70 Fun Facts About 90s Video Game

Unlike the PlayStation, the Nintendo 64 stored its games on what?

Nintendo cited faster loading and piracy concerns for ROM cartridges, but the small, costly format pushed Square toward Sony.

Sony's PlayStation grew out of a failed deal to build a CD-ROM add-on for which console?

Sony engineer Ken Kutaragi had already designed the Super Nintendo's sound chip, and when the CD-ROM deal collapsed, Sony built its own console.

At the first E3 in 1995, which console did Sega surprise-launch in US stores that same day?

The Sega Saturn's $399 surprise launch soon backfired when Sony's Steve Race walked on stage, said just '$299', and walked off to cheers.

Who waits on Super Mario 64's castle roof after all 120 stars?

Yoshi waits there with a message from the developers, 100 extra lives and a fancier triple jump.

In The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, what is the name of the fairy who guides Link?

Designer Yoshiaki Koizumi wanted more than a plain targeting marker, so he made a winged ball of light called the Fairy Navigation System, nicknamed Navi.

Which British studio developed the 1997 Nintendo 64 shooter GoldenEye 007?

Rare's inexperienced team added GoldenEye's famous split-screen multiplayer only about six months before release.

Doom (1993) was distributed under which model?

id Software released Doom's first episode free as shareware and sold the rest, the model that had already paid off for Wolfenstein 3D.

Sonic the Hedgehog made his 1991 debut on which console?

Sega built Sonic to give the Genesis a mascot fast enough to rival Mario, and his blue matched the company logo.

Which company developed the 1991 arcade hit Street Fighter II: The World Warrior?

Capcom's combos were an accident: producer Noritaka Funamizu spotted extra hits during a bug check and left them in as a hidden feature.

Which 1992 fighting game's gory finishing moves helped prompt the creation of the ESRB rating system?

Nintendo made Mortal Kombat swap its blood for grey sweat, and Sega's bloodier version outsold Nintendo's by a factor of five.

Which Pokémon did Shigeki Morimoto secretly add to the original Pokémon games?

Morimoto slipped Mew in as a staff prank just before release, and Nintendo later gave it away through official promotional events.

Which puzzle game was bundled with the Game Boy in North America and Europe?

Henk Rogers talked Nintendo into bundling Tetris by arguing that Mario would sell the Game Boy to boys, but Tetris would sell it to everyone.

Which Derby-based studio created Lara Croft and the original Tomb Raider (1996)?

Core Design's Toby Gard first pitched a male, Indiana Jones-style hero, and Lara Croft began life as 'Laura Cruz'.

Who is the spiky-haired mercenary protagonist of Final Fantasy VII (1997)?

Cloud Strife claims to be a former 1st Class SOLDIER, but he never made SOLDIER: the hero in his memories was his friend Zack.

Which studio developed the original Crash Bandicoot (1996) for the PlayStation?

Naughty Dog jokingly codenamed Crash Bandicoot 'Sonic's Ass Game', since players would spend it staring at the hero's back.

Which FOXHOUND member in Metal Gear Solid (1998) famously 'reads' the player's memory card?

Psycho Mantis comments on saves from other Konami games on your memory card, and moving your controller to port two blocks his mind-reading.

Which 1996 Shinji Mikami game traps S.T.A.R.S. officers in a zombie-filled mansion?

Resident Evil was built to do what producer Tokuro Fujiwara couldn't in his horror game Sweet Home, and in Japan it is titled Biohazard.

Which 1997 top-down crime game handed players their missions through ringing payphones?

Grand Theft Auto began as Race'n'Chase, with players as the police, until the team decided nobody wants to be the cop.

In Donkey Kong Country (1994), who is Donkey Kong's small sidekick hunting the stolen bananas?

Diddy Kong began as a redesign of Donkey Kong Jr., but Nintendo objected to the changes, so he became a brand-new character.

Which 1993 first-person puzzle adventure by Cyan was the best-selling PC game for nearly a decade?

Myst was built on Macs in HyperCard by brothers Rand and Robyn Miller, whose studio Cyan had started in their parents' basement.

Which company created the 1994 3D fighting game Tekken?

Namco's Tekken began as a test for animating 3D characters, directed by Seiichi Ishii, who had helped design Sega's rival 3D fighter.

Which Nintendo 64 game drew complaints that its stick-spinning minigames gave players blistered palms?

After about 90 complaints, Nintendo settled with New York's attorney general over Mario Party and handed out free gloves to players.

Which 1993 SNES rail shooter was Nintendo's first polygon game, using a Super FX chip?

Star Fox's Super FX chip was so powerful that Argonaut's developers joked the console was just a box to hold the chip.

Which theoretical physicist does the player control in Valve's Half-Life (1998)?

