Useless Videogame Trivia

[Thor]

I've seen that posted a lot recently, it's totally irrationally fucked me off no end. I noticed that the moment I put the game on for the first time. Anyone who has seen Top Gun and played Mass Effect would get it.

[kiroquai]

In the 2018 game Strange Brigade there’s a level called Cursed Village. Inside one of the buildings about midway through is a small wicker figurine. Just about… here.

 

 

This figure was originally a 20-foot tall puzzle element statue which required burning the various limbs to progress through a large gateway. For a number of (completely understandable and sensible) reasons, this didn’t make the cut. When informed by his level artist that said statue had been binned, the level designer shrank it, optimised it and literally put it in a bin in the level.

 

It was only meant to be there for a few days as a moderately amusing in-joke. It ended up shipping like it. The level designer was so attached to the silly little thing that he used it again in Zombie Army 4.

 

(That level designer was me).

 

(EDIT - Here it was in Zombie Army 4. It burst into flames and turned to dust if they player got close enough).

 

[kiroquai]

I could likely write a book about trivia on my Zombie Army 4 level (but won't), but the one pointless thing about that game that I'll highlight is in the graveyard of the church in the level 'Rotten Coast'.

 

We decided to put a Stephen King/Pet Sematary reference into the level by... well, making a little Pet Cemetery. My artist arranged it and a couple of the people working on the level sent us names of their pets that had passed away so we could memorialise them with their own little crosses and headstones. At the time my beloved cat Gary was very unwell and I knew he was on borrowed time, so I got his name put in there too as I knew some day soon it'd be a little memorial for him (he passed away 7 months after the game was released).

 

 

First time I've actually been back to look at it after he went. Glad we decided to do it now

 

[dumpster]

In Hi Octane on PC there are a selection of vehicles to pick from, each with their own variation on handling. These were added at the last minute when the publishers complained there was only one car to choose from.   However , there is still only one car to choose because every one of them has the same handling, all they did was give you a choice of skins, everything on screen about acceleration, handling etc is a lie.

[dumpster]

Ridge Racer on the PS1 contains CD audio tracks which fill the CD.  20Mb of the disk is used for game code.

 

Likewise the Mario All Stars 50th anniversary edition for Wii comes on a disk that is 99% empty and merely contains a game ROM and emulator.  The room itself has header code that shows it came from a rip posted on the internet and not from Nintendo sources.

[Corranga]

19 hours ago, Unofficial Who said:

 

 

 

I watched Top Gun Maverick over the xmas holidays.  I started playing the film, then immediately stopped it as I was convinced I'd started the original by mistake. 

When I hit play for the 2nd time, I then force stopped the Paramount+ app on my TV and played it again for a 3rd time before realising it starts the same way as the original.  My wife thought I'd gone mad.  (I've never played Mass Effect)

 

 

13 minutes ago, dumpster said:

Ridge Racer on the PS1 contains CD audio tracks which fill the CD.  20Mb of the disk is used for game code.

 

There are a bunch of PS1 games that function as audio CDs which I think includes Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, the original GTA and the London one too.

 

[dumpster]

Yes, the trivia but is how tiny the amount of code is.

[Jazz Glands]

When I worked at EB there was a recall on Pac Man on the Neo Geo Pocket Color, as the hyphen on the vertical spine made it look like ‘Paci Man’ 

[LowCostMonkey]

Mario Kart started life as F-Zero 2. When they realised they wouldn't be able to make F-Zero length tracks for 2 players, it was changed to a Kart Racer. Then not long after that they realised all the drivers looked the same so changed them to Mario Characters and the rest is history.

 

That might be well known, apologies if it is. 

[Quest]

1 hour ago, dumpster said:

The rom itself has header code that shows it came from a rip posted on the internet and not from Nintendo sources.

 

I believe this is no longer thought to be the case, and it's more likely that Nintendo hired someone that had previously worked on the iNES emulator and he simply kept using the same header code format.

