final Fantasy Legend II, Nintendo’s censorship guidelines meant that a band of opium smugglers became banana smugglers instead.

81. The Chain Chomp enemies in Mario games were inspired by a dog, chained to a post that belonged to a neighbour of Miyamoto during his childhood.

82. John Romero put his Ferrari on eBay in 2002. It featured a modification that allowed its engine to be tuned with a laptop.

83. Tom Clancy initially rejected Sam Fisher’s triple-eyes goggles in Splinter Cell, due to the implausibility of goggles capable of both thermal and night vision.

84. Hectic PS2/Xbox/PC racer Flatout 2 features over 5,000 destructible objects on each of its race tracks.

85. Okami’s official soundtrack spans five audio CDs.

86. In Hitman 2: Silent Assassin, one of the levels contains pizza boxes sporting Danish text that translates to “Real pizza with shit on it.”
Big Screen, Main Screen

87. Only 2000 or so units of Capcom’s hulking Steel Battalion, an Xbox game powered by a table-hogging 40-button controller, were released. There was a very limited follow-up run in the US, however.

88. The Xbox was originally due to be called the DirectX-box, after Microsoft’s programming interface for Windows.

89. A comic book spin-off of Killzone was once in the pipeline, but failed to materialise after its publisher went bankrupt.

90. Remember the Resi 4 Chainsaw controller? A katana controller was also released for Onimusha 3, and was nearly a metre in length.

91. Before working for the company, former Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi ran a taxi firm and even a ‘love hotel’ which rented rooms by the hour.

92. The speeding up of enemies in the 1978 original Space Invaders was an unintentional feature that stemmed from the way the game was programmed, but was retained.

93. The bestselling GameCube title of all time? That’ll be Super Smash Bros. Melee, with some six million copies under its belt.

94. The Sims managed to spend 82 weeks within the UK’s top ten PC games sales chart.

95. Metropolis Street Racer was released a total of three times on Dreamcast, thanks to various game bugs.

96. Throughout the creation of Forza Motorsport 2, the development team racked up a total of 41 speeding tickets. Two licences were also revoked.
Big Screen, Main Screen

97. Free-roaming PS2/Xbox action title Mercenaries features both Han Solo and Indiana Jones as unlockable characters.

98. Max Payne’s face is modelled on the face of Sam Lake, who wrote the game’s story and script.

99. ICO was first intended for release on PlayStation 1. Also, wispy waif girl Yorda was due to have horns, not lead character ICO.

100. Mega Man is blue thanks to the first format he appeared on – the NES – having a limited, blue-tinted selection of colours to display.

101. By exploiting a series of glitches, it’s possible to complete Super Mario 64 after collecting just one of the game’s 120 stars. Normally, you’re required to collect 70 of them.
 

FiRez

Member
I'm going to print that
now is too late I should be sleeping now and not reloading every 5 minutes the Halo 3 thread and/or reading this list
 
24. Halo 2 is the bestselling Xbox title ever, selling some eight million copies. It’s closely followed by five million for the original Halo.


How could anybody NOT know this?

edit: and this one too

93. The bestselling GameCube title of all time? That’ll be Super Smash Bros. Melee, with some six million copies under its belt.
 
Normally I hate number lists but this one is pretty cool.

17. Michael Jackson, in some form or other, has appeared in Sonic the Hedgehog 3, Ready 2 Rumble Round 2, Space Channel 5 1 & 2, GTA: Vice City and, obviously, Moonwalker.

That's really pushing it.

23. US-only PS2 and Xbox boobfest The Guy Game (seriously, a DVD-style quiz based on ladies flashing their breasts) was banned when it transpired that one of the contestants was underage.

The game is still for sale/rent around here :lol


50. A game of Animal Crossing on GameCube can last up to 29 real-time years, potentially.

Why only 29?

64. Alongside Pandemic’s Full Spectrum Warrior, a more advanced, strategy-led version known as Full Spectrum Command was developed for army use, and never released to the public.

Isn't this the unlockable version (with a code) from the original game?

72. Resident Evil Zero is the only non-spin-off Resi title to remain exclusive to a single format, the GameCube.

Yeah, except for REmake which is like... 70% new.
 

reminder

Member
20. FIFA 2001 is the first and only game to date to use a "scratch and sniff" CD. The disc smelt of turf.

