101 game facts that will rock your world

Fact: We love facts. And the world of gaming is absolutely littered with astonishing/pointless/obscure trivia to cram into your brain. So, not-so-hot on the trail of last year's tepidly received 101 things you didn't know about games, we bring you another staggering list of game-related info detritus for your consuming pleasure. Memorize both gargantuan lists and become the ultimate know-it-all gamer.

01. Sonic The Hedgehog isn't only the name of Sega's speedy mascot, but also a gene on chromosome 7 of the human genome. Well, it was until recently when the science community decided to ditch all of its 'comedy' names for genes. Party poopers.



02. Matt Damon refused to appear in the recent Bourne Conspiracy game because he thought it was too violent. Not fussed by the violence in the films then, eh, Matt?

03. Ever wondered what happens to Leon's cool leather jacket in Resident Evil 4? It inexplicably disappears after the scene in the village. Well, on the PS2 version, go through Ada's side-quest and one of the Ganado villagers will be wearing it.

04. In the early stages of its development, Half-Life 2 featured a friendly alien that would follow Gordon Freeman around, feasting on the bodies of his fallen enemies. It was taken out when Valve discovered that the AI would be too difficult to convincingly program.

05. In 1986, Nintendo released a special Disk System peripheral for the NES in Japan. Among its features was a microphone in the controller, which certain games used, including an updated version of the original Zelda. You could only destroy a certain enemy by shouting into the mic.

06. The famously awful E.T. game for the Atari 2600 actually sold more than its most famous game, Space Invaders. E.T. sold 1.5 million, while Invaders only shifted a million.

07. A boss character called Binbag was removed from Rockstar's Manhunt early in its development. He was a psychopath wrapped in black refuse sacks. Lovely.



08. Rockstar also removed a character from Grand Theft Auto 3, although this time it was said to be because of the terrorist attacks on September 11th. He was called Darkel, a homeless guy who'd get you to rig buildings with explosives.

09. In the video game sequel to John Carpenter's seminal sci-fi horror film The Thing, the legendary director made a cameo appearance as a character called Doctor Faraday. He also oversaw the production of the game to make sure it was faithful to his original vision.

10. In Pilotwings 64, the character Lark is actually the mascot for famous American games magazine Nintendo Power, Nester. His name was changed at the last minute, probably because PAL gamers wouldn't know who he was.

11. Oscar-winning actor Marlon Brando recorded dialogue for EA's Godfather game shortly before he died, but it was deemed unusable due to the bloated thesp's ageing, mumbly voice. Instead, they hired in a sound-alike. What a waste of money, eh?

12. Vivendi's underrated Scarface game also featured a sound-alike, but this one was personally chosen by Al Pacino himself, hence the spot-on likeness. His name is Andre Sogliuzzo and he's a veteran video game voice actor.

13. DJ Atomica, the (some would say) annoying announcer in Burnout Paradise, is the same guy who provided the commentary for SSX 3. In Paradise, he makes reference to SSX several times, suggesting it's supposed to be the same character.

14. The Little Sisters from BioShock didn't start their life as little girls at all, but rather tiny mole-like creatures who scuttled around Rapture collecting Adam. Early concept art also shows them as retro '50s-style robots, too. We think they made the right choice.



15. UK Radio One DJ, Chris Moyles, was an enemy in the game spin-off of hit TV show 24. He played an Eastern European terrorist, who Jack Bauer found himself fighting at the end of an early level. It was only his face however; the voice was provided by another actor.

16. Another unlikely celebrity cameo is UK chat show host Jonathan Ross, who 'starred' in Halo 3. He supplies the voice of one of the marines who helps Master Chief, although it's very rare that one of his lines comes up -it's a totally random, and rare, occurrence.

17. In The Legend Of Zelda: Link's Awakening, the advisor from the SNES version of Sim City, Dr Wright, appears in a house. He's named after Will Wright, the creator of the Sim series.



