Wednesday, May 14, 2014

Random FPS Trivia

This is the first of my posts I'm going to 'port' from my DeviantArt account. Hopefully, nobody minds ;3
  • Warren Spector said that he gave Deus Ex its title just to have people mispronounce it as 'Do Sex';
  • The name of BFG from DOOM means 'Big Fucking Gun';
  • The name of ASMD from Unreal means 'And Suck My Dick';
  • The first game to invent akimbo guns wielding, health recharge wall panels, mouselook and the 'Domination' multiplayer type was Marathon;
  • One of the developers behind DOOM'95 (the official port developed by Microsoft in order to promote Windows 95 as a game platform) was Gabe Newell;
  • Speaking of Newell, Half-Life originally started as two separate projects; one was a horror FPS Quiver based on Stephen King's 'The Mist'; other was an FPS about Ivan the Space Biker;
  • The first game to invent alternate fire was System Shock;
  • Although Quake did boast fully 3D graphics, it didn't really utilize the mapmaking capabilities of 3D (ex. moving in all directions as opposed to walking through levels that could be recreated in Doom with minimal losses) - while Descent did;
  • The first game to invent zonal damage was SiN;
  • Nowadays, everybody knows whose head is hiding behind the Icon Of Sin in DOOM II, and that the Icon's welcome message, while played in reverse, means 'To win the game, you must kill me, John Romero'; it all started when Adrian Carmack and Kevin Cloud (id Software artists) decided to troll Romero and placed the sprite of his severed head on a stake behind the bossbrain. He managed to learn this the same night (before they told him), and as a comeback, he asked Bobby Prince (DOOM composer) to record the backwards message and insert it - so basically, it was him who trolled the artists, and the whole shift the next day was almost ruined;
  • Wolfenstein 3D is a semi-sequel to Apple][ 2D stealth action games, Castle Wolfenstein and Beyond Castle Wolfenstein - both are mainly considered the first stealth games in history, along with Metal Gear. id Software were even able to realize all the original games' features in 3D (changing the uniform, dragging the corpses, etc.), but those were dropped in favor of more fun and fast-paced gameplay;
  • DOOM started as a licensed Aliens game, before Tom Hall has written a design document called The Doom Bible; it had elaborate story, realistic feel and 5 playable characters. John Carmack famously replied that a story in an FPS is like a story in a porn movie, cut 80% of everything down, and later Hall left the company due to creative differences;
  • It's also hilarious that Carmack was sometimes so deep into the code that he barely played the end product; when they were playtesting the Jaguar port of Wolfenstein 3D, he said that the game was pretty fun to play, to which Romero replied: 'You know, it was fun on the PC, too';
  • Resident Evil was initially planned as an FPS;
  • The first game to utilize 'hub' levels (as opposed to level-after-level progression) was Hexen: Beyond Heretic;
  • The title songs to Marathon 2 and Marathon Infinity were done by the band Psykosonik (credited as 'Power Of Seven');
  • DOOM 64 is not a port of any of the classic DOOM games, but a sequel with new levels and story, redrawn graphics and new score;
  • Zero Tolerance was originally supposed to have multiplayer capabilities (although, it needed 2 consoles and 2 TV sets). The official Technopop site even has the schema of an officially unreleased link cable;
  • Recent re-releases of DOOM I & II (most notably, X360 versions and DOOM BFG Edition) have 'censored' medkit sprites, since effective recently, Red Cross is against their logo being displayed in videogames;
  • One of the textures in DOOM is a manipulated image of a wound on Kevin Cloud's knee;
  • Resident Evil: (Gun) Survivor didn't have lightgun support in its US release... oops;
  • Wolfenstein 3D was not the first FPS created by id Software; it was Hovertank 3D;
  • Witchaven and TekWar were actually the first games that utilized the Build Engine; they were released 1 year before Duke Nukem 3D;
  • In Die Hard: Nakatomi Plaza, John McClane is holding the weapons as a left-hand like in the movies, since Bruce Willis is left-handed himself;
  • Early versions of Unreal had a tribal-looking girl in a thong as a playable character;
  • The first ever FPS for Mac? Pathways Into Darkness by Bungie;
  • Cult classic shooters Chasm: The Rift, Venom: Codename Outbreak and S.T.A.L.K.E.R. games were developed in Ukraine (the latter two - by the same company, GSC Game World);