Gordon Freeman never says a word, and Half-Life tells its story through scripted scenes instead of cutscenes.

Which alien race is one of the three playable factions in Blizzard's StarCraft (1998)?

Terran, Zerg and Protoss each play completely differently, an approach widely credited with revolutionizing real-time strategy.

Diablo (1996) sends players beneath which small town to fight through 16 dungeon levels?

Tristram's music came from Matt Uelmen, whose Diablo score was so well received that Blizzard loaned him to the StarCraft team.

Which musician and his band composed the soundtrack for id Software's Quake (1996)?

Trent Reznor called his Quake score 'not music' but 'textures and ambiences and whirling machine noises'.

What is the name of the Allied spy who escapes Castle Wolfenstein in Wolfenstein 3D (1992)?

John Romero and Tom Hall say B.J. Blazkowicz's grandson Billy Blaze is the boy genius Commander Keen.

Which Sega console reached North American stores on '9/9/99' and became the company's last home console?

The Sega Dreamcast sold out on its first day in Japan, but PlayStation 2 hype stalled sales and Sega quit making consoles in 2001.

Which 1997 PlayStation racing sim sold 10.85 million copies, the console's best-seller?

Gran Turismo took Kazunori Yamauchi's team five years, and its studio became Polyphony Digital before the Western release.

Which studio developed Spyro the Dragon (1998) after its debut shooter Disruptor sold poorly?

Insomniac Games' Disruptor flopped, but its reviews impressed Universal Interactive enough to back Spyro, and the studio later made Ratchet & Clank.

Which hidden fighter must players unlock in the original Super Smash Bros. (1999)?

Captain Falcon joined Luigi, Ness and Jigglypuff as the four hidden fighters, and Smash began as a prototype called Dragon King.

Which artist designed the characters for Square's Chrono Trigger (1995)?

Dragon Ball creator Akira Toriyama, Final Fantasy's Hironobu Sakaguchi and Dragon Quest's Yuji Horii formed Chrono Trigger's 'Dream Team'.

Which 1993 Sega title was the first arcade one-on-one combat game with fully 3D polygon graphics?

Virtua Fighter's polygon characters helped inspire Tomb Raider, whose creator wanted to put figures like them into an adventure game.

Which 1993 Atari console was marketed as 'the world's first 64-bit game system'?

Atari marketed the Jaguar as the world's first 64-bit console, and it turned out to be Atari Corporation's last console.

Nintendo's Virtual Boy (1995) displayed its stereoscopic 3D games in which single colour?

Red LEDs were the cheap option, and the red-and-black Virtual Boy flopped so badly that Nintendo dropped it within about a year.

Night Trap, a target of 1993 Senate hearings on game violence, launched on which add-on?

Night Trap was shot for Hasbro's VHS-based Control-Vision console, and when Hasbro scrapped it, Digital Pictures brought the game to the Sega CD.

Which 1994 SNES game sends a bounty hunter to retrieve a stolen infant creature from the planet Zebes?

Super Metroid and Symphony of the Night gave the 'Metroidvania' genre its name, a blend of Metroid and Castlevania.

Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (1997) hides a second half of the game in what form?

The upside-down castle appears only if you free Richter from Shaft's spell instead of killing him, and it doubles the map.

Which studio developed Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, released for the PlayStation in September 1999?

Neversoft built Tony Hawk's Pro Skater on its Apocalypse engine, and early prototypes used Bruce Willis's character as a placeholder skater.

In Banjo-Kazooie (1998), what kind of creature is Kazooie, who rides in Banjo's backpack?

Kazooie is a breegull, a made-up bird named after the kazoo, and at the game's end Gruntilda is left trapped under a boulder.

Silent Hill (1999) used thick fog largely for what reason?

Fog helped hide the PlayStation's short draw distance, and Team Silent turned that limitation into the series' signature atmosphere.

Which 1996 PlayStation game starring a paper-thin dog is considered the first true rhythm game?

PaRappa the Rapper came from Masaya Matsuura, who co-founded the synth-pop duo Psy-S, and illustrator Rodney Greenblat.

Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (1992) introduced which fox as Sonic's sidekick?

Tails' real name, Miles Prower, is a pun on 'miles per hour', and Sega of America pushed for the nickname Tails.

Which studio developed Age of Empires (1997) for Microsoft?

Ensemble Studios' Age of Empires was directed by Bruce Shelley, who had co-designed Civilization with Sid Meier.

In Command & Conquer (1995), the Global Defense Initiative fights which cult-like faction led by Kane?

Kane's Brotherhood of Nod is named after the biblical land of Nod, where Cain was exiled after killing his brother Abel.

Sid Meier's Civilization (1991) was published by which company?

