Five Facts Episodes 2013

Game	Facts	Air Date	Links
Portal	1. In Portal Chell sometimes emits a small scream when hurt, however these voice clips are simply archived recordings from Half Life 2's female citizens. 2. Ellen McClain is the voice actress of Glados, Administrator in Team Fortress 2, and the Combine Overwatch in the Half Life series making her the only voice actress present in all of the games on the Orange Box. 3. The infamous cake in the game was inspired by a Black Forest cake find in a bakery near the Valve headquarters. 4. The handheld portal device can be abbreviated as ASHPD, fans noticed this resembled a shortening of the name Adrian Shephard, the protagonist of Half Life: Opposing Force. As a result Valve placed a Red Herring in the game by highlighting the letters of Adrian Shephard on keyboards found within the game. 5. According to project lead Kim Swift, the final battle with Glados went through many different iterations, one such being a James Bond inspired laser scene. This action pact finale scene jokingly titled Portal Kombat was just one of the ideas that was scrapped.	January 1, 2013	1
Dead Space	1. The main character in Dead Space Isaac Clark, is named after famous science fiction authors Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clark. 2. If you take the first letter from each chapter of Dead Space 1, they form the words "N.I.C.O.L.E.I.S.D.E.A.D." The corresponding letters in the last letter of each word is a boss fight (E, S, and D). 3. According to Glyn Schofield, the executive producer of the game, the development team decided to scrape early corpse designs that weren't convincing enough in favor of much more realistic corpses that were inspired by car accident victims. 4. Throughout the game Issac experiences a wide variety of deaths if you fail, however death scenes ending with Issac's decapitation occur more than any other kind. 5. In 2008 before the release of Dead Space, there were reports of the game being too gross and inappropriate that the game was banned in Germany, Japan, and China. However, shortly afterward it was discovered that it was just marketing and was never banned in the first place.	January 8, 2013	2
Portal 2	1. Valve originally wanted to drop portals from Portal 2. They spent five months working on a new concept called F-Stop to replace them, however harsh feedback from play testers about the lack of portals made Valve reconsider. The details of F-Stop are a mystery to everyone outside of Valve. 2. The Gels in Portal 2 were inspired by a game called 'Tag the Power of Paint.' Valve hired the game's programmers which were a group of students from DigiPen Institute of Technology to work on the game. 3. Valve originally included an adhesion gel into the game that would allow the players to walk on the walls and ceilings. Unfortunately this ended up disorientating play testers so it was scraped before the game's release. Its emitter can still be found in the game's file though it lacks its sticky properties and texture. 4. After several casting calls failed to produce a perfect face for Cave Johnson, Valve decided to model the character after Valve animator Bill Fletcher. 5. Certain areas of Portal 2 contain a musical score generated in real time based on the player's action. According to lead composer Mike Morasky, one piece of music only repeats itself every 76,911 years, 125 days, 7 hours, 56 minutes, and 30.3 seconds.	January 15, 2013	3
Assassin's Creed	1. The assassins in this game are actually based on an Islamic sect known as the Order of the Hashashin, which is where the word assassin comes from. The phrase "Nothing is true, everything is permitted" is often attributed to the founder of the Hashashin, Hassan-i Sabbah. 2. According to voice actor Philip Shahbaz, Altair was supposed to have a Middle Eastern accent until voice directors made a last minute decision against it. After auditioning multiple times with a Middle Eastern accent and getting the job, he was told to drop the accent entirely causing Altair to have an American accent instead. 3. Originally Ubisoft included a crossbow as Altair's weapons. Unfortunately after play testers favored the crossbow over melee combat, Ubisoft had to remove it to increase the difficult of the game. Although the weapon is not in the game, it can be seen in the trailer that plays in the main menu screen. 4. One of the main inspirations of art director Raphael Lacoste was orientalist paintings in particular the 'Lithographs of the Holy Land in Syria' by David Roberts. This inspiration can be seen in many aspects of the game as well as in concept art pieces. 5. According to the game manual for Assassin's Creed II, the reason because Altair can't swim is because of a bug in the ANIMA Software. While looking in the swimming section of the manual, a handwritten note reads "Lucy, make sure to fix that annoying bug in the ANIMA's 1.0 Software which prevents ancestors from swimming."	January 22, 2013	4
Call of Duty 2	1. Call of Duty was the first game in the series to featured enemies that take out their pistols right before dying on the ground. This concept was used later for the Last Stand perk. 2. In the first few levels with Lt Dimitri Volsky he is seen in the traditional Comisar uniform, however in the mission Comrade Sniper, he has a random uniform on and the wrong face model. 3. In the game there is a solider named Dimitri Petrenko, who fights with you in the Russian campaign, later turns out to be the name of one of the main characters in Call of Duty: World at War. 4. Developer Infinity Ward traveled the world to observe areas that they were putting into the game. Some of their findings in France resulted in entire levels being scrapped due to inaccuracies. 5. According to an interview with Infinity Ward employee Captain Price in this game is the grandfather of John Price from the Modern Warfare series.	January 29, 2013	5
Super Mario Brothers 3	1. The combination of a 1988 shortage of ROM chips and Nintendo's efforts to release a Super Mario Brothers 2 suitable for Western gamers, led to a delay in the release date for Super Mario Brothers 3 with other such Nintendo title as Zelda II: The Adventure of Link were delayed as well. 2. The NES version of the game was released twice in English. The second release included a few changes such as Kuribo's Shoe becoming the Goomba Shoe and the slight change in the instructions in Toad's N-Spade game. 3. The original idea for the power-ups in the game were power-ups that change Mario into different mythological creatures including a centaur, however they were all scrapped in favor of power-ups like the Frog and Tanooki Suit. 4. Shigeru Miyamoto based the design of the Koopalings on seven programmers that worked on Super Mario 3 as a tribute to all of their hard work. 5. The Chain Chomp enemy in the game was inspired by a bad experience that Sigeru Miyamoto had as a child. One day his neighbor's dog tried to attack him, luckily for Miyamoto, the chain held the dog back. If a Chain Chomp yanks on its chain 49 times, it will break free.	February 5, 2013	6
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare	1. To make the game seem more realistic, the Infinity Ward team attended a live fire exercise of Marine Corp Combat Center to see how different weapons and even a tank fired and sounded. The team also had US Marines provide development supervision and recruited Military veterans to help with the motion capture section. 2. Several cut audio files from the game's multi-player indicate that the game was supposed to have a Capture the Flag mode. Other files and documents also show pieces of completely unused game type ideas. 3. An early concept for the game's multi-player involving players fighting over specific zones to gain access to a trigger that would allow them to use air support, however it was scrapped because it discouraged the kind of deathmatch game play Infinity Ward wanted. 4. According to cut audio from Mile High Club level, the hostage you're trying to save was originally named Kriegler, which is the last name of Infinity Ward's art director. 5. Mark Grigsby, the voice actor for Sgt Grigs and the artist behind the rap song played during the game's credits, was also the lead animator on Call of Duty 4.	February 12, 2013	7
