40 Random Bits of Pop-Culture Trivia to Collect Like So Many Pocket Monsters

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24 Movie Moments People Experienced in Real Life

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40 Random Bits of Pop-Culture Trivia We’ve Been Slowly Pilfering From Our Parents and Refilling the Bottle With Water

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20 Ingenious Jokes and References From ‘The Simpsons,’ ‘South Park,’ ‘Family Guy’ and ‘Futurama’

50 Video Game Facts Nearly As Fun As the Games Themselves

They’re like real-life Easter eggs

50 Video Game Facts Nearly As Fun As the Games Themselves

October 03, 2023

Video games are known for creating massive, immersive 3D worlds for players to explore. And that means there are hundreds of little secrets and strange facts about their creations. Here are some of the wildest things we’ve discovered…

50

Halo 3

In Halo 3, the Chief shoots a ridiculous number of bullets. CIVER e And every one has his name on it. That detail isn't visible during regular gameplay - the bullets go by too fast. The markings weren't discovered until somebody noticed them in video replay mode. CRACKED.COM http://halo wikia. com/wiki/Chief_EG-X — Source: 29 Video Game Features With Just Bonkers Backstories

49

A developer on Batman: Arkham Asylum spent two years on nothing but the titular character's cape. YOU ARE UNDER CLOSE SURVITILANCE - They had to create 700 different animations and sound effects for the cape. CRACKED.COM — Source: 29 Video Game Features With Just Bonkers Backstories

48

CRACKED.COM In 2013, a special mech was introduced to Sarah's Jenner MECHWARRIOR was released to honor the memory ONLINE of Sarah Parries, a five-year-old MWO enthusiast who was taken by brain cancer. Designed with things she loved, it cost $10, and all proceeds (more than $122, 000) were donated to the Canadian Cancer Society. JR7-D(S) 10% ХР BOOST GENERAL WEAPONS G EQUIPMENT TONNAGE 35 LEFT ARM Medium Laser x2 ENGINE 300 XL LEFT TORSO Beagle Active Probe TOP SPEED 138.9 kph CENTER Streak SRM x2 MAX ENGINE TORSO 300 RATING RIGHT ARM Medium Lacer x2 ARMOR 214 [Ferro-Fibrous) HAROPOINTS INTERNAL — Source: 29 Video Game Features With Just Bonkers Backstories

47

CRACKED.COM Katamari Damacy's eternally disappointed King of the Cosmos has the body of ballerina Tetsuya Kumakawa and the face of FREDDiE MERCURY — Source: 29 Video Game Features With Just Bonkers Backstories

46

Oblivion's original Radiant Al was too smart to ship. In one case, a quest became impossible to complete in testing because skooma addicts kept killing a quest NPC to take the skooma from his corpse. Seriously, sometimes it's gotten so weird it's like dealing with a holodeck that's gone sentient. - Emil Pagliarulo, Bethesda designer CRACKED.COM — Source: 29 Video Game Features With Just Bonkers Backstories

45

50 Video Game Facts Nearly As Fun As the Games Themselves — Source: 29 Video Game Features With Just Bonkers Backstories

44

The corpses in Dead Space are medically accurate. After the producer deemed the initial designs for the corpses not scary enough, the developing team modeled them using photos of actual car crash victims and war casualties. CRACKED COM — Source: 21 Unnoticed Game Details That Were Insane Work

43

CRACKED COM A bug from another game inspired Devil May Cry's iconic feature where the main character can suspend enemies mid-air using continuous attacks. Coot ! e During the development of Onimusha: Warlords, they discovered a bug that caused the enemy to stay floating when being attacked. They thought it was kind of cool and adopted it for Devil May Cry. — Source: 21 Unnoticed Game Details That Were Insane Work

42

Uncharted

Nathan Drake in the Uncharted series originally looked a lot like Johnny Knoxville. Developer Naughty Dog based the character model on the Jackass star, but later decided to go for a less goofy approach, and turned the handsome up a few notches. The final product became a mixture of Knoxville and Drake's voice actor, Nolan North. CRACKED.COM — Source: 21 Unnoticed Game Details That Were Insane Work

