This weekend a tweet from the Super Pod Saga podcast (opens in new tab) went viral, just ask (opens in new tab): “What’s the most useless piece of video game knowledge you know?”
As it turns out, people have remembered a lot of bizarre, funny, and in some cases amazing bits of trivia, the kind of knowledge you’re most likely not to come across outside of a thread like this. We open with this absolute hit from Jan Bart van Beek, the studio director and art director at Guerrilla Games.
This requires a caveat. Tiger Woods’ last game as the face of EA’s PGA Tour was in 2013, after which the series would take a one-year hiatus before returning with the first entry on the Frostbite Engine: Rory McIlroy’s PGA Tour (in 2015), which does not feature Woods because his position had fallen so much. Of course, that doesn’t mean the Woods avatar wouldn’t have been used in development.
When Tiger Woods golf was moved to the Frostbite engine, it had no support for golf clubs. That’s why Tiger Woods uses a grenade launcher modeled and animated as if it were a golf club. The golf ball is of course a grenade https://t.co/rNQuSF6PW4January 24, 2023
The tweet took off and has quoted tens of thousands of replies and tweets. I haven’t read through everything, but from what I did, here are some highlights in the text, with the videos to follow.
Furry_Wall: (opens in new tab) “Runescape cows cannot be poisoned because their ‘boo’ prioritizes the in-game timer over damage.”
Iron_Jugulis: (opens in new tab) “using spore’s official dr pepper robot parts it’s entirely possible to create a creature that has no social stats at all. Trying to socialize one of these creatures will crash the game.”
Berds_n_arts: (opens in new tab) “Angry Birds has 39 discontinued games and 19 canceled games.” (Supported by the Angry Birds wiki. (opens in new tab))
Thatbluecatboy: (opens in new tab) “In Age of Empires, while playing on an i486 PC, if you queue up a unit that would break the max unit limit at the perfect moment while you hit the turbo button to scale your CPU from 133hz to 100hz, it would any unit on the map will be assigned to a random player in the game.”
This one has been known for a while but I still like to be reminded of it. Take it away Gavinatorize2 (opens in new tab): “After Snake loses his eye in Snake Eater, he can only see the left part of the screen in first person, and in the 3DS version the 3D slider no longer works.”
Altis69: (opens in new tab) “In Halo CE, the bloom doesn’t increase by firing the weapon, but instead by holding the trigger. That means if you hold the trigger while reloading/overheating, the weapon will start in full bloom to shoot.”
GeeVipah: (opens in new tab) “In Art of Fighting 3, if the Neo Geo’s internal system clock matches a character’s birthday, that character will be significantly improved for that day.”
Christina tasty: (opens in new tab) “Marlon Brando’s last appearance may have been an Easter egg in The Godfather game. He needed an oxygen mask at an advanced age, but he still recorded some lines. Of course they were useless, so if Don Corleone is in the hospital, you can be track and listen to recorded tracks. lines.”
Gothic Collie: (opens in new tab) “The original Xbox port of Half-Life 2 has an exclusive glitch where you can kill Alyx in Red Letter Day by placing a barrel behind her at the vending machine. Unlike later Alyx deaths, the cutscene continues for a while with awkward pauses Alyx should be in before it crashes.”
In the Amiga game “Mad Professor Mariarti” designer Matt Furniss hid this message from people trying to crack the game https://t.co/ElYvJyU7Jp pic.twitter.com/5OFqJDXujSJanuary 24, 2023
Just try to imagine an Amiga hacker getting into Mad Professor Mariarti’s files and being greeted by “hello hacker fucker (opens in new tab)Hard not to imagine that in Shodan’s voice.
dragon kidneyPT: (opens in new tab) “There is a fully modeled 3D file of Neo from Matrix in Drakengard’s database.”
KabscOrner: (opens in new tab) “Because Monster Hunter has no voice acting, and because English is not a language with a pronunciation guide, the first time ‘Rathalos’ is spoken aloud is in Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker.”
Sure, there’s some great Bethesda stuff, showcasing both the studio’s ingenuity and propensity for whining.
