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Videogame facts that blow your mind (SuperMarioBros. SHOCKING SECRET INSIDE p #70)
- Thread starter Chris Michael
- Start date
GankzyMcfly
Member
Didn't MS develop the operating system for the dreamcast? makes sense
Tony Iommi
Banned
Today, my morning shower epiphany is that you can't have a grid pattern on a sphere and have the squares all be the same size and shape. This means the special stages in Sonic 3 are shaped like donuts, not spheres. They just look spherical because of camera tricks. (It's a fisheye lens effect.)
I think you run into issues around the poles or something.???
uncledonnie
Banned
Probably old news but I couldn't find it in the thread -- lots of really cool Halo and Bungie secrets here:
http://kotaku.com/the-guns-that-never-made-it-into-halo-1677656049
I knew "wort wort wort" was "go go go" backwards, but I had no idea that most everything the elites say is Johnson's voice played backwards.
http://kotaku.com/the-guns-that-never-made-it-into-halo-1677656049
I knew "wort wort wort" was "go go go" backwards, but I had no idea that most everything the elites say is Johnson's voice played backwards.
???
That's a circle, not a sphere.
I'll illustrate with some Christmas ornaments I still have hanging around because I'm lazy. You can also do all of this in real life by just drawing a grid on a golf ball or something you have laying around.
If the lines are all the same length, they look like this from the side, but they're not evenly spaced all the way along the line.
Once they hit the top or the bottom (the poles), they run together.
You can have lines that are evenly spaced, but they're not the same length.
So you end up with this.
Put those two types of lines together, and the spaces close to the poles become triangles. You see this on a globe that shows longitude and latitude, at the north and south poles.
A sphere with a "grid" on it that doesn't eventually result in triangles looks like this, but these squares aren't uniform.
By the way, this was covered ages ago in this thread, but world maps for games like Final Fantasy VI are also donut shaped, because flying straight north forever loops you to your relative position on the bottom edge of the map, instead of eventually leading to a north pole. On a sphere, heading north from any position will eventually lead you to the north pole.
The tree area inside the moon in Majora's Mask is shaped like the Mask of Truth
"This is the Mask of Truth. It is a mysterious mask passed down by the Sheikah. With this mask, you can see into other people's minds... It's useful, but scary! Why is it scary? You may find out as you grow older and discover the true meaning of life... Ho ho ho!"
It all makes sense now. And that crazy mofo totally foreshadowed this in Ocarina of Time.
No wonder the Mask of Truth is on the cover of the remake. The whole game is about the Happy Mask Salesman forcing Link to see the "truth" by peering really deeply into the scarier parts of the human mind.
*Mind explodes*
Doctor_Thomas
Member
Raiden's Codec visualizer is a gun pointed to his head.
Within the context of MGS2's plot, this is some deep stuff.
Especially notable because Snake's codec is slightly different. Have to say, I never noticed it before but that's a very cool little visual.
iamaustrian
Member
Ok maybe I'm stupid or something but I really think that Alessa from Konami's Silent Hill is somehow inspired by Porky from Nintendo's Mother series.
Alessa (Silent Hill):
(movie version)
Porky:
Alessa (Silent Hill):
Porky:
OnionPowder
Member
But that version of Porky is from 2006 way after Silent Hill
iamaustrian
Member
but (earthbound spoiler)
his bed mecha was in (alternative form) in earthbound as well
Shut the front door.
Has this one been posted yet? Saw it on /r/gaming today.
http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/2tbb0n/in_super_mario_brothers_on_the_nes_you_can/
http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/2tbb0n/in_super_mario_brothers_on_the_nes_you_can/
Sword Familiar
178% of NeoGAF posters don't understand statistics
I've known about this since I was a kid, but I don't know where I heard it.
themagicalkitsune
Member
That's a circle, not a sphere.
I'll illustrate with some Christmas ornaments I still have hanging around because I'm lazy. You can also do all of this in real life by just drawing a grid on a golf ball or something you have laying around.
If the lines are all the same length, they look like this from the side, but they're not evenly spaced all the way along the line.
Once they hit the top or the bottom (the poles), they run together.
You can have lines that are evenly spaced, but they're not the same length.
So you end up with this.
Put those two types of lines together, and the spaces close to the poles become triangles. You see this on a globe that shows longitude and latitude, at the north and south poles.
A sphere with a "grid" on it that doesn't eventually result in triangles looks like this, but these squares aren't uniform.