41

Fallbut 3 GRAGKED.COM Due to nuclear warfare still being a sensitive subject in Japan, the Japanese version of Fallout 3 does not give the player the option to detonate the Megaton nuclear bomb. — Source: 21 Unnoticed Game Details That Were Insane Work

40

GRACKED.COM Overwatch sound designer Paul Lackey wanted the game's hit confirmation sound effect to be satisfying to hear but couldn't find one, until he opened a bottle of beer one night. Не then reversed the sound and programmed it into the game. TECATE — Source: 21 Unnoticed Game Details That Were Insane Work

39

GEOMETRY WARS STARTED AS AN ANALOG STICK TEST. While working on the Xbox prototype hardware, the developers of Project Gotham Racing encountered issues with the analog sticks on the controller. They decided to make a test app in order to find a fix for the problem and input it into Project Gotham Racing. This test app ended up becoming Geometry Wars. CRACKED.COM — Source: 21 Unnoticed Game Details That Were Insane Work

38

One of the Halo developers left an M made of bullet holes in the game. It's a tribute to his girlfriend, Megg. It's insanely difficult to get to. It's on the ceiling in a locked room, and setting up a scenario where the door is open is incredibly complicated. CRACKED.COM https://www. youtube com/watch 7v=3kJLLUwFy4 — Source: 21 Unnoticed Game Details That Were Insane Work

37

Elder Scrolls IV

Elder Scrolls IVis packed with NPCS. And they've got lives of their own. For example, this guy, Roderick Pierrane, is having an affair. If you follow him around, you'll catch him sneaking out of his house to sleep with another woman once a week. He's an inconsequential background character with no role in gameplay. CRACKED.COM http://uk. .pc gamespy.com/p/the-elder-scrolls-iv-oblivion/558955p4.html — Source: 21 Unnoticed Game Details That Were Insane Work

36

Video Games

In Metal Gear Solid 2, Solid Snake and Otacon share a bro handshake. It goes up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right. Yep, it's the Konami code. But instead of finishing with BA or the start button, they bro-hug. CRACKED.COM https://youtu.be/BeUhmtlUg7Y — Source: 21 Unnoticed Game Details That Were Insane Work

35

In Bioshock, you spend part of the game helping Atlas find his wife and kid. 8+ 8 Patrick and Hoin HALL POSEIDON PLAZA 9 MUSICAL III STORY CE LOVE METER DUTTE But if you look around the city, you'll realize he's lying. There are posters plastered everywhere advertising a musical called Patrick and Moira, which is about dead people. Atlas' supposedly missing son and wife? Patrick and Moira. CRACKED.COM http://bioshock. wikia com/wiki/Atlas — Source: 21 Unnoticed Game Details That Were Insane Work

34

Batman: Arkham City

In Batman: Arkham City, you briefly see this painting. It's called Cain and Abel: The Duality of Man, and it hangs in Harvey Dent's office. This is how the game ends. - CRACKED.COM https://youtu be/NN6CN7Upiml — Source: 21 Unnoticed Game Details That Were Insane Work

33

In Aliens: Colonial Marines, you find a containment capsule. It contains a tiny straw hat and cane. It's a reference to the scene from Spaceballs that parodies Alien with the Chuck Jones cartoon One Froggy Evening. CRACKED.COM https://youtu.be/ThyX0wAwbG8 — Source: 29 Video Game Features With Just Bonkers Backstories

20 Ingenious Jokes and References From ‘The Simpsons,’ ‘South Park,’ ‘Family Guy’ and ‘Futurama’

40 Random Bits of Pop-Culture Trivia We’ve Been Slowly Pilfering From Our Parents and Refilling the Bottle With Water

40 Random Bits of Pop-Culture Trivia Monotonously Droned Into Our Ears on NPR

42 Random Bits of Trivia That Zigged When They Should’ve Zagged — Or At Least Zugged!

25 Books Whose TV or Movie Adaptations Didn’t Care What They Had to Say

23 of the Worst Things That Happened on Someone’s Birthday

32

: CRACKED.COM EXPLORERS' CLUB ACTIVISION CHOPPER N COMMANDOS E W S THE ACTIVISI BUCKET BR ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED Patch Adams Video game achievements started out as real-world merit badges. Fans of early Activision games could take a picture of their high scores and mail it to the company. Activision would then send them a patch that highlighted their accomplishment. Eventually, this method of showing off was digitally incorporated into the games and gaming platforms themselves, thus morphing into the achievements we waste our precious free time over today. — Source: 29 Video Game Features With Just Bonkers Backstories