Call of Duty: World at War	1. This is the first next gen Call of Duty game without a number in its title, the game was originally called Call of Duty V. 2. Many animations and sounds were borrowed from Call of Duty 2 and 3 files to make World at War. Almost every weapon in the game has the same reload animations as their Call of Duty 2 counterpart while the sound of reloading comes from the third game. In game German dialogue is borrowed from both games as well. 3. The unused files for British weapons such as the Sten, Pri, and Lee refill indicate that some kind of British campaign was to be featured in the game. The mod tools for the game also feature code for three missions at Rhineland and three missions in Holland. 4. As indicated in localization strings, camouflage skins were in development for the game. Some of the camouflage types were called Royal, Yankee, Rising Sun, and Prestige, however they were cut from the game before release. 5. When you shoot an enemy's head off they still scream.	February 19, 2013	8
Kirby's Dream Land	1. Kirby was originally named Popopo according to page 1 of the project proposal for Kirby's Dream Land, which was called Twinkle Popopo at first. 2. Kirby's blob like design was just a placeholder spray during development until creator Masahiro Sakurai began to prefer the placeholder over the original design concept. 3. The North American box art for Kirby's Dream Land features a white Kirby because Nintendo of America had only seen Kirby on the monochrome screen of the Gameboy, however, the Japanese box art features the pink Kirby we see today. 4. In Kirby's Dream Land 2, Rick, Kine, and Coo, which are characters that help Kirby get around in the game, were originally called minions until the development team thought the word friends was more appropriate considering Kirby's personality. 5. Problems with the PAL conversion of Kirby's Dream Land 3 delayed the release of the game in Europe and Australia for about 10 years. The PAL conversion failure led to the game finally being released in those regions in the form of a North American import.	February 26, 2013	9
Sonic Adventure	1. The game was originally set to be released as a Sega Saturn game in 1997, however the game ended up being developed as a Sega Dreamcast game after Sega announced the console's specifications. This led to almost an entire makeup of the entire game. 2. Sonic Adventure is the Sega Dreamcast best selling game in the console's entire lifespan. As of 2006, Sonic Adventure had sold over 2.5 million units worldwide. 3. Unused dialogue in the game's files has Tickle instructing the player to collect 50 rings before transformation, indicating the ability to transform into Super Sonic. It was originally part of the game in normal levels. 4. Sky Chase Act 1 was going to feature a two headed dragon robot that would chase the tornado toward the end of the level and act as a boss. Although it was scrapped, it remains as an unused asset and can be accessed by hacking any version of the game. 5. Sonic Adventure was the first Sonic game to feature downloadable content. The Dreamcast was the first game console to have online capabilities out of the box.	March 5, 2013	10
Sonic Adventure 2	1. Originally there was only supposed to be three playable characters in the game, Sonic, Knuckles and Eggman with the rest of the characters appearing in cut scenes. However, the fans were disappointed in the lack of playable characters after Sega showed game play footage at E3, as a result the idea was scrapped. 2. Many of the environments in the game were inspired by San Francisco, California, the location of Sega Studio USA, as well as other parts of the United States. An example of this is the highway sections of the game being modeled after the Golden Gate bridge. 3. Shadow was originally named Terios which means reflection of and Rouge was originally named Nails the Bat in reference to Knuckles' name. 4. The Chao in Space 2 movie billboard as well as the billboard advertising for the DVD version of Chao in Space is a reference to the Chao in Space billboard found near Casinopolis in the first Sonic Adventure. 5. Shadow was only supposed to appear in this one game, however, his overwhelming popularity with Sonic fans led to him appearing in future installments.	March 12, 2013	11
Dead Space 2	1. In the first Dead Space Issac's helmet was just one solid piece. Since Issac needed to talk in this game, new collapsible helmets were designed for each suit. The helmets are very complex in terms of design with Issac's advanced suit's helmet features over 40 pieces that are assembled and broken down by tiny mechanical arms in the suit. 2. More than 20 fake brands and products along with their advertising campaigns and logos were created for the sprawl. Most of these products, ads, and services were result of development team's inside jokes. 3. During the scene at the transport hub when Ellie and Stross are on the balcony, there is a giant movie poster for Kitty Kitty Bang Bang behind them. The woman on the poster is Sonita Henry, the voice actress for Ellie and her mocap. 4. According to an interview with art director Ian Milham, among the expenses that occurred in the making of the game was an actual goat. The art team bought a butchered goat to use for reference to filming Issac's nightmare sequences. 5. Every clock in the game is stuck on 12 O'clock. This is possibly a reference to the fact that sprawl is the location site 12 marker.	March 19, 2013	12
Resident Evil: Code Veronica	1. Code Veronica was supposed to be the third game in the Resident Evil series, however project supervisor Yoshiki Okamoto explained that Capcom wanted numbered games on the PlayStation and name games on all other consoles. Although Resident Evil 3: Nemesis is the third game in the franchise, the development team sees Veronica as the true sequel to Resident Evil 2. 2. In early development Alfred and Alexia Ashford were originally named Hilbert and Hilda respectively. Both characters were also born in 1971 which is the password to access Alfred's secret passage in the game. 3. Since the game was developed for the Dreamcast, the development team had much more to work with. This resulted in Veronica being the first Resident Evil game to ditch the pre-rendered backdrops and static camera angles, that the series was known for, in favor of 3D backgrounds and a swinging prefixed camera system. 4. The Japanese version of Code Veronica contains two extra difficulty settings in addition to the normal setting found in the American and PAL (Europe) version of the game. The two extra difficulties are Easy and a slightly modified Very Easy which gives the player a linear launcher and an unlimited supply of ink ribbons in the start of the game. 5. Track 34 in the game's soundtrack disk is titled The Code is Veronica. This can act as a clue to players because a section of that song is played toward the end of the game where ending the code Veronica opens all of the electronic doors.	March 26, 2013	13