That's wrong. Gran Turismo 2 has such a CD, too. When you rub over it, you can smell burned rubber.
 

Lobster

Banned
Wow. The Resident Evil 2 one is pretty cool and pretty shocking that RE:0 is the only RE game that is exclusive.

I want to smell Fifa 2001!
 
Some pretty new to me, about half rather old..


101. By exploiting a series of glitches, it’s possible to complete Super Mario 64 after collecting just one of the game’s 120 stars. Normally, you’re required to collect 70 of them.

This on the other hand, I consider false. Havent been following the TAS-scene of Mario 64 lately, so I dont know if 1 star run has been done, but it seems to be impossible. 16 stars on the other hand..
 
Night_Trekker said:
Isn't this the unlockable version (with a code) from the original game?

Yeah, a dude was playing it when the game first came out at EB. There are a lot of civilians and they all yell shit at you. It was kind of weird.
 

USD

Member
51. The inflated breast size of Lara Croft was the result of designer Toby Gard accidentally adjusting the model's chest to 150% its intended size and being persuaded by other designers working on the game that the ballooned boobs should stay.
:lol
92. The speeding up of enemies in the 1978 original Space Invaders was an unintentional feature that stemmed from the way the game was programmed, but was retained.
That's cool.
96. Throughout the creation of Forza Motorsport 2, the development team racked up a total of 41 speeding tickets. Two licences were also revoked.
I lol'd.
 
Night_Trekker said:
Isn't this the unlockable version (with a code) from the original game?

No, Full Spectrum Command is something completely different. It is a much larger scale type of game/training simulation. I think there is a third one as well with a different sense of scale.

If I remember correctly, its been a couple years since I saw it, FSC has you controlling several squads of soldiers, instead of the one (err, two) squad in FSW. Think Ogre Battle, not Tactics Ogre.
 
Quadrophenic said:
No, Full Spectrum Command is something completely different. It is a much larger scale type of game/training simulation. I think there is a third one as well with a different sense of scale.

If I remember correctly, its been a couple years since I saw it, FSC has you controlling several squads of soldiers, instead of the one squad in FSW. Think Ogre Battle, not Tactics Ogre.

Ah, thanks. That sounds cool.

I really wish that series would continue. Ten Hammers was a step in the right direction (in some ways) but it was appallingly buggy.
 

StarEye

The Amiga Brotherhood
reminder said:
That's wrong. Gran Turismo 2 has such a CD, too. When you rub over it, you can smell burned rubber.

I was going to point that out. GT2 came out in '99, and had "authentic pit-stop smell" if you rubbed the blue disc that contained the GT Mode.
 
Gowans007 said:
25. Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind contains a secret talking crab tucked away on a small island, who’s also a trader.

He's also very drunk.

You can also find the corpse of a guy named Pikachu, the corpse of Indiana Jones crushed under a rock, a fortune teller in Solstheim tells you the plot of Oblivion if you go to him after you've completed Bloodmoon, and a man named M'Aiq the liar tells you things left out of the game, clues to finding one of the most powerful weapons in the game, where to find naked liches and his opinion on multiplayer - "Multiplayer, M'Aiq does not know this word. You wish others to help you in your quest? Coward! If you must, search for the Argonian Im-Leet, or perhaps the big Nord, Rolf the Uber. They will certainly wish to join you." :lol
 

Gowans

Member
sublime085 said:
Steve Downes is the voice of Master Chief! WHAT? I'm calling in on Monday.

Do it, record it, youtube it my man. :D

Bootaaay said:
He's also very drunk.

You can also find the corpse of a guy named Pikachu, the corpse of Indiana Jones crushed under a rock, a fortune teller in Solstheim tells you the plot of Oblivion if you go to him after you've completed Bloodmoon, and a man named M'Aiq the liar tells you things left out of the game, clues to finding one of the most powerful weapons in the game, where to find naked liches and his opinion on multiplayer - "Multiplayer, M'Aiq does not know this word. You wish others to help you in your quest? Coward! If you must, search for the Argonian Im-Leet, or perhaps the big Nord, Rolf the Uber. They will certainly wish to join you." :lol

Most Amazing things EVER! :lol
 

davepoobond

you can't put a price on sparks
i knew a few of them already, but a lot of those are kind of like "how can they know that" or "how do you know its not just an urban legend" sort of thing. its hard to have valid sources on a lot of that stuff
 
Bootaaay said:
He's also very drunk.