[dumpster]

Tony Hawk 5 came about when an employee at Activision noticed they could release another Tony Hawk game as a part of their existing contract which ended in a few months. The game was rushed into production but was not expected to be completed in the timeframe so the tutorial was released as a physical copy which triggered a massive patch that basically added the whole game to the tutorial after launch.

 

Edit : typo , I said 6 weeks, meant 6 months

[Quest]

Six months, maybe? It was announced in early May and was released at the end of September.

[dumpster]

These are all from memory, probably was less than 6 months. 

 

The Wii Balance Board was invented by employees standing on 2 weighing scales at once trying to keep their balance in the middle.

 

 

[ilpostino]

49 minutes ago, dumpster said:

These are all from memory, probably was less than 6 months. 

 

 

Useless (and possibly wrong) Videogame Trivia.

[dumpster]

Now you're talking!

 

The Board game Chess was based on a prototype Advance Wars Cartridge. It caused a shortage of 10 yen coins in 1979 and the Author, John Ritman, never earned a penny because he was Russian so the Soviet government owned the actual product.  More American Children now recognise Mickey Mouse!

[cubik]

1 hour ago, dumpster said:

Now you're talking!

 

The Board game Chess was based on a prototype Advance Wars Cartridge. It caused a shortage of 10 yen coins in 1979 and the Author, John Ritman, never earned a penny because he was Russian so the Soviet government owned the actual product.  More American Children now recognise Mickey Mouse!

Don't forget that it was Tim Langdell that eventually ended up with all the royalties as the box it was shipped in had edges.

[Jg15]

4 hours ago, dumpster said:

Tony Hawk 5 came about when an employee at Activision noticed they could release another Tony Hawk game as a part of their existing contract which ended in a few months. The game was rushed into production but was not expected to be completed in the timeframe so the tutorial was released as a physical copy which triggered a massive patch that basically added the whole game to the tutorial after launch.

 

Edit : typo , I said 6 weeks, meant 6 months

I made the mistake of buying this a couple of years back (it was dirt cheap and I was massively uninformed) and found it was nearly impossible to actually play it. Simply trying to load levels was a feat in it self as the game usually refused to load them, it was a broken mess!

[ScouserInExile]

9 hours ago, Jg15 said:

I made the mistake of buying this a couple of years back (it was dirt cheap and I was massively uninformed) and found it was nearly impossible to actually play it. Simply trying to load levels was a feat in it self as the game usually refused to load them, it was a broken mess!

I pirated the 360 version and felt like I'd been ripped off.

[ScouserInExile]

21 hours ago, Corranga said:

There are a bunch of PS1 games that function as audio CDs which I think includes Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, the original GTA and the London one too.

Part of the PS1 QA process was to listen to all game CDs from start to finish. For some reason, there was a standard that there was no sound, like pops or crackles on data tracks. We also had to listen to all audio tracks to check that they developer hadn't snuck anything dodgy on there. If it was a game without any audio tracks, you'd literally sit and listen to silence for 74 minutes. Most people kept a book or magazine in their desk to read while they were doing it.

[merrychan]

The person who did the voice of Cortez in Timesplitters 3 also did Tony the Tiger

[MansizeRooster]

On the QA team for GTAIV multiplayer, there was a guy who was a bit of a stereotypical ned. Despite sticking out like a sore thumb from the rest of the team, who were uniformly common-or-garden nerds and geeks, we all got on famously. 

 

This neddy chap was utterly convinced that he would be able to knock out a horse with a single punch, despite the team's skeptical arguments to the contrary. This was an ongoing theme of conversation for months. Anyway, it led to one of the multiplayer race tracks being called Horse Punch.

 

Another member of the team was Australian, and was utterly fascinated with the neddy guy. This led to him revealing that the closest Australian equivalent to a ned was a bogan, basically an Australian redneck. Cue months of these two slagging each other, with accusations of being either a bogan or a ned. As a result, one of the race tracks is called Bogan's Run.

 

Finally, one of the network programmers had a very serious demeanour, and a resting face that made him look like he was seconds from fury at any point. He was lovely to talk to, though.