Halo: Combat Evolved	1. Halo was originally being developed for the Mac and PC as an RTS game, before Microsoft took an interest in the project. Microsoft then acquired Bungie, the game's developer, and the Halo that was being in development was re-purposed into a launch title for the Xbox. 2. Halo: Combat Evolved was not the original titled created by Bungie. The name of the game was always intended to be just the word Halo, however Microsoft suggested adding the term Combat Evolved due to Halo's title not being as descriptive as the military games they were competing with. At first the studio was not happy with the subtitle but eventually they accepted the change. 3. The serial number on the Scorpion tank 030569 is the birthday of the game's art director Marcus R. Lehto. 4. During development Halo was going to feature many of the weapons that were introduced in the second and third games, however, due to time restrictions most were cut from the final version of the game. 5. Cortana was originally written to speak with an English accent. When Jan Taylor cast, the accent changed but the lines remained unchanged. 6. Halo: Combat Evolved was originally supposed to have a weather changing system, however the concept was cut before the game was released. 7. There are 8,087 lines of dialogue in the game and most of them are randomly triggered during combat. 8. Much of the dialogue spoken by Covenant Elite is dialogue from the human Sergeant reversed with added pitch alterations. Also much of the grunt dialogue is taken from human characters from Bungie's first Marathon game. 9. There was going to be an alternate storyline in the game where John-117 finds Cortana inside the control room who becomes mad with power and wants to take over the universe. 10. The shotgun shells in the game are called Soellkraft 8-Gauge Shell , they are basic shotgun shells with a picture of a hippo head on the casing. These shells are named after Matt Soule, a former employee and community manager at Bungie Studios that had an obsession with hippos. Bonus Geoff Facts: 1. Idle animation on the pistol is 14 seconds. 2. There could only be four flashlights on at once, if there were more than four people in the game, you could not use them. 3. You can not have two different teams in the same Warthog.	April 2, 2013 April 9, 2013	14 15
Mass Effect	1. According to directer Casey Hudson during the year that it took to create the concept for Mass Effect, there were ideas on creating a universe with no aliens and having just one planet in the game. After many meetings, the team finally had their universe and began to work on the plot of the trilogy. 2. Bioware produced six other covers for the game that weren't used for various reasons. 3. Commander Shepard is named after Alan Shepard, the first American in space. He also shares a birthday with the launch date of Apollo 13, April 11. 4. When landing on Luna, you can find what is left of probe called the CCCP Luna 23. The Luna 23 was a actual Russian probe that was sent to the Moon in 1974, however it was damaged during landing and became stranded on the surface. 5. Mass Effect was banned in Singapore for a brief period, mainly due to scenes where a human female and an alien were caressing. Despite the initial ban, the game eventually wound up with an M-18 rating.	April 16, 2013	16
Mass Effect 2	1. During the first stages of development, the designers were only focused on fixing and polishing the shooting aspects of the game. The team wasn't allowed to move on to developing RPG elements until that process was finished. 2. When performing lines that involved the illusive man smoking, Martin Sheen would suck on a pen since he didn't smoke. 3. When checking the Citadel for the first time, Captain Bailey mentions that, "Spending a year dead is a common tax dodge." This is a reference to the Douglas Adam book 'The Restaurant at the End of the Universe', where a famous band manager spends the year dead for tax purposes. 4. Throughout the game you encounter three different kinds of Mechs: Fenris, Loki, and Ymir. Each of these names are referenced to Norse mythology. 5. Mass Effect 2 contains voices from 90 voice actors who play a total of 546 characters with over 25,000 lines of dialogue. The voice recordings of this game took twice as long as the first game.	April 23, 2013	17
Super Mario Galaxy	1. Super Mario Galaxy's game play was inspired by a tech demo called Super Mario 128 which was shown at Nintendo World in 2000. The purpose of the demo was to showcase the Gamecube's processing power. 2. The spin attack was created early in development process due to the development team realizing that jumping on enemies on a spherical map would be difficult for some players. 3. Mahito Yokota, the game's composer, originally wanted the game to have a Latin American style of music and even had 20 tracks completed for the game, however, Koji Kondo, the composer for the original Mario game and musical advisor for Galaxy, rejected Yokota's idea. Yokota then created three different styles of music and the one Sigeru Miyamoto selected became the game's musical style. 4. The title Super Mario Galaxy first made an appearance in a Nintendo publication via fan letter sent to the Nintendo Power Magazine staff in December 1991. In the letter the fan described a new Nintendo console called the Raw Power System which would come bundled with the Super Mario Galaxy. 5. Takao Shimizu, a producer at Nintendo's Entertainment Analysis and Development Tokyo office, once said in an interview that he experienced motion sickness when watching 3D game play. Whenever footage from Galaxy's game play made Shimizu sick, the development team knew that the game camera needed to be worked on. The development team referred to him as a human motion sickness detector.	April 30, 2013	18
Sonic CD	1. After the release of Sonic the Hedgehog, lead programmer and Sonic co-creator Yuji Naka, grew tired of Sega's policies and corporate structure. Naka left for Sega Technical Institute to create Sonic the Hedgehog 2 while the other Sonic co-creator Naoto Oshima led the development of Sonic CD. Yuji Naka zero input for this game which shocked some gamers. 2. The North American release of the game was delayed a few months after it was decided that a soundtrack different from the PAL version had to be created for the game. Both soundtracks are accessible in the 2011 re-release of Sonic CD. 3. Both Metal Sonic and Amy Rose make their first appearance ever in the Sonic CD game. Amy is called Princess Sally in the US game's manual. This was believed to be advertising for the Sonic animated TV series. 4. The game's sound test contains many secret screens that can be activated by input codes. Also a debug mode is accessible in this section of the game. 5. If you leave Sonic still perfectly for 3 minutes, without pausing the game, Sonic will say "I'm out of here" and exit the screen, ending your game.	May 8, 2013	19
The Legend of Zelda	1. Shigeru Miyamoto and the development team at Nintendo worked on the Legend of Zelda and Super Mario Brothers at the same time, purposely making them very different from one another. While brainstorming, Miyamoto was in charge of deciding which concepts were Zelda ideas and which were Mario ideas. 2. Zelda Fitzgerald, the wife of Great Gastby author F. Scott Fitzgerald, inspired the name of the princess in the game. Miyamoto claimed that he thought she was very beautiful and he liked the sound of her name. 3. During development Nintendo originally wanted the Legend of Zelda to be a co-op multi-player game utilizing the Famicon's disk system add on so players could design dungeons for friends to beat. 4. The original game contains many mistranslations and odd quotes. For example, the intro story in the original refers to the "Triforce with power" instead of "Triforce of power." The entire game was combed through and all of the mistakes were corrected for the Gameboy Advanced and Wii Virtual console releases. 5. The last dungeon in the game is over half the size of the entire overworld.	May 14, 2013	20