You can also find the corpse of a guy named Pikachu, the corpse of Indiana Jones crushed under a rock, a fortune teller in Solstheim tells you the plot of Oblivion if you go to him after you've completed Bloodmoon, and a man named M'Aiq the liar tells you things left out of the game, clues to finding one of the most powerful weapons in the game, where to find naked liches and his opinion on multiplayer - "Multiplayer, M'Aiq does not know this word. You wish others to help you in your quest? Coward! If you must, search for the Argonian Im-Leet, or perhaps the big Nord, Rolf the Uber. They will certainly wish to join you." :lol

And there's a dead guy somewhere named Arlowe who is/was equipped with the "The Banhammer". :lol
 

EctoPrime

Member
101 things and not a mention that almost all of the Resident Evil 1.5 backgrounds are in the RE2 demo that was packaged with the directors cut.
 

Yoboman

Member
74. Ace platformer Psychonauts managed to sell fewer than 90,000 copies on PS2, Xbox and PC combined. Boooo.

Boo-fucking-urns
 
Night_Trekker said:
Normally I hate number lists but this one is pretty cool.



That's really pushing it.
Not really, Seag first hired Michael to do the songs for Sonic 3 later with the scandals around him they dropped the deal but there still some very similar songs to his in it.
 

CassSept

Member
Night_Trekker said:
That's really pushing it.
Havent you heard about it? How some of songs appearing on StH3 soundtrack are inverted/speed up/down songs of MJ:lol ?
There is even vid of it on youtube

I love the Lara Croft fact, even though i knew about it, it always amuses me:lol
 

CassSept

Member
Well, ive read through whole list, and im disappointed that at the love hotel part they forgot to mention that Yamauchi himself often used them:lol
 

rezuth

Member
1, 7, 9, 11, 14, 21, 23, 24, 25, 28, 32, 37, 38, 41, 48, 50, 59, 55, 67, 72, 73, 74, 81, 91, 92,93, 94, 98,99, 100, 101 <- Those I know.
 
Prime crotch said:
Not really, Seag first hired Michael to do the songs for Sonic 3 later with the scandals around him they dropped the deal but there still some very similar songs to his in it.


CassSept said:
Havent you heard about it? How some of songs appearing on StH3 soundtrack are inverted/speed up/down songs of MJ:lol ?
There is even vid of it on youtube

I know, but how does that mean MJ appeared in the game? It would be his music, not MJ himself.
 

soul

Member
Gowans007 said:
96. Throughout the creation of Forza Motorsport 2, the development team racked up a total of 41 speeding tickets. Two licences were also revoked.

:lol :lol :lol
 

Dahbomb

Member
102 - Devil May Cry 2 started development before the original Devil May Cry even shipped, only the game wasn't even meant to be called Devil May Cry 2 in the first place. It was supposed to be an original IP but was altered to a more DMC universe to make some quick bucks. Capcom now wants to pretend that DMC2 never existed.
 

Gowans

Member
Dahbomb said:
102 - Devil May Cry 2 started development before the original Devil May Cry even shipped, only the game wasn't even meant to be called Devil May Cry 2 in the first place. It was supposed to be an original IP but was altered to a more DMC universe to make some quick bucks. Capcom now wants to pretend that DMC2 never existed.

:lol
nice addition.
 
20. FIFA 2001 is the first and only game to date to use a "scratch and sniff" CD. The disc smelt of turf.


While not a CD, Leisure Suit Larry 7 also featured scratch and sniff somewhere (on an extra card or something).
 
6. Sega’s Space Channel 5 had a lawsuit brought against it by Lady Miss Kier, once a member of Deee-Lite, over similarities between her and lead character Ulala. She lost

She does have a point, though. I've always wondered about the similarity as well:

68bw60x.jpg
 
Night_Trekker said:
I know, but how does that mean MJ appeared in the game? It would be his music, not MJ himself.

I think his voice is even used as a sample for Launch Base? But it's muffled and compressed.

Michael was already working with Sega before, and he did again later on, so it's not out of the question...
 
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