Thursday, March 17, 2011

Best 5 Random Facts About the Origins of Some Video Game Characters

5. Lara Croft was a whole lot of things before she became the character we know today. First off, she was originally supposed to be a dude, with a whip and a hat. Somewhere along the line, the developers of Tomb Raider found that that idea sounded very… similar to another character, and decided to make Lara into a woman. Before settling on an upper class British archeologist-adventurer, the developers envisioned her as: a tough Spaniard, a burly woman, and a Nazi-esque militant.

4. The Legend of Zelda’s Link bears more than a coincidental resemblance with his Japanese creator, Shigeru Miyamoto. Many traits of the elfin hero are taken directly from Miyamoto, like his left-handedness. The crazy thing is, Link was left-handed in every Legend of Zelda game except for one: Twilight Princess for Wii. Why? Because the game’s developers knew that 85% of the world’s population is right-handed, and they didn’t want people to get confused with the sword controls.

3. When Sonic the Hedgehog was still in the planning stage, one of the concepts pitched was a girlfriend for the Sega mascot. A human girlfriend, named Madonna. Luckily, some people at Sega of America said, “Dudes, this is weird,” and the idea was dismissed.


2. Before Pac-Man came to the U.S., Japanese developers wanted to call him Puck-Man. This idea was quickly nixed, however, when it became apparent that American vandals might scratch over part of the “P” in Puck and make the game a little less than wholesome.

1.  All of the defining features of the man we now know as Mario were simply a result of the graphical limitations of technology at the time. The hat? Mario only has one because it was hard to portray realistic hair. The plumber’s moustache, that bit of facial hair which singlehandedly make the word “mustachioed” awesome? Only there to emphasize Mario’s nose. And the dungarees were only there to accentuate the mustachioed (see? Isn’t it fun?) man’s arm movements. I feel like my childhood was a lie.

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