Bioshock 2	1. Initially many media reports suggested the title of the second Bioshock game was to have the subtitle, Sea of Dreams. In response 2K released a series of statements that ended with the developer dropping the subtitle and using it for one of the game's trailers. 2. During development the team at 2K scrapped an idea where there was going to be only one Big Sister in the game that would constantly hunt the player. Reports indicate that the long Big Sister was a Little Sister that returned to Rapture after growing up on the surface. 3. The Rumbler type of the Big Daddy is actually a revision of the Slow Pro Big Daddy that was cut from the first game. 4. The developers purposely never gave the main character an actual name because they wanted the players to connect with the character instead of "forcing a particular entity on the player." One developer even said choosing whether or not to name the main character was one of the hardest decisions the team had to make. 5. Artists like Norman Rockwell and Jenny Saville inspired the art team when it came down to designing the splicers in the game. It was their goal to show the kind of "perfect humans that once inhabited Rapture."	May 21, 2013	21
Fallout: New Vegas	1. The game borrows many story elements from the cancelled Van Buren project from Black Isle Studios, the game that was originally intended to be Fallout 3. An example of one of the borrowed elements is the presence of the Hoover Dam. 2. Matthew Perry was asked to provide the voice for Benny after he was seen on the Ellen DeGeneres Show, as well as a few others, expressing his love for Fallout 3. 3. The town of Novac gets its name from a partially burned out No Vacancy sign found in the town. According to New Vegas directer J. E. Sawyer, Novac was the first area in the game that the development team worked on. 4. In December 2011 J. E. Sawyer released his own mod for the PC version of Fallout: New Vegas. This mod contained all the ideas Sawyer wanted to include in the game were either removed or not added before the game was released. 5. Fallout: New Vegas holds the Guinness World Record for "most lines of dialogue recorded in a single player RPG," with approximately 5,000 lines of dialogue.	May 28, 2013	22
Plants vs. Zombies	1. PopCap wanted to call this game 'Lawn of the Dead' but couldn't acquire the name due to legal reasons. 2. During development the team at PopCap wanted to bring back the alien enemies from an older PopCap game called Insane Aquarium, however, they decided that the zombies would be easier for the players to react because of how slowly the move. 3. Some of the gravestone inscriptions are references to the famous Dead Parents sketch from 'Monty Python.' If examined closely the phrases: "Expired", "Cease to exist", and "Just resting" can be seen on certain gravestones throughout the game. 4. The conveyer belt that appears in certain levels of the game was originally going to be used much more often until game designer George Fan had the idea of using seed packets after playing card games like Magic: The Gathering. 5. The development team spent a full month working on the final boss making sure he was extra awesome.	June 4, 2013	23
Assassin's Creed II	1. The names Ezio and Altair have very similar meanings and origins. The name Ezio means eagle while Altair means the flying one. Altair is also named after the brightest star in the constellation Aquila, which means eagle in Latin. 2. According to Sébastien Puel, the game's producer, the development team that worked on the second game was triple the size of the development team from the first game. 3. The day and night cycle in the game was actually a concept that was pulled from the first Assassin's Creed. The developers weren't comfortable enough in the first game to include it but they felt it would be great fit for the second game. 4. Ubisoft consulted with a group of historians to make sure their vision of Italy was as accurate as possible. They even sent members of the development team to Italy so they could travel to locations found in the game. 5. The team at Ubisoft decided Renaissance Italy would be the ideal setting for this game because of Italy's historical significance and geography. Locations like Venice allowed for the development of the swimming aspect of the game, while Italy's rich history led to the inclusion of the banking system and the appearance of Leonardo da Vinci.	June 11, 2013	24
Roller Coaster Tycoon	1. Chris Sawyer, the game's developer, originally wanted to create a sequel to the highly successful Transport Tycoon, a business simulator also designed by Sawyer, however development he became obsessed with roller coasters and changed his idea. 2. The original name for the game was 'White Knuckle', a title that actually lasted a long time in the development cycle. When MicroProse, the game's publisher and developer funded by 'Wild Bill' Stealey and Sid Meier got involved, it was decided that Tycoon should be kept to follow the Tycoon tradition. 3. According to Chris Sawyer, 99% of the game is written in assembly code. 4. Sony Pictures picked up the rights to make a Roller Coaster Tycoon movie but it is not clear if the movie is still in development or not. 5. Assigning certain names to guests will act differently than others. For example, naming a guest 'Big Bucks' will cause that guest to have unlimited money and naming a guest Chris Sawyer will cause that guest to walk around taking photos of the park. Additionally there are many Easter Eggs and cheats associated with this concept 6. Despite each guest being numbered when entering your park, they will sometimes start at numbers other than one. For example, the first guest that will enter your park in Forest Frontier will always be guest number three. 7. Alton Towers, a popular resort and theme park in the UK, wanted to use the music from Roller Coaster Tycoon in their park. The original plan was to take many songs from the game and make a medley, sadly this project was cancelled. 8. Roller Coaster Tycoon has pre-rendered graphics so objects have thousands of different graphical frames for different angles. The object with the most frames is the Flying Coaster car, which has more than 2,832 individual graphic frames. 9. The movie 'Mission Impossible 2' uses the exact same crowd sound effect as Roller Coaster Tycoon. It's not a reference to the game however as both parties licensed the same 30 second sound sample. 10. The photo on the back of the US Roller Coaster Tycoon box is actually a picture of game creator Chris Sawyer riding a real roller coaster.	June 18, 2013 July 16, 2013	25 26
Assassin's Creed Brotherhood	1. Ubisoft decided to continue Ezio's story for the third game in the series after the location scouting for Assassin's Creed II made them realize that a city as big as Rome could contain an entire game of its own. 2. Although Ezio had his left ring finger branded when he joined the order in the second game, the brand can not be seen in the game and it never reappears. 3. Promotional art, along with the game's cover art, depicts Ezio with identical braces for hidden blades, however, it is not possible to attain a matching bracer for Ezio's right arm in the game. 4. In multi-player mode the characters are Templars using Abstergo's Animi 1.28, however the blend and desynchronization animation in the simulations are from Animus 2.0. 5. While playing as Desmond you can use Eagle Vision to find red foot prints that led from the Villa to the sewers in Monteriggioni. Despite many different fan rumors, the footprints were put into the game to help players get back to the sanctuary with the red color being a developer oversight.	June 25, 2013	27