In Fallout 3, the outro sequences are just 29 possible video files glued together. But because New Vegas has more outro slides, they instead put the player in front of a giant projector-like screen and put an NPC behind it, playing the voice lines called Ron the narrator… https://t.co/8vMInUDv4f pic .twitter.com/mhVc288apwJanuary 23, 2023
In Oblivion, Bravil’s castle master, Dro’Nahrahe, accidentally had her home coded as one in Bruma, another city halfway across the world map. Every day she walks that red line until she is inevitably killed by wildlife or some other roaming threat. Usually on the first day. https://t.co/jtLar63pBf pic.twitter.com/U6DR6JjK8tJanuary 22, 2023
Oh, also, in Oblivion there is an NPC who will beat up his own wife and kill his own dogs because the developers screwed up his aggression level and forgot to tell him that they are supposed to be part of his family https: https://t.co/HhOVb7N4sy pic.twitter.com/WPwfM9BtYkJanuary 22, 2023
In Skyrim, if you cast a flame spell on the Mysterium Xarxes, in the Mythic Dawn museum, for about 5-10 seconds, it turns into a bucket that cannot be interacted with in any way. As seen here.https://t.co/fqwyTR62dt https://t.co/S4GHIPQQXYJanuary 22, 2023
Some absolute mysteries, like this mug destined to float forever in a void in Portal 2.
In the final Chapter 6 map in Portal 2, a glowing wood-textured mug floats far beyond the bounds. Loved it as a kid but never saw anyone mention it https://t.co/pi2hzRI42w pic.twitter.com/6HrHcxdDu2January 23, 2023
Or this test card for Half-Life 2 found in the pre-release leak.
this test card from the 2003 hl2 leak https://t.co/0qHIToGiN7 pic.twitter.com/TR9HOlKLIUJanuary 22, 2023
A bizarre Daytona 2 curiosity:
Every track in Daytona USA 2 has a secret start button function. Keeping it in the Expert Course spins some of the turbines, but if you somehow hold the button down for an entire lap… https://t.co/Mot1FQ9vbc pic.twitter.com/SDlEsbARO7January 24, 2023
Spore also has one:
In Spore (2008) there is a “Cake Editor” hidden in the files that consists only of a nice plate and no parts. To this day, no one knows its purpose. https://t.co/kb1oQFkSM6 pic.twitter.com/hwvYfC7OBCJanuary 22, 2023
And a special element in some versions of Plants vs Zombies.
in specific releases of pvz there’s a ridiculously rare chance for a zombie to just straight up have a nut allergy and die from eating a wall/high nut https://t.co/unr9vBxpWX pic.twitter.com/TEj8GCXGPPJanuary 23, 2023
A few more Valve-related oldies but goodies:
The facial reference for Eli Vance in Half-Life 2 was simply a homeless (?) man named Larry “The Count” Heard, whom Valve employees found on the street with a sign up saying he was looking for work. https://t.co/BDPoHNWgUQ pic.twitter.com/Wx8Y1cBZ0VJanuary 22, 2023
source games since half life 1 still use the original earthquake light flicker https://t.co/qsBxAcyRiL pic.twitter.com/wpu3lUPUkKJanuary 22, 2023
The identities of both people seen in the Valve logos are still a mystery, and Valve themselves have no idea either (the bald man was just a dude they picked off the street) https://t. co/1y7GbPi8td pic.twitter.com/6h5P6Fo04gJanuary 22, 2023
DMC5 includes a newspaper from when Osama bin Laden was assassinated:
in devil may cry 5, there is a hidden newspaper in the van with the headline from when bin Laden was assassinated. https://t.co/8qYceOEOpw pic.twitter.com/iOqaW33fstJanuary 22, 2023
Great comparison photo of toys and Doom weapons:
many classic weapons of doom are pictures of toy weapons turned into sprites. The hands of the doomguy are Kevin cloud the artist of iD software https://t.co/nnQcGFgnbv pic.twitter.com/MjgCNEbHS2January 22, 2023
Every time I try to finish this article, I come across another one that just has to go in, like this one from Josheola: (opens in new tab) “The creator of NBA Jam is such a big fan of the Detroit Pistons that he rigged the game so they would have a better chance of beating the Chicago Bulls. If a Bulls player makes a last second in a close game, will always miss.”
Unbeatable in the true sense of the word. I’ll end by sharing one of my own favorite bits of video game trivia, which is pretty simple: remember crocodile (opens in new tab)? It started as a pitch to Nintendo for a 3D Yoshi game. You have to say that the big N made the right call.