31

The brown-on-blue color scheme in the Atari 2600 version of Pac-Man was a result of the company having a rule against black backgrounds for non-space games. 396 SHARP KAD-M may CONDETTE - Programmer Tod Frye later said if CRACKED.COM he had known how important a blue maze on a black background was to Pac-Man's iconicity, he would have broken that rule. — Source: 29 Video Game Features With Just Bonkers Backstories

30

Counter Strike

Counter Strike started out as a free Half-Life multiplayer mod that was created by two college students. A year later, the mod got so popular it was immediately acquired by Valve, the company that created Half-Life. A 1905 ВБ DE R 201 402 CRACKED.COM — Source: 29 Video Game Features With Just Bonkers Backstories

29

Doom II

John Romero's head behind the Doom II end boss was a joke the artists put in, thinking Romero wouldn't know. The head is behind the spot you shoot to kill the boss. Romero found out and, to tell them he knew, he made the boss speak (backwards): To win the game, you must kill me, John Romero. CRACKED.COM — Source: 29 Video Game Features With Just Bonkers Backstories

28

SPACE CRACKED.COM INVADERS IN THE ORIGINAL GAME DESIGN YOU FIRED AT ROWS OF LITTLE SOLDIERS, HOWEVER TAITO DECIDED THEY DIDN'T WANT TO SEND THE MESSAGE THAT SHOOTING HUMANS WAS ACCEPTABLE, AND 80 THE CLASSIC ALIENS WERE BORN. — Source: 29 Video Game Features With Just Bonkers Backstories

27

L M Originally, Mario and Luigi were identical twins When Luigi was introduced in Mario Bros. and Super Mario Bros. his character was just the same as Mario, but green. L The Luigi we all love exists only because of the Super Mario Bros. 2 U.S. release, which was actually a reskin of an Arabian-inspired game called Yume Kojo: Doki Doki Panic. Luigi was redesigned to replace the tall, lightfooted Mama character from the original Japanese title. GRACKED.COM — Source: 29 Video Game Features With Just Bonkers Backstories

26

In Silent Hill 4, you can see a creepy stuffed rabbit through a peep hole. And sometimes he'll look back at you. Your neighbor Eileen has a plush bunny on her bed that you can see when you spy on her. But if you look through the peep hole after she goes missing, the little monster stares back at you. CRACKED.COM https://youtu.be/paHTsm09Mkw — Source: 21 Unnoticed Game Details That Were Insane Work

25

In Metal Gear Solid 3, you'll fight an old sniper named The End. Or you could make him die of old age. If you turn your PlayStation's clock ahead a few weeks, you'll unlock a special cutscene where you come across his dead body. CRACKED.COM http://metalgear.wikia.com/iki/The_End — Source: 21 Unnoticed Game Details That Were Insane Work

24

If you climb the 7,000* steps in Skyrim, you'll make it to High Hrothgar. *Actual number: around 750. And if you activate all the tablets on the way, you'll get a bonus buff. There are 10 tablets, which you'd probably miss if you didn't trudge up every step on foot. If you activate them all, you unlock protection from animal attacks for 24 real-life hours. CRACKED.COM http://elderscrolls. wikin com/wiki/High_Hrothgar — Source: 21 Unnoticed Game Details That Were Insane Work

23

Source: 21 Unnoticed Game Details That Were Insane Work

22

Not sure which character to play in Lego Star Wars ? How about Indiana Jones? If you watch the trailer for the Lego Indiana Jones game, in the movie room in Lego Star Wars, you can unlock a playable Indy. And rather than wielding a lightsaber, Indy fights with a whip and handgun. CRACKED.COM https://www. youtube .om/watch?v=hrNnWgwWghc — Source: 29 Video Game Features With Just Bonkers Backstories

21

Kirby's Dream Land 2 doesn't seem like a sexy game. Until you look at it UP Sec HE DALY DE from a distance. The platforms in the game, which are never seen all together during play, form a naked woman. CRACKED.COM http://kotaku com/5911 890/krby-2-sure-was-sexy?trending_test — Source: 29 Video Game Features With Just Bonkers Backstories