Mass Effect 3	1. In order to improve the story of Mass Effect 3 the writers created a small 3 to 4 page document with every plot point in the game. They then began to fill in minor details followed by the head writers assigning specific missions and levels to specific writers and teams. 2. In an effort to increase the audio quality of the weapons in the game, Bioware's audio team in discussion with other EA studios such as DICE to redesign their combat soundscape. 3. Mass Effect 3 has approximately 40,000 lines of dialogue which is almost as much as the first two games' dialogue combined. It also has 12,500 sound and music files. 4. In 2010 Bioware's Montreal studio was developing a first person shooter called 'Mass Effect Team Assault', during development Bioware decided that they would take what they created so far to develop a multi-player for Mass Effect 3. 5. At one point during the game Tali tells Shepard that he sounds like a Vorcha, Mark Meer, the voice actor for the male version of Commander Shepard, also provided the voice for the Vorcha characters in the game.	July 2, 2013	28
Deus Ex: Human Revolution	1. The music during the prologue of the game is a remix the of UNATCO Headquarters music in the original Deus Ex. 2. All of the security cameras in the game are labeled Big Bro, which is a reference to George Orwell's the 'Nineteen Eighty-Four.' 3. With his small cameo roll, Tracer Tong is the only character to appear in all three Deus Ex games. 4. In certain versions of the game, some sarif boxes have QR codes on them, these codes are fully functional and open up webpages that relate to the plot when scanned. 5. In the game Megan Reed former romantic interest of the main character Adam Jenson; the voice actors for these characters Michelle Boback and Elias Toufexis respectively are actually husband and wife and have been voice actors for other games such as Splinter Cell: Conviction together.	July 23, 2013	29
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas	1. The word 'fuck' and its derivatives are used 365 times in this game, not including the game's soundtrack and random interactions with NPC's. 2. The Rail Bridge in San Fierro is modeled after the Fourth Rail Bridge which runs north from Edinburgh, Scotland which is where Rockstar is based. 3. Upon closer inspection GTA Vice City assets and beta files exist in the files of San Andreas in a TXD folder. Included in this folder are beta maps, intro and outro pictures, and loading screens. 4. The billboard seen around Los Santos advertising True Grime Street Cleaners was made to make fun of 'True Crime of L.A.,' a game that made fun of Rockstar with signs advertising a facetious company called Jockstrap. 5. After the Hot Coffee Mod created a huge controversy, the ESRB changed the rating of the game from Mature to Adults Only, making this game the only mass released AO console game in the US. Afterwards, Rockstar re-released the game with that content removed.	July 30, 2013	30
Halo 2	1. Halo 2 received approximately 1.5 million US pre-orders making it an Xbox Platinum hit before it was even released. The game made 125 million dollars within 24 hours of release. 2. The opening level of the game was originally going to be a much larger Zero-G training facility with Warthogs and other vehicles. This level was going to serve as a way for the Chief to transport the giant bomb the Covenant left on board. This was replaced with a cut scene. 3. Originally there was supposed to be several different kinds of Warthogs for players to use throughout the game before they were cut. Included in the list of Warthog varieties was an Arctic model, which was included in the Avalanche DLC for Halo 3, and a small transport ATV which would later become the Mongoose in Halo 3. 4. There are 21,090 lines of dialogue in Halo 2, most of which are randomly triggered through combat. 5. The PC version of Halo 2 was delayed because of a picture of a man mooning the camera was found in one of the .ass error reports. 6. The first time that the game play of Halo 2 was seen by the public was E3 2003. Although the trailer revealed some aspects that made it into the final game, many elements of the trailer were not game ready. The entire graphics engine was discarded and the trailer's environment never appeared in the final version due to engine limitations. Since Bungie had to create a whole new engine, there was no playable build for Halo 2 for nearly a year. 7. A song known as 'Remembrance' plays at the start up screen, the song lasts for exactly 1 minute and 17 seconds, the same number as John's serial number. 8. Halo 2 is currently the only Halo game that does not feature an MA5 series weapon. 9. Halo 2 is well known for having a large section of its content cut due to time restrictions. According to Marty O'Donnell, composer of the game, among the cut cut content was three full levels and an alternate ending. The voice actors recorded all of their lines for the cut content and the audio files still exist today. 10. Halo 2 is the best selling original Xbox game to date with the sale of 8.46 million copies as of November 2008.	August 6, 2013 August 13, 2013	31 32
Tetris	1. Tetris was exported and released in America in 1986, making this the fist entertainment software to be exported from the USSR to the US. 2. The blocks in the game are called tetriminos which are groups of four squares connected at right angles. The name Tetris comes from a combination of the Greek numerical prefix tetra and the word tennis. 3. Tetris creator Alexey Pajitnov made very little money from the release of Tetris despite amazing sales. In fact he only started to receive proper royalties in 1996, ten years after the American release of Tetris when the rights of the game were reverted from the Russian state to Pajitnov himself. 4. Alexey Pajitnov was also the creator and designer of Hexic HD, the puzzle game that comes pre-installed on Xbox 360 hard-drives. 5. Tetris holds the world record for "Most Ported Computer Game in History", in appearing in over 65 different platforms by 2011.	August 20, 2013	33
Halo: Reach	1. When development began, Bungie originally wanted to create a follow up to Halo 3 with John-117 as the main character. According to Reach creative director Marcus Lehto, when Bungie was project planning they decided that there was too much content for a "one off game." This resulted in making a prequel to the first Halo game instead. 2. After the release of Halo 3 Bungie's work force was divided into two teams. One half worked on Reach while the other half worked on a Peter Jackson project which would later become Halo 3: ODST after Jackson announced the original project was cancelled. 3. At first the developers wanted to port existing Halo 3 assets to Reach so that they could be updated, however Bungie decided that rebuilding assets from scratch wouldn't take up anymore time and they ended up with brand new assets and a redesigned game engine. The assault rifle from Reach contains more polygons than an entire Marine from Halo 3. 4. Between May 3 and May 20, 2010 Xbox Live players could participate in the Halo: Reach Beta. Bungie intended to use the Beta to work on bugs and generate feedback. During the Beta's run over 2.7 million players played a total of over 16 million hours, this resulted in 360,000 forum posts on Bungie's Community Forums alone. 5. Halo: Reach is the first Halo game to contain all fightable Covenant Halo species. Engineers are absent from the main trilogy, Elites are not in ODST, and Drones are not in Halo Wars.	August 27, 2013	34
