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34 Video Game Facts That Will Dazzle the Potty-Mouthed Tweens in Your ‘Fortnite’ Server

February 03, 2024

We all like to think that our favorite retro games were perfect just the way they were. So it could be hard to hear that some classics had massive last-minute changes. Zelda, for instance, was hoping to use Ravel’s “Bolero” as its title music. But that track wasn’t in the public domain, and Nintendo didn’t want to fork over cash for it. And so, composer Koji Kondo only had a day to whip up the tune we all now know and love.

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Never noticed, was too busy shooting everything

Hell is in... New Mexico? DOOM The game's first episode canonically happens in a moon of Mars, but the sky is a stock photo taken in Yangshuo, China. The sky graphics for episodes 2 and 3 come from Utah and the Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico, respectively. CRACKED.COM — Source

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CHUN-LI ALMOST WORE PANTS. 2012 GRO STREET FRICHTER Chun-Li was drawn with pants through most of her development process. Only at the last possible minute did artist Akira Yasuda change them to tights. (Не also gave her thick thighs because, well, he liked her that way and he could not lie.) CRACKED.COM — Source

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Donkey Kong 64 was bundled with the N64 expansion pak because of a single bug. WINTENDO* EXPANSION PAK DONKEY OnlyFor INCLUDED! KONG64 - - to - - Para x DOLBY - G COLLECTOR'S EDITION YELLOW GAME PAK SURROUND PAL VERSION DONKEY NINTENDO KOME 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

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Starfox CRACKED.COM Quick: say Starfox in a German accent. You just said the name of German company StarVox. Instead of delaying launch trying to get legal permission, they just called Starfox and Starfox 64 Starwing and The Lylat Wars in Europe. — Source

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This Fact Is One Step Up Knowledge Mountain

Mega Man CRACKED.COM Because the Japanese-to-English translation of his name doesn't distinguish between an L or R sound, Dr. Thomas Light is alternately known as Dr. Right and Dr. Wright in various games and manuals. — Source

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Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door M CRACKED.COM The character Vivian was actually a male in the original Japanese version. But, because he smooches Mario, the North American version had to be a lady. — Source

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Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back CRACKED COM A death animation that shows Crash getting crushed into a wobbling head/feet abomination was removed from the Japanese version. Around that time, a Japanese serial killer had left a severed head and a pair of shoes as kind of a gruseome calling card. — Source

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Crusin' USA FINISH CRACKED.COM Nintendo is notoriously prude, so making this game Family-Friendly was always going to be a tall order. The funniest update they had to make? Renaming the XL Power Shaft to the less phallic XL Power. — Source

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SimAnt PAUSE SCENT Health GRACKED COM The console version included animation of ants puking, complete with disturbing, digitized HURKing. But Nintendo wouldn't allow it in the SNES version. — Source

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The Combatribes CRACKED.COM am / This game came out in the 90's, but when Nintendo re-released it for their Virtual Console (notably...post-9/11), they renamed the Ground Zero gang to Guilty Zero. — Source

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TLOZ's iconic title music was a last-minute patch. THE LEGEND OF ZELDA™ TM ©1986 NINTENDO CRACKED.COM They had planned to use Ravel's Boléro, but found out at the last minute that it wasn't yet in the public domain. Nintendo composer Koji Kondo had a day to whip up the iconic theme. — Source

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STREET FIGHTER WAS BORN DURING A DULL MEETING. 100 STALEST FREHER Capcom programmer Takashi Nishiyama was getting really bored during a long meeting, so he started thinking about martial arts games, and the boss fights in those games, and wouldn't it be cool to make a game that was all about those boss fights. CRACKED.COM — Source

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CRACKED.COM The multiplayer mode that defined GoldenEye 007 for many, was created on the sly. The game was already running behind so the devs knew they'd never get permission from the higher-ups at Nintendo and Rare. They just did it (in a month's time) and added it right before release. PLAYERS MILLION NN SELLER CHOICE de 1998 INTERACIONE 1997- ARTS 183 Gesigned FBC NH Rumble Par GAME OF THE YEAR - - H SRD TEEN T 4015 121 — Source

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34 Video Game Facts That Will Dazzle the Potty-Mouthed Tweens in Your ‘Fortnite’ Server — Source

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HALF-LIFE CRACKED.COM The early prototype for Half-Life's protagonist was a burly-bearded, strung out looking mad-man nicknamed by the designers as Ivan the Space Biker. As game production advanced, they changed Ivan into Gordon Freeman, with his iconic goatee and glasses. — Source

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The Team Fortress va Spy is a glitch that never went away. A bug in the graphics caused some enemies to render as teammates. They pulled the old it's a feature, not a bug, and developed it into its own wildcard class. CRACKED.COM — Source

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CRACKED.COM Katamari Damacy's eternally disappointed King of the Cosmos AILM has the body of ballerina Tetsuya Kumakawa and the face of FREDDiE MERCURY — Source

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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

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34 Video Game Facts That Will Dazzle the Potty-Mouthed Tweens in Your ‘Fortnite’ Server — Source

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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

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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. Cool! to P 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

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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

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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

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ACIA 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

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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-BY - 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

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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 195 ВБ 201 404 CRACKED.COM — Source

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Final Fight CRACKED.COM The absolute prudes at Capcom USA made a whole range of changes. Bosses Damnd and Sodom became Thrasher and Katana, all drug and alcohol references were removed, and the exclamation Oh! My God became Oh! My car. — Source

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Punch Out!! CRACKED COM Soda Popinski was originally named something much more overtly offensive: Vodka Drunkenski. — Source

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Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker CRACKED COM While Japanese censorship seems to be more lax when it comes to nudity and religion, they take less kindly to torture. A scene where Snake is tortured with cattle prods was edited for the Japanese market so that he was instead being poked with laughing rods. — Source

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Pac-Man READY! CRACKED.COM That signature wakka-wakka onomatopoeia is pronounced paku-paku in Japan. They nearly translated that to Puck Man, until someone noticed how easily arcade cabinets could be altered to something more... flattering, yet sinister. — Source

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Mortal Kombat: Deception CRACKED.COM This game was almost a major disappointment in France. Literally -- déception means disappointment, so they renamed it Mortal Kombat: Mystification. — Source

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Contra CRACKED COM They had to turn pretty much every human and alien into a robot, in order to comply with Germany's strict anti-violence laws. That's why, over there, it's called Probotector, i.e. robot protector. — Source

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Indigo Prophecy CONTROVERSY...WHAT CONTROVERSY? FAHEENHEIT CRACKED.COM Gamers everywhere except North America know it as Farenheit. Atari was worried Americans would conflate it with Michael Moore's Farenheit 9/11. — Source

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Tomba! CRACKED COM This bright, fun game about a feral child battling pig people takes on a grave meaning in Italy. Literally; tomba means tomb in Italian, SO they had to call it Tombi! in Europe. — Source

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