20

CRACKED.COM Nintendo's hit real-time strategy/puzzle game, Pikmin, was born from a tech demo featuring Mario. Dubbed as Super Mario 128, the demo featured 128 copies of Mario running around all at once to show the hardware power of GameCube. The idea was later used to develop Pikmin. — Source: 29 Video Game Features With Just Bonkers Backstories

19

Donkey Kong 64 was bundled with the N64 expansion pak because of a single bug. NINTENDO EXPANSION PAK DONKEY N OnlyFor INCLUDED! KONG64 - - - the Deeogram de - - Para E - .. DOLBY AVENUE G COLLECTOR'S EDITION YELLOW GAME PAK SURROUND PAL VERSION DONKEY NINTENDO IKONIC The mystery bug caused the game to crash randomly unless the pak was inserted. The game didn't really need the pak, but Rare convinced Nintendo to include it at great expense to fix that one stubborn bug. CRACKED.COM — Source: 29 Video Game Features With Just Bonkers Backstories

18

Sonic the Hedgehog was initially a rabbit. Developer Yuji Naka wanted to give the character a somersault attack, but later figured that it'd make zero sense for a rabbit to do so with its long ears, because it'd hurt itself while doing the attack. CRACKED.COM — Source: 29 Video Game Features With Just Bonkers Backstories

17

CRACKED COM STARDEW VALLEY began as a C# exercise. Computer science graduate Eric ConcernedApe Barone wanted to improve his coding skill after his job applications got turned down. So he decided to create a Harvest Moon clone as a coding exercise, and ended up creating a hit indie game. — Source: 29 Video Game Features With Just Bonkers Backstories

16

Scott Cawthon created Five Nights at Freddy's animatronic mascots after his previous game was mocked for being inadvertently terrifying. LB PN Cawthon developed a kid's video game called Chipper & Sons Lumber Co. that featured a beaver that many critics labeled: a scary animatronic. This got him to question his career path before ultimately saying, you want something scary? I'll give you scary. CRACKED.COM — Source: 29 Video Game Features With Just Bonkers Backstories

15

STARCRAFT During development Blizzard had trouble keeping the harvesting units from bunching up together like L.A. traffic because of their pathfinding. 0 of 100 Oas 22/26 counter Decivated Terran Refinery NU Veapene der 4992 700/750 Their good enough fix was to make harvesters the only units in the game that can walk through other units. CRACKED COM — Source: 29 Video Game Features With Just Bonkers Backstories

14

Fallout: New Vegas

In Fallout: New Vegas, you can give your character a low IQ. Ignacio Riv Me shoulder. I is scientistic. Me pet aminals. And if you do, the game will treat you like an idiot. Not only will your dialogue look like Tonto having a chat with Frankenstein's Monster, but some NPCs will completely refuse to talk to you, so you lose out on a lot of quests. CRACKED.COM http://fallout. wikia .com/wiki/Intelligence — Source: 21 Unnoticed Game Details That Were Insane Work

13

In Assassin's Creed III, you can have a chat with Ben Franklin. He'll tell you why he prefers sex with older women. To have the conversation, you need to explore Boston as Haytham Kenway. Franklin's words are absolutely historically accurate, by the way-even down to recommending covering everything above an older woman's waist with a basket. CRACKED.COM https://youtu.be/nLzZqooMOFQ — Source: 21 Unnoticed Game Details That Were Insane Work

12

Need a break from Call of Duty: Black Ops II ? ACTIVISION Start O Select Interact Previous Sans West Game Exit How about some classic Atari games? Head over to the Nuketown 2025 map and shoot the heads off all the mannequins within two minutes. You'll activate a computer screen, in-game, where you can play H.E.R.O., Kaboom!, Pitfall, and River Raid. CRACKED.COM — Source: 21 Unnoticed Game Details That Were Insane Work

11

In World of Warcraft, there's a deer named Bambina. And every now and then, a hunter will shoot his mother. Bambina, Mother of Bambina, Flora, and Thudder can be spotted in Westfall. Occasionally a Westfall Brigade Hunter will spawn and shoot the mother, causing Bambina to fly into a rage and attack the hunter. CRACKED.COM http://wowwiki. wikia com/wiki/Bambina — Source: 21 Unnoticed Game Details That Were Insane Work