Bejeweled	1. Bejeweled started out as a Flashgame called Diamond Mine. Once it became popular, developer of PopCap Games formed a partnership with Microsoft to host the game, that was at that point Microsoft suggested switching the name to Bejeweled because there was another game called 'Diamond Mines' at the time. 2. Bejeweled lead designer and PopCap co-founder Jason Kapalka performs the game's male voice overs. 3. Playing Bejeweled actually has health benefits. According to a 2008 study, performed at East Carolina University, playing Bejeweled 2 reduced stress levels in nearly half of all test subjects. 4. In 2010 the Guinness Book of World Records gave Bejeweled the award for the most popular puzzle game series of the century. At the time of the award, PopCap was selling a copy of Bejeweled every 4.3 seconds. 5. The highest possible score in Bejeweled 2 is 2,147,483,647 and has only been achieved by one man who played the game for 2,200 hours in 2009.	September 4, 2013	35
Twisted Metal	1. According to Twisted Metal director David Jaffe, the concept for Twisted Metal was conceived in 1993 when he was stuck in L.A. traffic on the 405. 2. Before the game's release in 1995, there were a few different working titles, High Octane and Urban Assault were two of the most popular names for Sony but Twisted Metal became the game's permanent name. 3. David Jaffe explained during the development of the game many films, shows, and comics inspired the development team at SingleTrac. Jaffe states that films like 'Smokey and the Bandit' and 'Mad Max' inspired the game play while other forms of media inspired some of the characters. One such being Mr. Grimm being based on the 'Ghost Rider' comics. 4. Originally the game had live action video endings for each character's prize request with Calypso, however, the endings were deemed too violent and sexist so they were cut. Those videos appear on extra content in Twisted Metal Head-On: Extra Twisted Edition. 5. Twisted Metal is the longest running PlayStation exclusive franchise with a total of 17 years, from 1995-2012 with Twisted Metal being released on the PS3.	September 10, 2013	36
Spyro the Dragon	1. Developer of Insomniac Games decided to create a 3D platformer because they wanted to move away from the FPS game play that they used in their previous game 'Disruptor.' Sony was looking for kid-friendly games for the PlayStation at the time and so Spyro was created. 2. In an interview with one of the developers of Sypro the Dragon, it was noted that at one point during the development Spyro's name as well as the game's working title was simply Pete. 3. Spyro was originally supposed to be a green dragon, however the developers felt that he was blending in with the grass areas of the game, as a result they switched his color to purple. 4. Insomniac Games and Universal Interactive hired Stewart Copeland, best known for being the drummer in the band 'The Police', to compose the music for the game. 5. Sypro's name written in the Japanese version of the game looked like the word Ripto. The development team liked that name and used it for the next game's title and main villain.	September 17, 2013	37
Bioshock Infinite	1. The original conflict in the game was going to be between the Tech Geeks and the Luddites that resisted the advancement in technology, however, Bioshock creator Ken Levine felt that it didn't match up well with the Tear system he used for the game. Changing the story to something more politically and historically influenced solved that problem. 2. During Infinite's 5 year development cycle, Irrational Games tested out multiple settings for the game. Among those tested was the Rapture world from the first two games and the Renaissance which was abandoned after the announcement of Assassin's Creed 2 in 2009. 3. One of the members of the Infinite development team, who happened to be very religious, was so outraged by one of Zachary Comstock's scenes that he threatened to leave the company. This forced Ken Levine to alter aspects of Comstock's personality as well as the game with the help of said developer. 4. According to design director Bill Gardner, enough content was cut in Infinite to make five or six games. Early trailers and demos support this claim as a majority of the material never make it in to the final game. 5. During development the team at Irrational Games played around with the idea of adding multi-palyer in Infinite. Two different modes were planned out for the game, the first idea was a co-op mini game with a tower defense structure, this idea was abandoned early on however in order to make room for a spec-ops multi-player mode, similar to Call of Duty, where four players would have to complete levels from the campaign under certain requirements. Unfortunately this idea never made it into the final. 6. When Booker and Elizabeth board the First Lady Airship, Elizabath knocks Booker out with the same red wrench used by Jack in the original Bioshock. This is just one of the many references to Bioshock that Irrational put in this game. 7. At Infinite's main menu there seems to be members of the Bottle Street Gang from the video game Dishonored hanging around. This isn't completely considering Dishonored's developer Arkane Studios worked with 2K Marin in Bioshock 2. 8. Earlier versions of the game featured Nostrums as game play elements. These Nostrums would make permanent changes to the player that couldn't be removed once used, however Irrational felt it would be better for players if they could remove these changes from time to time. This led to the creation of the Gear system in the game. 9. The voice recording for Infinite was atypical for most video games. Troy Baker, Courtnee Draper, and Ken Levine (Booker, Elizabeth, and the game's creator respectively), spent a significant amount of time recording lines and improvising scenes together. Levine even decided to keep the voice actors in the dark about the game's plot so they would develop a strong chemistry while performing. 10. 1999 Mode was an idea that came from a discussion between Ken Levine and a college student who expressed his disappointment in the fact that many choices had no long lasting impact in the first Bioshock. This mode gets its name from the year that 'System Shock 2', a previous Irrational Games title, was released.	September 24, 2013 October 1, 2013	38 39
Monopoly	1. Monopoly was based on a 1903 boardgame called 'The Landlord's Game', created by Elizabeth J. Magie Phillips. 'The Landlord's Game' was created to help explain the single tax theory of Henry George. It inspired multiple boardgame variants in the 1930s, among those was Monopoly. 2. The most commonly landed on Monopoly square is Illinois Avenue. The reason for this is a combination of dice possibilities and a Chance card possibilities. The square you're least likely to land on is Mediterranean Avenue. 3. Mr. Monopoly's original name was Rich Uncle Pennybags. The character in the Jail square is Jake the Jailbird and the police officer on the Go to Jail square is officer Edgar Mallory. 4. More than 275 million Monopoly games have been sold since its creation. It's available in 111 countries and 43 different languages. 5. Hasbro's states that the longest Monopoly game in history lasted for 70 straight days.	October 8, 2013	40