  • (reminded by Snowy-Aegis) The Marathon series is actually a sequel to Pathways Into Darkness - Bungie have confirmed that these games take place in the same universe and even share some characters (most notably, W'rkncacnter and the fact that Marathon Security Officer is a reincarnation of PiD's protagonist). Some fans also speculated that Halo might take place in the same setting as well, but despite multiple cross-references, Bungie have denied that;
  • Before (and somewhat during) becoming famous for The Elder Scrolls games, Bethesda Softworks have created several meh-to-mediocre FPS's based on the Terminator license: Terminator 2029, Terminator Rampage and (actually pretty solid) Terminator: Future Shock;
  • Contrary to popular opinion, Raven Software didn't always license the id Tech engines in their early days - such games as CyClones, Necrodome, Take No Prisoners and Mageslayer were built upon original engines (the latter three utilized the same one, Vampire Engine) - although only CyClones and Necrodome are FPS's;
  • Hexen II: Portals Of Praevus and Heretic II are not included in the Heretic+Hexen Collection on Steam because unlike the other games in the series, those two are owned by Activision (which is ridiculous, since Portals Of Praevus is a darn add-on);
  • Everybody knows that Quarantine was released on PC and 3DO; however, there was also a Japanese port for the PlayStation, renamed 'Hard Rock Cab';
  • John Romero wasn't the one who came up with the legendary '...make you his bitch' poster for Daikatana; it was created by the ION Storm marketing department and meant to be a parody of John's speech patterns during the deathmatch sessions. He just blindly approved this poster, but audiences didn't get the joke;
  • It is believed that the first ever FPS to utilize tracker music was Unreal; but actually, it was 1995's In Pursuit Of Greed - scored by none other than Andrew 'Necros' Sega (who later became an overnight sensation after Crusader: No Remorse, and who belonged to Straylight Productions - the same demo group as Alex 'Siren' Brandon);
  • Microsoft Hellbender is a sequel to Fury3, which is a spiritual sequel to Terminal Velocity - how's that for a confusing sequel numbering pattern?
  • Final DOOM: TNT Evilution began as just another another fan-made mission pack, but hours before release the Team TNT were contacted by John Romero, who offered them a retail publishing deal. Their agreement ignited a huge controversy and flamewar among the DOOM community back in the day;
  • Project Snowblind's working title was Deus Ex 2;
  • EVE, the ship's computer from Microsoft Hellbender, is voiced by Gillian Anderson!
  • The first videogame that utilized Monolith's infamous LithTech Engine was Shogo: Mobile Armor Division;
  • Halo: Combat Evolved started its development as a real-time strategy for Windows and MacOS, and later shifted to a third-person shooter - its first ever public presentation was hosted by none other than Steve Jobs himself;
  • The intro song to Shogo: Mobile Armor Division is 'Negai' ('Wish') by Nemoto Miho. It was written and recorded specifically for the game;
  • Nine Inch Nails are responsible for the ambient soundtrack for the first Quake; as a returning gesture, their logo is featured on the Nailgun ammo packs;
  • Speaking of Quake, it started its development as a 2D RPG (!), where Quake was the protagonist's name (!); you can read the brief overview in 'Read This!' for Commander Keen 1.
  • List of the working titles for Wolfenstein 3D: Castle Ochtenstein, Luger’s Run, The Fourth Reich, Adolph’s Bane, Hard Cell, Luger Me Now, Tank You Very Much, Castle Hasselhoff, How Do You Duseldorf?, Castle Verlassen, Sturmwind, Hollehammer, Schattensendener, Geruchschlect, Dolchteufel, Grabgrabbener, Eisenschwert and Dammerung;
  • The first FPS to utilize voxel graphics was Delta Force;
  • (suggested by Snowy-Aegis) The Half-Life and Portal franchises take place in the same universe, and plot-wise their events occur during the same time period;
  • The idea of Left 4 Dead came along when Valve employees decided to test out the AI in Counter-Strike Source by starting a game session with 4 players opposing a large crowd of bots armed with knives;
  • The idea of Portal came from an indie game called Narbacular Drop, the developers of which (DigiPen Institute Of Technology) were later hired by Valve;


NOTE: Might obviously add more later.

No comments:

Post a Comment