10

Final Fantasy IX

A Final Fantasy IX player recently discovered a secret quest chain. Penera Zenero and Benero and Genero and Denero and Penero and Benera and Zenera and Genera and Denera aren't here It was 13 years after the game's release. The quest line is absurdly complicated, and requires the player to return to the questgivers nine times. The prize for slogging through the whole chain is a Protect Ring, which is an unremarkable prize that's obtainable from several other sources in the game. CRACKED.COM http://www. engadget. .com/2013/05/28/obscure-final-fantasy-ix-sidequest-uncovered-and-detailed/ — Source: 21 Unnoticed Game Details That Were Insane Work

9

In a corner of a room in Uncharted 3, - Why we love - our pets Flavor there's a discarded newspaper. MICHA theoverseer IDG Scientists are still struggling to understand deadly fungus Labour V All d will the of the zucket Sispate It's a warning that the characters are going to die. The headline is a reference to The Last of Us, by the same developer, which takes place in an apocalyptic Uncharted 3 takes place in 2011. wasteland brought on by a pandemic in 2013. http://www.ign. com/articles/2013/05/30/uncharted-3s-the-last-of-us-easter-egg-left-in-by-mistake CRACKED.COM — Source: 21 Unnoticed Game Details That Were Insane Work

8

In Super Smash Bros., you can unlock a Mario statue. It's got a reflection. Gamers spotted something reflected in the statue's nose, hat, and shoe. It took a trip into the source files to reveal that it's an image of Yoshi Island. (Yoshi is Mario's friend and sometime ride.) CRACKED.COM http://supersmashbros wikia .com/wiki/Metal_Mario — Source: 29 Video Game Features With Just Bonkers Backstories

7

George Lucas

In The Secret of Monkey Island, you have to get past a troll guarding a bridge. It's George Lucas. Once you give him the item he's looking for, he pulls off his mask and reveals himself to be the founder of LucasArts, developer of the game. CRACKED.COM http://blogs ocweekly com/heardmentality/2010/07/11_things_you_did_not_know_abo_1.php — Source: 29 Video Game Features With Just Bonkers Backstories

6

Axton from Borderlands 2 is bisexual thanks to a code screw up. When playing as Axton and reviving another player, there's a chance a flirtatious dialogue will trigger. This was only supposed to happen when reviving female characters, however, a coding mistake resulted in him flirting with male ones as well. After people voiced their disappointment that it was just a mistake, the writers officially made Axton bisexual in the DLC. GRACKED COM — Source: 29 Video Game Features With Just Bonkers Backstories

5

CRACKED.COM WALL JUMPING STARTED AS A GLITCH. In the original Super Mario Bros, if Mario ran against a wall in midair, he would briefly register as being inside the object, which made the game believe he was on solid ground, allowing him to jump again. Developers liked this feature so much that they left it intact for ten years, until it became an actual in-game ability — Source: 29 Video Game Features With Just Bonkers Backstories

4

PAC-MAN WAS ORIGINALLY NAMED PUCK-MAN PUCKMAN LU HIGH SCORE 2500 2590 OSCAR JCKMAY UNCH OUT!! Pubble engle THE NAME WAS PUCKMAN - CHANGED FOR AMERICAN RELEASE TO PREVENT VANDALS FROM CHANGING THE P INTO AN F. GRACKED.COM — Source: 29 Video Game Features With Just Bonkers Backstories

3

got its iconic art KAM I style thanks to Playstation 2 limitations. At the start of development, Okami was using realistic graphics, but due to the game having big open areas that players could explore the developers realized they would have to thin out a lot of the content to make the game run. So they settled on the Japanese ink-wash style that we all love today. CRACKED.COM — Source: 29 Video Game Features With Just Bonkers Backstories

2

Minecraft

GRACKED.COM The sounds Minecraft's ghasts make are the sound designer's vocalizations and the noises of his cat being disturbed in its sleep. — Source: 29 Video Game Features With Just Bonkers Backstories

1

Sonic the Hedgehog can't swim because Yuji Naka, the co-creator of Sonic, assumed that hedgehogs can't swim. TIME 2:15 RINGS 1 He's wrong. CRACKED.COM — Source: 29 Video Game Features With Just Bonkers Backstories

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