Games
Discover facts about games. Small discoveries that change the way you see familiar things.
Games
Kinect's Project Natal name connected a Brazilian city with a new beginning
Microsoft's Brazilian-born Alex Kipman chose the name for the motion-control project before it became Kinect. Natal also evokes birth, fitting a system…
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The heartbreaking story hidden in Super Mario Galaxy
Rosalina’s storybook in Super Mario Galaxy tells of her waiting for her dead mother, who is buried beneath a tree.
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WoW's murloc voice came from behind the sound desk
Composer and sound designer Tracy W. Bush also provided the murloc voice. A person helping build Warcraft's audio world became one of the creatures inside it.…
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Journey's sand took years of graphics work to look effortless
The developers repeatedly refined and rewrote the desert's rendering during the game's three-year development. Its shifting highlights make a surface of sand…
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The Last of Us found its Clicker voice in a human throat
Performer Misty Lee produced a dolphin-like sound that caught the audio team's attention. They developed it into the Clickers' unsettling calls, with Phil…
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Windows Pinball was an ad all along
Space Cadet, bundled with Windows, was one table from the commercial game Full Tilt! Pinball. Players could spend hours on the familiar included table while…
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Heavy Rain made folding paper part of the wait
The original PS3 release included origami instructions during installation. While the game prepared its files, players could fold a real figure associated…
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Lara Croft's first voice belonged to Shelley Blond
Blond voiced Lara in the original 1996 Tomb Raider, before other actors took over the character's dialogue in later games. The role had to sell a person…
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StarCraft’s Zerg sounds came from pigs and rubber
The Zerg's slimy sound effects were made by twisting wet rubber and layering in heavily processed pig squeals.
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DiRT Rally recorded its co-driver in a seat that fought back
Paul Coleman recorded calls in a D-Box motion seat while someone drove the virtual stage. The movement put actual jolts into the delivery, while a helmet and…
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Driveclub makes every raindrop count
The game simulates each raindrop’s velocity, wind direction, and surface tension, then animates its path across the windshield—sometimes obscuring the track…
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Assassin's Creed turned a papal fortress into a climbing puzzle
Brotherhood's developers singled out Castel Sant'Angelo as a major set piece they could reuse across the game. The historic landmark supplied scale and a…
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BioShock's Big Daddies speak in whale-like calls
Their low vocalizations make the armored figures sound alive without giving them ordinary dialogue. Knocks, groans, and Little Sister responses communicate a…
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Crysis was too powerful for its creators' PCs
At launch, even the developers’ top workstations couldn’t run the game at its highest graphics settings.
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Why Max Payne dives like a John Woo hero
It was a deliberate homage to Hong Kong action films: the game slows time during dives so you can fire dual pistols midair.
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In FEAR, enemies talk their way around you
Enemy squads call out your location, note when you're reloading, and coordinate flanking moves—so you can hear the game plan that sends them around a…
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In Far Cry 2, dirty guns can jam mid-fight
Dirt and rust can make a scavenged rifle's mechanisms fail mid-firefight, forcing you to try to clear the jam under fire.
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Alien Isolation can hear you cough
The game can use your console’s microphone to detect real-life sounds. Cough or sneeze, and the alien may hear you and come looking.
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FIFA has thousands of lines ready for your worst misses
Its dynamic audio system stitches together tens of thousands of prerecorded lines, so a missed open goal can draw a real-time jab at your play.
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God of War makes its story feel like one unbroken camera move
The 2018 game avoids conventional cinematic cuts through its main narrative, following characters between conversation and combat. Movement through passages…
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In Watch Dogs 2, a parking mistake can bring the police
In the game, bumping a pedestrian's parked car can prompt them to call the police and report your license plate.
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Angry Birds soundscape consists primarily of awkward grunts
The birds’ launch and crash sounds are the game’s creators grunting and screaming into a microphone. Millions of players paid to hear grown adults imitate…
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Ratchet & Clank turns moving between worlds into the action
Rift Apart uses rapid loading and asset streaming to put major changes of environment inside playable sequences. The portal is not just a menu choice between…
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Agent 47's barcode makes an assassin look like an inventoried product
The Hitman character's number comes from the barcode tattoo tied to his engineered origins, a detail also central to the 2015 film adaptation. It reduces a…
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