18. In Fallout 2, there's a hidden room in Junktown, in the Cafe Of Broken Dreams, where you can find Dogmeat, the Vault Dweller from the first game's faithful hound.

19. In the original Super Smash Brothers Melee, the Princess Daisy trophy had a mysterious third eye on the back of its head. Unfortunate glitch? Or something more sinister?

20. Sony's beautiful monster-toppling adventure game Shadow Of The Colossus was originally going to feature groups of characters on horseback working to take down the colossi cooperatively. This proved too taxing for the PS2's hardware, sadly.

21. There are currently over 100 million Game Boys in the world; both the original and the colour variant. 32 million of them are in Japan, and there are 44 million in America.

22. Before they settled on its unique, painted look, the developers of Okami, Clover, originally intended the game to look realistic. You can unlock a concept video of this by finishing the game. It was changed because the PS2's hardware wasn't sophisticated enough.

23. Online gaming isn't as recent a development as you may think; in the '90s, a modem peripheral called the Satellaview was released for the Super Nintendo. It let gamers download gaming news and specially-designed games. They were mostly remakes of retro classics.

24. Early iterations of Nintendo's failed Virtual Boy console included a gun you'd set vertical on a flat surface that would project a 3D image into the air.

25. GoldenEye's famously brilliant multiplayer mode originally contained three Bond actors as playable characters; Sean Connery, Roger Moore and Timothy Dalton. Their data was left on the cartridge, but you couldn't select them without using a cheat device.



26. Namco developed a special PSone controller to be used with Ridge Racer Type 4. It was called the Jogcon and had a wheel in place of the analogue sticks.

27. In critically panned crime caper Driv3r, there was a Hawaiian shirt-wearing character called Timmy Vermicelli - a clear parody of the star of GTA: Vice City, Tommy Vercetti. The character wore swimming bands, poking fun at the GTA hero's inability to swim.

28. In Grand Theft Auto 3, one mission saw you chasing a "badly animated" (in the words of Asuka) character called Tanner, who bore more than a passing resemblance to Driver lead character of the same name.

29. The PSone was originally planned as a Nintendo console, with Sony set to design its electronic components. When Nintendo ditched the project, Sony decided to make a console anyway.

30. The death screams of the bad guys in the original Golden Axe are digitized from screams used in the films First Blood and Conan The Barbarian.



31. Star Fox Adventures originally started life as Dinosaur Planet, a game developed entirely by Rare. It starred a blue fox called Krystal, who later became part of the Star Fox crew.

32. The damsel-in-distress that Mario rescues in the original Donkey Kong is called Pauline. In the Japanese version she was known simply as 'Lady'.

33. Guitar Hero: Aerosmith wasn't the wrinkly rockers' first videogame appearance. In 1994 they starred in an on-rails shooter called Revolution X where you had to rescue the band from kidnappers in a dystopian future. No, really.

34. In Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons Of Liberty, a scene was removed from the final game where Snake is chased through the sinking tanker by a rush of water. Kojima said it looked good, but wasn't fun to play. Footage still exists of this in early trailers.

35. The first western-developed Xbox 360 game to break into the top 10 of the Japanese game chart was Gears of War. It made its debut at number seven after selling 33,000 copies. It charted in January 2006, over two years after the Japanese launch of the console.



36. Attacking the fat, black pig on Outset Island in The Legend Of Zelda: Wind Waker will eventually cause it to attack.It's 100% invincible, though, so watch out.

37. Mega Man is known as Rock Man in Japan. This was changed in America because 'rock' is well-known slang for crack cocaine, and the name stuck.

38. The name Atari comes from the Chinese game Go. 'Atari' refers to a situation where a stone or a group of stones is in imminent danger of being taken by another player; a state Atari ironically found themselves in when the brand was bought by French company Infogrames.

39. The Xbox was originally named DirectXbox, as it was initially designed to show how Microsoft's Direct X graphics technology could benefit the console market.

40. The Texas TI-83 calculator has more graphics processing power than the Commodore 64. Amazingly, some basic C64 games can even be programmed into it.