Dead Rising	1. The save system and game structure of Dead Rising are borrowed from another CapCom title called 'Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter,' the two development teams contained some of the same members and the system was put into place to give the players a sense of responsibilities for their actions. 2. The German Ratings Board, responsible for rating entertainment software, refused to rate the game due to its graphic violence when it was scheduled for release in September 2006, although players of legal age could import the game up until August 2007, it was then banned completely. After that that, Point police could confiscate the game from any store in Germany. 3. If you look closely at Frank's watch it shows that it is a Megman brand watch, a reference to CapCom's iconic Megman series. 4. After its release, Dead Rising quickly became well known for having unreadable text when playing on a standard definition television. CapCom representative even admitted to not being able to read any of his game's text at home. Despite this it was never fixed because CapCom felt that it might create additional problems in the game's programming. 5. Frank West isn't always voiced by his normal actor T.J. Rotolo. When Frank says "Fantastic!", after taking a photo, he is actually being voiced by Marty Belafsky. Also in the game's first trailer, which showed the game in its beta stage, Frank had a completely different voice actor altogether.	October 15, 2013	41
Crash Bandicoot	1. Originally Crash Bindicoot was going to be a wombat called Willie the Wombat. While the developers knew this was too dorky of a name, it lasted a long time in the development process, even after the character became a bandicoot. Crash Bandicoot became the final name chosen for the character. His first name was being based on the destruction of boxes in the game. 2. Naughty Dog referred to the 3D platformings of Crash Bandicoot as "Sonic's ass", this was both a reference to Sonic the Hedgehog and the fact that the camera was behind the character instead of showing them from the side. 3. When Naughty Dog presented their game to Sony's Japanese division for sale in Japan, Sony's executives expressed their dislike of the character and the renderings presented at the meeting, during a break in the meeting an artist behind the renderings only had 15 minutes to fix them in order to get approval. Her efforts proved to be effective as Sony Japan agreed to purchase the game after the changes were made. 4. In the Japanese version of Crash Bandicoot some other aspects were changed to please the game's audience. Different music was used for the boss rights in the game and the game's difficult was increased in certain sections. An example of this is the Papu Papu fight in the beginning of the game. In the Japanese version it takes two more hits to bring him down and he swings his club much faster than other versions. 5. Tawna Bandicoot was originally cut from the game after Universal Interactive Studios claimed her character design was too outrageous and inappropriate. As a result Tawna was completely redesigned before she was put back into the game, however, Naughty Dog was so upset about how different she was from what they originally had in mind, that she barely made appearances in future titles.	October 22, 2013	42
Resident Evil	1. Resident Evil was originally conceived as a remake of CapCom's 1989 Famicom horror game, 'Sweet Home.' It was going to be a first person shooter until director Shinji Mikami decided to go with game play inspired by the 1992 survival horror game, 'Alone in the Dark.' 2. The game, known in Japan as 'Biohazard', had to be renamed for North America and Europe after CapCom realized it would be impossible to trademark Biohazard in the US. As a result, CapCom decided to run an internal company contest to find a new name. At the end of the contest, Resident Evil was the name everyone settled to approve of. 3. During development CapCom created two different characters for support roles. Dewey, an African American man, was intended to be a comic relief character while Gelzer, a large cybernetic man, was going to be an enforcer type, however, they were replaced by Rebecca and Barry respectively. 4. Many of the pre-rendered backdrops in the mansion were directly inspired by the Overlook Hotel, the setting of the 1980 horror film, 'The Shinning.' 5. A Gameboy Color version of Resident Evil was going to be released in 1999 The game was faithful to the original and contained all of the rooms, items, and cut scenes from the game, however, CapCom scrapped the project stating that the GameBoy's hardware limitations were hindering the game's functionality.	October 29, 2013	43
Dead Island	1. Dead Island's development began back in 2005 when it was being developed under the name 'Island of the Living Dead.' It had a slightly different plot at the time with the game being set in the near future and the player controlling a castaway on an isolated zombie filled island. 2. Publisher Deep Silver was forced to apologize when some players noticed an offensive title in the game's debug code. During development Gender Wars, a skill that increases Purna's combat damage against male opponents, was referred to as "Feminist Whore." Deep Silver claimed this was a developers private joke but still regretted its final appearance in the final product. 3. The blood type of all the heroes in the game is O negative, making them immune to the zombie outbreak. 4. While working on the game's melee combat the development team thoroughly studied games like 'Condemned: Criminal Origins' to get a feel for a solid first person combat system. 5. Deep Silver wanted to implement branching storylines for each character during development, however, all of that progress was scrapped to make room for the strong focus on the co-op aspect of the game.	November 5, 2013	44
Bully	1. The game's title caused a bit of controversy before it was released in 2006. Facing a few disapproving groups, Rockstar was forced to change the name to 'Canis Canem Edit', which means "dog eat dog" in Latin, for the PAL version of the game. 2. Unlike other Rockstar titles, Bully's voice acting used many off the street actors and actresses who had little to no experience beforehand. Afterwards some went on to other projects while others did not. 3. The cars being worked on in the background of Shop Class are directly from the GTA series. This is one of many reused assets from other Rockstar titles found in Bully. 4. The rivalry between the Greasers and the Preps is taken right out of the book 'The Outsiders.' Many of the Greasers shout out lines from the book during combat. Also there is a storyline mission called "The Rumble" where the Preps and the Greasers get into a brawl. In 'The Outsiders' the big fight between the Greasers and the Socs is also called the rumble. 5. In 2008 Brazil banned Bully from the entire country. This decision was based on the judge's conclusion that the game would be potentially harmful anyone who played it. From that point on, a daily fine of 1,000 Brazilian Real (the Brazilian currency) would be issued to anyone found selling or owning the game.	November 12, 2013	45
'Splosion Man & Ms. Splosion Man	1. Twisted Pixel began developing 'Splosion Man in 2008 in an effort to keep the development team active as their work with their previous title 'The Maw' was winding down. They timed the development cycles of the game so that it would have a chance at being released during the Summer of Arcade which was in 2009. 2. The premise for 'Splosion Man came from a developer's random idea of "a guy who 'splodes in a world made only of glass." The team joked about the concept until they were able to finally turn it into an actually video game. 3. Although Twisted Pixel claims that practically any platform game could have influenced 'Splosion Man, 'Earth Worm Jim' and 'Sonic the Hedgehog' were two titles specifically credited for the game's humor and speed respectively. 4. In January 2011 CapCom released an IOS game that was nearly identical to 'Splosion Man. Although CapCom said it was merely a coincidence, Twisted Pixel decided to place a small Easter Egg in their next game. Upon finding a secret area in the game's sequel Ms. Splosion Man, Captain Smiley, another Twisted Pixel character, calls the game a rip off and then says, "Who made this game, CapCom?" 5. Ms. Splosion Man was inspired by the 1982 arcade game Ms. Pac-Man. According to Twisted Pixel's Josh Bear, Ms. Splosion Man was made to be an improvement of 'Splosion Man, just as Ms. Pac-Man was to the original Pac-Man.	November 19, 2013	46