The QA guys came up with a backstory for him - he was a network programmer by day, but by night was one of the most infamous and successful knife fighters in the world. Thus, his nickname - Quick Knives. One of the races is named after him, though I doubt he ever came to know this.

[Ry]

8 minutes ago, MansizeRooster said:

On the QA team for GTAIV multiplayer, there was a guy who was a bit of a stereotypical ned. Despite sticking out like a sore thumb from the rest of the team, who were uniformly common-or-garden nerds and geeks, we all got on famously. 

 

This neddy chap was utterly convinced that he would be able to knock out a horse with a single punch, despite the team's skeptical arguments to the contrary. This was an ongoing theme of conversation for months. Anyway, it led to one of the multiplayer race tracks being called Horse Punch.

 

Another member of the team was Australian, and was utterly fascinated with the neddy guy. This led to him revealing that the closest Australian equivalent to a ned was a bogan, basically an Australian redneck. Cue months of these two slagging each other, with accusations of being either a bogan or a ned. As a result, one of the race tracks is called Bogan's Run.

 

Finally, one of the network programmers had a very serious demeanour, and a resting face that made him look like he was seconds from fury at any point. He was lovely to talk to, though.

The QA guys came up with a backstory for him - he was a network programmer by day, but by night was one of the most infamous and successful knife fighters in the world. Thus, his nickname - Quick Knives. One of the races is named after him, though I doubt he ever came to know this.

 

Thats brilliant 🤣

[fat flatulent git]

Perfect Dark’s setting was this year - 2023.

[Alex W.]

They didn’t normalise the movement vectors in Forsaken so you move fastest when combining X, Y, and Z movement ie zooming away diagonally through the level. The manual includes this as a protip IIRC.

 

This always struck me as a fun way of covering a mistake but actually if the rocket bikes are being propelled by thrusters or something that’s how you’d expect it to work.

[MW_Jimmy]

36 minutes ago, fat flatulent git said:

Perfect Dark’s setting was this year - 2023.

 

Kinda related - Disc Room is always set 'in the future ':

 

 

[MansizeRooster]

39 minutes ago, MW_Jimmy said:

 

Kinda related - Disc Room is always set 'in the future ':

 

 

 

Utterly inspired. This should be standard practice for all games going forward.

[Fry Crayola]

I look forward* to the inevitable games that are always set the same number of years in the future, but still inexplicably have live humans.

 

 

* I will be dead.

[Darwock]

At some point that will backfire as the inverse of what usually happens will occur, we will actually make some kind of technological or scientific breakthrough and a game that was made before it happened will claim it hasn’t happened yet.

 

What if we actually discover a disc shaped object in the orbit of Jupiter in 2050, eh? They’ll regret writing that paragraph then.

 

Also what’s the point of future proofing a game these days, they all get erased from history when the online servers get switched off.

[Skykid]

Stuntman had a load of non-player vehicles which were orchestrated by recording a level designer's pad inputs and replaying them.

This got complicated if there were a number of NPCs. Levels changed frequently, and if one car had to be re-recorded then it might mean that a collision was accidentally introduced into what had turned into a big chaotic system.

 

Late on, we needed to add sirens to the police cars, and the quick solution that avoided now-fatigued designers having to re-record everything was just to set the siren if the vehicle was a police car and moving.

 

So if you nudge any of the stationary police cars, their sirens will go off.

 

[Spacehost]

Forgive my memory, some of this may be slightly inaccurate...

 

Back in the glory days of shit microcomputer ports, a side-on exploration shooter called S.H.A.R.K. was due to come out on Commodore 64 and several other platforms.

 

Unfortunately due to whatever reason, the Commodore 64 port wasn't finished in time for release and they needed to get it out, so the manual tells you that if you're on C64, on the third and final level "the autopilot and combat computers kick in, so sit back and watch [boss] get the kicking they deserve".

 

ZX Spectrum owners have to defeat him themselves.