Interesting Facts

12 Mind-Blowing Video Games Facts

Video games are fun. Nothing beats sitting back, whiling away the hours playing your favorite games. But unfortunately, there are times when life gets in the way of playtime. So, what's better than playing games? Well, not much but a close second is reading up on insane video game trivia that you can later use on dates and at important job interviews.

Ok, probably best that you choose the best times to use them. These nuggets of gaming gold are guaranteed to blow your mind! Probably not safe for work this one, as this article will have you shouting out loud as you read – "no way!" and "whaaa?" – enjoy.

12. 'Deus Ex' predicted 911?

In Deus Ex, players are able to explore a small area around Liberty Island. From here the player is able to check out the city skyline from afar but something was missing. The World Trade Centre towers were missing. This resulted in a high level of complaints to which lead designer Harvey Smith replied:

“When people complained, we just explained that it had been destroyed by terrorist attacks. We start the game with the Liberty Island statue having been destroyed by terrorists a few years before. We just said that the towers had been destroyed too.”

Deus Ex was released in the year 2000, just over a year before the real world event.

11. The G-Code (Konami code)

The most famous G-code for video games of all time is – up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A. The code is affectionately known as the Gamers Code. Here's something you definitely didn’t know – if you to Vogue.co.uk and type in the above code you will get a nice surprise. Genuinely not an advert there – well, it kind of is but only for the Easter Egg!

10. Skimping on the background

Would you believe that the bushes and clouds in Super Mario Bros. are exactly the same thing, just painted different colors?

9. 'Fallout' Evil

There is a very groovy cameo character in Fallout that you may have spoken to but not realized exactly with whom you are actually speaking. Takahashi, who can be found in Diamond City dishing up the soup is voiced by Shinji Mikami, the legendary creator of the Resident Evil franchise.

8. Who is your daddy and what does he do?

The school in the original Silent Hill is the same as in Kindergarten cop. Some say that Silent Hill is actually Kindergarten Cop but in a parallel universe.

How, what, why?! So many questions here but it is genuinely true. 

7. A cracking pair of facts

Tomb Raider icon Lara Croft was originally called Laura Cruz and believe it or not, she didn’t always have big breasts.

Apparently the over-sized jugs that Lara possesses today were the result of an ‘accident’ by designer Toby Gard. Gard ‘accidentally’ adjusted the model's boob size by 150% of their original size and weirdly enough, the other designers working on the game loved her new look and it just kind of stuck. Accident my A**!

6. This is illegal?

If you ever find yourself in New Zealand make sure not to carry with you a copy of Manhunt, it is actually a criminal offense to be in possession of this game.

5. Like a nightmare

One game of Animal Crossing on the GameCube has the horrifying potential to last up to 29 real-time years. That could be a form of torture – being made to watch that non-stop.

4. Memories

You know those Chain Chomp things in Mario games? They are actually based on Miyamoto’s neighbor's dog (what kind of dog did he have!?) The dog would often get chained up next to the yard that Miyamoto used to play in as a child.

3. Gym buff

For those of you regular gym goers in Pokemon Gold & Silver. You may not have realized it but the layout of this gym was Clefairy!

2. No Hopers

Upon completion of Donkey Kong Country 2, you are presented with a screen that places your character on a plinth and compares you to Mario, Yoshi, and Link. If you look at the bottom of this screen you will see Sonic's shoes and Earthworm Jim’s gun next the trash can with a sign that reads “No Hopers.”

1. True love

Sonic the Hedgehog originally had a human girlfriend named Madonna. That couldn’t have been comfortable.

Is your mind sufficiently blown? This tiny sample of gaming trivia reminds me exactly why I love video games. It has been a real blast putting this piece together – I must have stopped about 10 times to tell someone walking by one of my newly found nuggets of knowledge.

I have had such a laugh putting this together, I would love to hear what other gaming facts are out there. I am relying on you – our gaming community - to start filling the comment section with gaming trivia!

Facts About Games

15 Video Game Facts

1. Mario was actually named after the landlord of Nintendo’s first warehouse Mr. Mario Segale. The original name of Mario was actually Mr. Video Game which ended up becoming Mr. Segale’s nickname speaking of Mario he is actually appearing in over a hundred and twenty video games.

2. Pac-Man was invented by the designer Toru Iwatani while he was eating pizza.

3. The PlayStation was originally designed as a Nintendo Console with Sony to make the inside components when Nintendo console changed their minds about making the console Sony decided to go ahead make the PlayStation.

4. The video game industry is valued at 70 Billion Dollars worldwide.
5. Two-thirds of American households play games 60% are male, 40% are female.
6. In 1990 game, Golden Axe from SEGA was voiced entirely by prisoners on death row.

7. Due to the popularity of the Nintendo game Mario Brothers in 1983, there was an explosion of name Mario given to children around that time.