Tomb Raider	1. Lara Croft started out as a male placeholder character who then became a female militaristic type character named Lara Cruise. Finally the development team decided to make her a proper English lady and went with the name Lara Croft. Her name was chosen from a phone directory for sounding UK friendly. 2. Although the Nude Raider patch caused a lot of controversy, at one point during development Core Design asked the designers to create a nude cheat code to the game to market Lara's sex appeal, they refused. 3. Lara Croft's famous physique was created by accident. Game creator Toby Gard was messing around with the computer model when he unintentionally changed Lara's breast size to 150% of what was intended. Before he could change it back, fellow designers said it looked good and to leave it. 4. The front of Derby Studio's building, which is where Core Design worked on the game, was used for the Croft manor. 5. During development Core Design claims they were struggling with 32 bit development at the time. During the struggle the first ever footage from the game was seen on Sega Saturn devkits. Although they got it to work on the Saturn first, no additional Tomb Raider games would be released for the console.	November 26, 2013	47
"Variety Pack #1" Bioshock 2, Worms, Dead Rising, Fallout: New Vegas, and Halo 3: ODST	1. Bioshock 2: In the Bioshock series the Circus of Values machines found throughout Rapture are voiced by Bioshock creator and lead designer Ken Levine. 2. Worms: Worms, originally designed by Andy Davidson, was an entry for a programming competition showcasing Commodore Amiga Games. The working title for the game was Total Wormage and developer Team17 picked up the game even though it did not win the competition. 3. Dead Rising: In Dead Rising 2 the company that makes Chuck's racing jacket is called Ijiek, this is simply the name of the game's producer Keiji Inafune spelled backwards. 4. Fallout: New Vegas: It was discovered by Reddit that the famous Vault Boy thumbs up logo is a reference to a radiation rule of thumb. If you hold your thumb over a mushroom cloud and the cloud is larger than your thumb, you are most likely in the radiation zone and should evacuate. 5. Halo 3: ODST: At one point during development, Bungie wanted to make an ODST game about the Covenant starring an Elite Strike force, however the development team went with the ODST's in the end because they were fan favorites.	December 3, 2013	48
Viva Piñata	1. Viva Piñata was originally going to be a Pocket PC titled Your Garden in 2002. It was a game where players would attract animals to their garden and trade with others. After developer Rare was acquired by Microsoft, the game moved to Xbox development and eventually the Xbox360. 2. Piñatas replaced the animals during development after the game's concept artist looked at the original animal designs and reminded of piñatas he once saw in a Mexican restaurant in New York. 3. Viva Piñata was the first game ever translated to Portuguese on the 360, likely because it was from the Brazilian launch of the console. It was also the first non-PlayStation console to be translated into Polish and Korean. 4. Microsoft worked with Six Flags Mexico to promote Viva Piñata as well as the Xbox360. The result was a 14.6 meter tall 16 meter long piñata, specifically a Horstachio, that was built in the park. At the time is was the largest piñata ever built on record. 5. According to composer Grant Kirkhope, all the animal voices and sounds were performed by people. Rather than mixing in animal sound samples, Kirkhope said in an interview that it was done this way because it was funnier to him.	December 10, 2013	49
Resident Evil 2	1. Initially CapCom wanted to create a game called 'Biohazard Dash' set three years after the events of the first game. Tt was going to take place at the destroyed mansion in Resident Evil 1 and would feature two new characters. However, CapCom felt it would take too long to develop so they decided to move the setting to Raccoon City instead. 2. The development of Resident Evil 2 began just a month after the completion of the first game in 1996. The development of Resident Evil 1.5, as it would later be called, reached around 60-80% completion before the game's producer scrapped the project cause it "dull and boring." Development restarted and the result was a very different game that was more cinematic and engaging than the previous effort. 3. Early in the game you encounter a wound cop sitting against a locker with the name Jojo on it, this is a reference to a CapCom arcade game based on 'Jojo's Bizarre Adventure', which was released around the same time as Resident Evil 2. 4. The maximum number of zombies that can be on screen at once at one time is seven. CapCom imposed this limit so they could use 450 polygons for the comparatively detailed models of Leon and Claire. 5. CapCom decided to increase the difficulty of the North American version of Resident Evil 2 as compared to the Japanese version to prevent videogame rentals affecting its sales in the US.	December 17, 2013	50
Left 4 Dead	1. Development for Left 4 Dead began at Valve back in 2005 under the name 'Terrorstrike', this is generally thought of as a reference to the popular Valve title 'Counterstrike.' 2. There were originally long instructions between each campaign, narrated by Bill, which would occur each time the game was played. With the desire to increase replay ability and decrease player attention loss, these intros were cut. 3. During development Valve cut a special infected called the Screamer from the enemy roster. Despite being a special infected it had no attacks, instead it would find a safe place to hide and then scream to alert the horde. This horde alert concept was transferred over to the Boomer's vomit after the cut was made. 4. The 'No Mercy' and 'Dead Air' campaigns were originally a part of one big city map where players would have multiple routes to choose from in order to reach their extraction point. However, testing revealed that the size of the city was easily overwhelming the survivors so it was split up into two campaigns. 5. The A.I. director concept that Valve uses for this game was previously used for key battles in Half-Life 2, episode two. However the Half-Life A.I. director was far simpler version of what Left 4 Dead would wind up utilizing.	December 24, 2013	51
Call of Duty	1. Call of Duty was codenamed M.O.H. Killer during its development. This was a reference to the prominent 'Medal of Honor' series that developer Infinite Ward wanted to compete against. 2. Originally Infinite Ward wanted to avoid copying the 'Medal of Honor' series by creating a game that features a James Bond like character rather than a traditional solider, however Infinite Ward changed their direction when they decided that the game should feature points of view from three different characters. 3. During the American campaign you come across a paratrooper hanging from a church, this is a reference to Private John Steele, a real life paratrooper who got caught on a church spire during D-Day and wound up receiving the Bronze Star and Purple Heart. 4. Call of Duty is the only game in the entire series that doesn't feature a shotgun of any kind. 5. During the game's credits there is a sign that says "No cows were harmed in the making of this game." This is a developer joke referencing the rather larger amount of dead cattle seen in the game. A tomb stone in the game has the name "Glascow" written on it, this is a reference to both animator Chance Glasco and the cow joke.	December 30, 2013	52