By the way, this was covered ages ago in this thread, but world maps for games like Final Fantasy VI are also donut shaped, because flying straight north forever loops you to your relative position on the bottom edge of the map, instead of eventually leading to a north pole. On a sphere, heading north from any position will eventually lead you to the north pole.
Of course! You loose your squares when you shrink to a point. That's why the fundamental group of the sphere is trivial while that of the donut is the cross product of integers.
#topologyexplainsall
Every. Single. One. And I'm pretty sure it was on all the classic game codes/secrets websites too.
Polioliolio
Member
Ok maybe I'm stupid or something but I really think that Alessa from Konami's Silent Hill is somehow inspired by Porky from Nintendo's Mother series.
Alessa (Silent Hill):
That's not Alessa.. That's from Silent Hill 2 ..
Mary/Maria final boss
Azure Dream
Member
This one got me:
Seemingly verified by this Kotaku article:
http://kotaku.com/a-beginners-guide-to-all-things-dragon-age-1658487212
In Star Fox Adventures, the random little creatures that serve as lives are Bafomdads. Back From Deads. Confirmed by a Rare employee.
Back in the day, folks who wanted a little crimson in their Mortal Kombat on Sega Genesis had to put in a code. That code was A B A C A B B
For years, at least for me, that string of letters has been synonymous with punching people so hard they bleed.
However, today, I found out that 'ABACAB' may mean something different to some people. That it is, in fact, an album by the band Genesis.
For years, at least for me, that string of letters has been synonymous with punching people so hard they bleed.
However, today, I found out that 'ABACAB' may mean something different to some people. That it is, in fact, an album by the band Genesis.
Not sure if y'all know but Castlevania: Symphony of the Night's infamous "miserable pile of secrets" is actually a real quote from French author André Malraux. Guess that Dracula was more well read than we give him credit for.
TheJollyCorner
Member
lol ok, this is good!
The desert area looks like Ganondorf and the forest looks like a bird.
Here is the actual image I think you are trying to link. I can kind of see a bearded chicken in the forest, but I'm not seeing Ganon anywhere.
Amazing to think about, really!
Emperor Bohe
Member
that one is new for me. good stuff.
I honestly spent more than a moment thinking "R... Robot Alchemic Drive?!"
I'm pretty sure that internally they're just grids, rendered in a form that looks like a sphere. The topology of a wraparound grid is the same as the topology of a ring doughnut, anyhow.
They're not subtle about it in many cases, either. "Castle Town of Portoga" (Portugal), "Castle of Romaly" (Rome, Italy), "Greenlad" (Greenland), for example.
Aliahan (the birthplace of the hero and starting point of the game) is Atlantis, it's just not located where Plato believed. It's in the South Pacific, rather than in the Atlantic, just outside of the Mediterranean.
Dragon Quest's Kingdom of Aliahan once ruled the world with advanced teleportation technology, but their civilization fell, and their last remaining Travel Door connects to the southern tip of Rome, suggesting to some observers that you (the player) have just come in off the Mediterranean.
Here's one I just found out. Bizarro Sephiroth is a boss in FFVII.
What's the deal with the name? Turns out his Japanese name is Rebirth Sephiroth, which makes more sense given the story. However, the Japanese Katakana was a bit ambiguous and the translators thought it was "Reverse" Sephiroth, so they went with that idea and named him Bizarro Sephiroth.
What's the deal with the name? Turns out his Japanese name is Rebirth Sephiroth, which makes more sense given the story. However, the Japanese Katakana was a bit ambiguous and the translators thought it was "Reverse" Sephiroth, so they went with that idea and named him Bizarro Sephiroth.
LegendOfGood
Member
Couple of random findings I wanted to share. Nothing mind-blowing, just interesting...
Final Fantasy VIII Soundtrack...
I always noticed that the in-game version of the track "Unrest" had a slight modification that plays during the scene when Squall and company are waiting for their SeeD entrance exam results...
Check out the part at 18:47 specifically... Now check out the offical soundtrack version. That little rift is missing (it should be at 0:24).
Maybe just a last minute change they made that didn't make it onto the soundtrack CD? Or is it some kind of error in the game's MIDI data? If you listen to the game version, the sound is a little... "strange", after all.
Threads of Fate (Dewprism) Soundtrack...
I have always loved the track "Rasdan" which plays in the final dungeon in Threads of Fate. But I never understood what "Rasdan" meant... that is until I studied the katakana behind the track's title."Rasdan" or ラスダン (Ra-su-dan) is a portmanteau in Japanese of "Last" and "Dungeon" or "Ras-dan".
