10. Lara Croft’s Origins
But, she wasn’t always the Lara we know and love. Back in 1996, before Core Design decided they should go with a female British character, Lara Croft was first a placeholder male character, then “Laura Cruz”, a “South American sociopath” with big muscles.
Later, they replaced big muscles with big boobs. Voila! A legend was born.
9. The Many voices of Troy Baker
I know that voice from somewhere! Troy Baker, the man behind practically every video game voice ever, voiced: Booker DeWitt in BioShock Infinite, Joel in The Last of Us, Yuri Lowel in Tales of Vesperia, Kanji Tatsumi in Persona 4, Delsin Rowe in Infamous Second Son, Snow Villiers in Final Fantasy XIII, Schneizel el Britannia in Code Geass, Pain in Naruto: Shippuden, Jake Muller in Resident Evil 6, The Second Greed in Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood, Hawkeye in Avengers Assemble, Van Kleiss in Generator Rex, Two-Face and Robin (Tim Drake) in Batman: Arkham City, Prosecutor Simon Blackquill in Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Dual Destinies, and The Joker in Batman: Arkham Origins, Batman: Arkham Origins Blackgate and Batman: Assault on Arkham.
Wow. Joker and Joel from TLOU are the same dude.
8. Mario and Yoshi
Mario was supposed to ride Yoshi as early as Super Mario Bros on the NES. Sadly, the hardware limitations stopped Nintendo from creating your little expendable buddy.
It took 6 long years until the SNES and Super Mario World came out for that to happen.
7. Duke Nukem Delays
Duke Nukem Forever was announced in 1997 and released in 2011. It features a level set on the famous Hoover Dam.
The funny thing is this: it took less time to build an actual Hoover Dam (4 years) than a virtual one in DNF
6. Minecraft Creepers
The creepers came to existence and into nightmares of anyone that played Minecraft by pure accident: one of the developers botched a pig design by reversing its height and width – the result: a freaky tall creature, later changed a bit and turned into those pesky Creepy bastards.
5. Super Meat Boy
Team Meat explained that Meat Boy from Super Meat Boy is not actually a bag of animated meat but a “boy without skin”
That just made it creepy. With sacks of meat, we can relate. With skinless children, not so much. What else did we expect from the creator of The Binding of Isaac?
4. The Legend of Zelda origins
The idea for the first Zelda game came to Shigeru Miyamoto when he remembered walking alone in a forest as a child and discovering a giant hole. He descended into the dark and discovered a labyrinth of caves. Later he stated that he wanted to pass that “feeling of exploration” to gamers everywhere and he more than succeeded. The first Zelda game – The Legend of Zelda or The Hyrule Fantasy, as it was called in Japan, became one of the most successful franchises of all time. So, Mr. Miyamoto, thank you for exploring creepy forest caves.
3. Megaman on drugs
Megaman is originally called Rock Man in Japan. In the US version, censors were uneasy with the name since “Rock” was a popular slang for crack cocaine so they changed it to “mega”. I guess someone should tell that to Dwayne “The Mega” Johnson.
2. Mario’s last name
Super Mario never did get an official last name. But, since the two of them are “Mario Bros”, one can only assume they are called Mario Mario and Luigi Mario.
1. Sonic and The Devil
During the Sega CD era, Sega tried to battle piracy by including creepy messages on pirated CD’s. The one in the picture above translates as “Fun is Infinite with Sega Enterprises” signed, THE DEVIL. It shows deformed Sonic and played some really creepy music.
Bonus Fact: Sonic’s original name was Mr. Needlemouse. Cute.
And that concludes our list!
What do you think of our top ten facts about game characters? Did we miss something you would put on the list?
Tell us in the comments below!
