Assassin's Creed Brotherhood:
Former creative director Patrice Desilets quips, "Ah, well, you remember Mario? Well, I think his brother, you know, the one who wears green, what's his name? Whatever. He shows up in the game."
Bodycount:
Creative director Stuart Black advises you to, "look at the buildings and some of the crates carefully for a little homage to Metal Gear; the art team added a little exclamation mark to certain assets in the game. The cardboard boxes also have a special logo that you'll probably recognize immediately if you know to look for it."
Bulletstorm:
An EA representative tells us, "For over two years [development studio] People Can Fly called Ishi -- main character Grayson Hunt's friend -- a half-cyborg. Then they realized that since a cyborg is already half-human, half-robot, then a half-cyborg is actually 3/4th human, 1/4th robot." Bonus facts: As of today, since the beginning of Bulletstorm's development, PCF creative director Adrian Chmielarz has drunk around 2,500 Red Bulls and smoked about 20,000 cigarettes. And design director Cliff Bleszinski throws in, "Bulletstorm was, at one point, a third-person cover based shooter. PCF then said, 'screw that' and decided to eat a mountain of Peyote and build their greatest work to date."
Call Of Duty: Black Ops:
According to community manager Josh Olin, Treyarch called upon the services of three different military advisors: Lieutenant Colonel Hank Keirsey (who's consulted for previous COD titles) contributed to making sure the Vietnam War sequences feel accurate; former Spetsnaz member Sonny Puzikas gave the team a primer on Spetsnaz combat tactics, and Major John Plaster provided insight to how Black Ops were undertaken in general based on his experience within the SOG.
Child of Eden:
If you watched Ubisoft's E3 press conference, you may have noticed older Genki Rockets music playing in conjunction with Q Entertainment's Child of Eden demo. According to Q head Tetsuya Mizuguchi, there will also be original music from the group created specifically for the game.
Civilization V:
Firaxis producer Dennis Shirk answers, "We are adding a really, really awesome unit with an 'interesting' title to it. And you have to play a certain way to unlock it. It just isn't going to happen by accident; it's a combination of things you'll have to do. I know I'm being vague about it, but it's probably the most awesome unit in the game. You're not going to find it in the Civpedia or the unit list, you're just going to find out that you can build it during one session."
Company of Heroes Online:
Production director Tim Holman states, "Donkeys with rocket launchers. Not going to say anything more, except that they will be considered a 'hero unit.'"
Crysis 2:
Crytek co-founder Cevat Yerli advises players to, "Use the tactical mode and scan the infected people whenever you can. There will be a little something for that."
de Blob 2 Underground:
Nick Hagger, creative director over at Blue Tongue Entertainment, tells us, "One of the members of our development team is a skilled typographer, and he made a custom font [for the game]. Every sign and billboard in the game can be translated, and we will include the font conversion as an unlockable."
Dead Space 2:
Creative director Wright Bagwell points out, "There are several characters in the game that are actually people on the Dead Space development team. So it'd be a fun little game for people to dig through Dead Space 2 interviews and stories and see where we are in the actual game."
Deus Ex Human Revolution:
Lead designer Jean-Francois Dugas points out that the nightclub called "The Hive," which is where the E3 demo takes place, has a particular history regarding its name. "When we were designing the levels, we just nicknamed the nightclub 'the Hive' because of its layout, and we didn't intend for it to be called that. But so many people just kept on calling it 'the Hive' and someone then just made a t-shirt out of it. By then, we figured, if we're giving out t-shirts [at E3] with 'the Hive' on it, then we'll call it that in the final script and everything from now on."
Disney Epic Mickey:
While initially stumped, studio head Warren Spector tells us that there are two bowling teams within Junction Point, and they even wear custom bowling shirts. Spector himself has Mickey and Pluto-branded bowling balls for different tasks (Mickey is the strike ball while Pluto is the spare ball).