8. In the original Legend of Zelda game, why you could only hold 255 Rupees (gold coins)? Because the maximum value of an unsigned 8bit integer and to hold more would have required more memory which wasn’t just doable for the technology at that time.

9. The most famous G code for video games of all time up up down down left right left right B A this was made popular by the game Contra which gives the player a full set of power-ups and it’s called Konami code or Gamers code.

10. The first gaming console to ever ship with an internal memory was the SEGA Saturn and it shipped with about one megabyte of memory.

11. In the original arcade version of Donkey Kong, Mario was called jump man and he was a carpenter, not a plumber.

12. MegaMan is known as RockMan in Japan the name was changed from RockMan to MegaMan when he came to America.

13. The best-selling consoles of all time are the PlayStation 2 and Nintendo DS both tied with an about 155 million units sold.

14. The highest grossing game of all time is actually World of WarCraft bringing in whopping ten billion dollars over its lifetime.

15. Atari is a Japanese word that actually means success.

2. It is impossible to lick your elbow (busted)
3. A crocodile can't stick it's tongue out.
4. A shrimp's heart is in it's head.
5. People say "Bless you" when you sneeze because when you sneeze,your heart stops for a mili-second.
6. In a study of 200,000 ostriches over a period of 80 years, no one reported a single case where an ostrich buried its head in the sand.
7. It is physically impossible for pigs to look up into the sky.
8. A pregnant goldfish is called a twit. (busted?)
9. More than 50% of the people in the world have never made or received a telephone call.
10. Rats and horses can't vomit.
11. If you sneeze too hard, you can fracture a rib.
12. If you try to suppress a sneeze, you can rupture a blood vessel in your head or neck and die.
13. If you keep your eyes open by force when you sneeze, you might pop an eyeball out.
14. Rats multiply so quickly that in 18 months, two rats could have over a million descendants.
15. Wearing headphones for just an hour will increase the bacteria in your ear by 700 times.
16. In every episode of Seinfeld there is a Superman somewhere.
17. The cigarette lighter was invented before the match.
18. Thirty-five percent of the people who use personal ads for dating are already married.
19. A duck's quack doesn't echo, and no one knows why.
20. 23% of all photocopier faults worldwide are caused by people sitting on them and photocopying their butts.
21. In the course of an average lifetime you will, while sleeping, eat 70 assorted insects and 10 spiders.
22. Most lipstick contains fish scales.
23. Like fingerprints, everyone's tongue print is different.
24. Over 75% of people who read this will try to lick their elbow.
25. A crocodile can't move its tongue and cannot chew. Its digestive juices are so strong that it can digest a steel nail.
26. Money notes are not made from paper, they are made mostly from a special blend of cotton and linen. In 1932, when a shortage of cash occurred in Tenino, Washington, USA, notes were made out of wood for a brief period.
27. The Grammy Awards were introduced to counter the threat of rock music. In the late 1950s, a group of record executives were alarmed by the explosive success of rock ‘n roll, considering it a threat to "quality" music.
28. Tea is said to have been discovered in 2737 BC by a Chinese emperor when some tea leaves accidentally blew into a pot of boiling water. The tea bag was introduced in 1908 by Thomas Sullivan of New York.
29. Over the last 150 years the average height of people in industrialised nations has increased 10 cm (about 4 inches). In the 19th century, American men were the tallest in the world, averaging 1,71m (5'6"). Today, the average height for American men is 1,75m (5'7"), compared to 1,77 (5'8") for Swedes, and 1,78 (5'8.5") for the Dutch. The tallest nation in the world is the Watusis of Burundi.
30. In 1955 the richest woman in the world was Mrs Hetty Green Wilks, who left an estate of $95 million in a will that was found in a tin box with four pieces of soap. Queen Elizabeth of Britain and Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands count under the 10 wealthiest women in the world.
31. Joseph Niepce developed the world's first photographic image in 1827. Thomas Edison and W K L Dickson introduced the film camera in 1894. But the first projection of an image on a screen was made by a German priest. In 1646, Athanasius Kircher used a candle or oil lamp to project hand-painted images onto a white screen.
32. In 1935 a writer named Dudley Nichols refused to accept the Oscar for his movie The Informer because the Writers Guild was on strike against the movie studios. In 1970 George C. Scott refused the Best Actor Oscar for Patton. In 1972 Marlon Brando refused the Oscar for his role in The Godfather.
33. The system of democracy was introduced 2 500 years ago in Athens, Greece. The oldest existing governing body operates in Althing in Iceland. It was established in 930 AD.
34. A person can live without food for about a month, but only about a week without water.
35. If the amount of water in your body is reduced by just 1%, you'll feel thirsty.
36. If it's reduced by 10%, you'll die.
37. According to a study by the Economic Research Service, 27% of all food production in Western nations ends up in garbage cans. Yet, 1,2 billion people are underfed - the same number of people who are overweight ."