MicroProse began putting 'Sid Meier's' on game boxes so fans of his combat simulators would try his new kinds of games.

Which limbless hero was created by Michel Ancel for a 1995 Ubi Soft platformer?

Rayman's hands, feet and head float free of his body, and the game was Michel Ancel's debut as a lead designer.

Under what title was EarthBound (1994), starring a boy named Ness, released in Japan?

Mother 2 was nearly cancelled until future Nintendo president Satoru Iwata joined as producer and rescued its five-year development.

Kirby's Dream Land (1992) was the debut game of which HAL Laboratory designer?

Masahiro Sakurai drew Kirby as a placeholder that stuck, and US box art painted him white because the Game Boy showed him in grey.

Which 1999 PlayStation game was the first to require the DualShock controller?

Ape Escape needs both analog sticks: the left moves the hero and the right swings gadgets such as the monkey-catching net.

Which feature did Sony's 1997 Dual Analog Controller have only in Japan?

Vibration feedback came only on the Japanese Dual Analog, so rumble reached most players with the DualShock that replaced it in 1998.

Which Nintendo 64 game was the first to support the Rumble Pak, which came bundled with it?

Star Fox 64's famous barrel roll is technically an aileron roll, and the Rumble Pak bundled with it ran on two AAA batteries.

What did Sega call the Sonic & Knuckles (1994) feature that let players plug another game into its top?

Lock-on technology let players rejoin Sonic 3 and Sonic & Knuckles, which Sega had split in two to meet a McDonald's promotion deadline.

The 1991 puzzle game Lemmings was originally developed for which computer?

Lemmings began on the Amiga after Mike Dailly animated tiny figures walking to comic deaths, and colleagues turned it into a game.

The 3DO Interactive Multiplayer console format was conceived by the founder of which game publisher?

Electronic Arts founder Trip Hawkins moved from EA in 1991 to form 3DO, which licensed its console design to makers such as Panasonic.

Which 1990 home console, priced at about $650, ran the same hardware as its maker's arcade machines?

SNK's Neo Geo was at first only rented out or used in hotels, until customers showed they would pay for a home version.

Who is the would-be pirate hero of The Secret of Monkey Island (1990)?

Ron Gilbert, Tim Schafer and Dave Grossman made Guybrush Threepwood almost impossible to kill, since Gilbert saw sudden deaths as a cheap trick.

How did SimCity 2000's viewpoint differ from the original SimCity?

Isometric instead of top-down: SimCity 2000 also added underground layers for water pipes and subways, which the original SimCity lacked.

Which studio developed Duke Nukem 3D (1996)?

3D Realms was Scott Miller's Apogee Software under a new name, adopted for its 3D games such as Duke Nukem 3D.

In Fallout (1997), what must the Vault Dweller find to fix the Vault's failed water system?

Vault 13's broken computer chip ran its water recycling, and the hunt for a new one plays out decades after a US-China nuclear war.

Which BioWare engine was first used in Baldur's Gate (1998)?

The Infinity Engine began in a real-time strategy demo called Battleground: Infinity, which BioWare reworked into Baldur's Gate.

Star Wars: TIE Fighter (1994) casts the player as a pilot for which side?

TIE Fighter flipped X-Wing's story, putting players in the Empire's cockpit between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi.

Who designed and directed Wing Commander, Origin Systems' 1990 space-combat game?

Chris Roberts later directed the 1999 Wing Commander movie himself, and it flopped with critics and at the box office.

Secret of Mana (1993) was released in Japan under what title?

Seiken Densetsu 2 means 'Legend of the Sacred Sword 2', and it was the first game in the series marketed as Mana instead of Final Fantasy.

Which Sega studio produced the first three Panzer Dragoon games for the Saturn?

Team Andromeda disbanded after Panzer Dragoon Saga, and some of its staff joined Smilebit, which made Panzer Dragoon Orta for the Xbox.

In Nights into Dreams (1996), which evil ruler threatens the dream world Nightopia?

Wizeman the Wicked steals dreamers' energy to take over Nightopia, and NiGHTS is a Nightmaren he created who rebelled and was imprisoned.

Bubsy, Accolade's 1993 platform mascot, is what kind of animal?

Bubsy the bobcat was pitched as 'as fast as Sonic and as deep as Mario', but the flop of Bubsy 3D put the series on hold for over 20 years.

In Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3 (1994), what is Wario trying to buy with his treasure?

Wario wants his own castle, bigger than Mario's, and the coins he hands the genie decide whether he gets a castle or just a tiny birdhouse.

Killer Instinct (1994) was first released in arcades by which publisher?

Midway put Killer Instinct in arcades, and its attract mode advertised a 1995 home version for the Nintendo Ultra 64, which didn't launch until 1996.