Maybe this was a well-known thing (I assume it's a commonly-used gaming term in Japan?), but I thought it was interesting to have this track title finally make sense!
Final Fantasy VIII Soundtrack...
I always noticed that the in-game version of the track "Unrest" had a slight modification that plays during the scene when Squall and company are waiting for their SeeD entrance exam results...
Check out the part at 18:47 specifically... Now check out the offical soundtrack version. That little rift is missing (it should be at 0:24).
Maybe just a last minute change they made that didn't make it onto the soundtrack CD? Or is it some kind of error in the game's MIDI data? If you listen to the game version, the sound is a little... "strange", after all.
Threads of Fate (Dewprism) Soundtrack...
I have always loved the track "Rasdan" which plays in the final dungeon in Threads of Fate. But I never understood what "Rasdan" meant... that is until I studied the katakana behind the track's title."Rasdan" or ラスダン (Ra-su-dan) is a portmanteau in Japanese of "Last" and "Dungeon" or "Ras-dan".
Maybe this was a well-known thing (I assume it's a commonly-used gaming term in Japan?), but I thought it was interesting to have this track title finally make sense!
There's an interesting musical callback I found recently in Silent Hill: Shattered Memories.
In one of the last sequences of the game,
You can see the scene here. The song that plays during this is called Ice and you can hear it here. It's a sort of haunting melody with the distant sound of a woman's voice. I quite like this track, so when I was recently listening to the Silent Hill 3 OST and heard the track 'A Stray Child' I quickly picked up a similarity in the two. At about 20 seconds into A Stray Child you can very distinctly hear the same sounds that are in Ice rearing up. The scene where A Stray Child shows up is when Heather meets Vincent in the Library and he teases(?) her about them looking like monsters to her a relatively notable similarity in what Harry is about to realize when he enters the light house. Also that it's referencing another song titled A Stray Child in the first place probably isn't coincidence.
Whether it was intended to be a subliminal aural callback to Cheryl as an adult or simply a neat re-use of the sound, I found it to be interesting.
In one of the last sequences of the game,
Harry is stranded in the middle of Lake Toluca and desperately swimming towards the light house where he believes Cheryl is.
Whether it was intended to be a subliminal aural callback to Cheryl as an adult or simply a neat re-use of the sound, I found it to be interesting.
No, they did not. Microsoft ported Windows CE (with Direct X APIs) over to the Dreamcast for easier PC ports, but most developers didn't use WinCE, they used Sega's dev platform and OS. Unless of course one was doing a port of a PC game (e.g. Resident Evil on the Dreamcast was a port of the Windows version).
Now, there seems to be some confusion over what the intention was, but I recall, Windows CE wasn't supposed to be the main OS for most Dreamcast games, merely an option to get the PC developers on board quicker. In the end, most games used the Sega OS and not Windows CE.
"Bharat" is the 'correct' name for India, and "Jipang" (the old European rendering of the Chinese word Jih-pên 日本
is right where Japan is. Is "Eginbeat" Edinburgh? Is "Norud" the Russian word narod ('homeland')? There are a couple of others like this.In Japan, it is standard to put Japan at the center of the world, even if it means that poor Greenland get split in two off at the edges. I suspect that Japanese players of this game didn't even have to make any kind of mental switch to see that as a world map.
Dragon's Breath was in Halo 3
Dragon's Breath is a reference to the Halo 1 flamethrower. Halo 3 's flamethrower is reference the Halo 1 flamethrower.
Dragon's Breath is a reference to the Halo 1 flamethrower. Halo 3 's flamethrower is reference the Halo 1 flamethrower.
I have never seen a Halo 1 flamethrower before...
GrantDaNasty
Member
Believe that was added back in for the PC version of Halo 1.
Edit: to give some context, the flamethrower was cut from the original Xbox version, later re-added into Halo PC.
Probably already mentioned but whatevs
I always found it mildly interesting that the small flags (cant remember the real term for them) in Majoras Masks Clock Town had the circle, square & triangle from the Playstations joypad.
Coincidence? Maybe, maybe not????
Sadly no "X".
I always found it mildly interesting that the small flags (cant remember the real term for them) in Majoras Masks Clock Town had the circle, square & triangle from the Playstations joypad.
Coincidence? Maybe, maybe not????
Sadly no "X".
Professor Beef
Banned
openrob
Member
Bunting