Driver: San Francisco:
Series creator Martin Edmonson muses, "The reason why [main character] Tanner's car is yellow with black stripes is because there were some early screenshots from Driver in the 90s with a yellow-and-black car. But by the time we released Driver, we just made it a black car, and everyone asked us, 'what happened to the yellow-and-black car?' So that little piece of nostalgia is the sole reason why we have a yellow-and-black car for Tanner now."
Fallout New Vegas::
According to project director Josh Sawyer, "All of our internal teams [design, art, etc.] are named after brands in the Fallout universe. So we have Team Psycho, Team Mentat, Team Nuka, Team Jet, and Team Fancy."
Halo Reach:
Multiplayer designer Lars Bakken and community director Brian Jarrard have noted that gamers have been talking a lot about the fact that Halo Reach seems to have a female lead, but the fact of the matter is that the playable character -- Noble 6 -- is character-defined from the game's beginning as either male or female, and the team has recorded voiceovers for both genders. There's also the possibility of unlocking different character voices for player use.
Hard Corps: Uprising:
Although Konami hasn't put the Contra name on Hard Corps: Uprising, its developers are certainly taking after its namesake, Contra: Hard Corps. And in more ways than one: The male playable character, Bahamut, is the same as Colonel Bahamut, the main villain in the original Hard Corps. Uprising is somewhat of a prequel, then, as you follow his younger commando days before he turned heel.
Killzone 3:
You know Rico, that total hardass from the Killzone series overall? Guerilla Games managing director Herman Hulst reveals his secret origin, "Rico is modeled after one of our artists, and in real life, he's the nicest and gentlest guy you'll know."
Lord of the Rings: War of the North:
Snowblind Studios founder Ryan Geithman tells us, "The codename for the project was 'Trixie,' and that's only because when we started the design doc, the programmer documenting it just typed in the first name he thought of, and that codename stuck until we got the LOTR name." He also added that at one point, there was a bug where the Warg was really small, and the team nicknamed it, "the chi-hua-warg."
Majin and the Forsaken Kingdom:
While Majin is still months from hitting stores, Game Republic head Yoshiki Okamoto is already thinking about sequels, telling us recently: "I'd love to do one right away, actually! Of course, it's up to Namco Bandai -- I'm planning on bringing a pitch for Majin 2 and another original title to Namco soon."
Medal Of Honor:
Senior creative director Rich Farrelly pauses for a moment, rubs his beard (this is important), and says, "Well, inspired by [the guy on the box], the design team actually started growing beards in solidarity."
Monkey Island 2 Special Edition
According to producer Craig Derrick, voice actor Neil Ross will reprise his role as Wally the hapless cartographer from The Curse of Monkey Island. Ross also played Colonel Volgin in Metal Gear Solid 3 and was the narrator of the original Call of Duty, among countless other videogame roles. His cartoon work goes back to the 80s, where he had major roles in G.I. Joe, Transformers, and Voltron.
NBA Jam Wii:
Before getting the greenlight to create NBA Jam, the team at EA Vancouver created a prototype starring wireframe characters. And they tell us that "Stick Man" from that prototype will appear as a secret character in the final game.
Portal 2:
Writer Erik Wolpaw states, "We originally started [the co-op campaign] with two human test subjects, but then we changed it to be two robot test subjects. We'll have to rewrite some of the dialogue -- jokes where GLaDOS implies that one player is fatter than the other don't work as well for two robots as they do for two women."
Rock Band 3:
According to Sylvain Dubrofsky, a senior designer at Harmonix, "Like in previous games, look at the walls of the venues you visit, and you'll notice posters for Harmonix employees' personal bands, like Freezepop and The Main Drag. Also, the pizza joint you see on pizza boxes in the game is named after Harmonix animator Tony Astone."
Shaun White Skateboarding:
Creative director Nick Harper notes, "Shaun helped us with story, motion capture, animation -- the usual. He also wrote all of his lines. We had our own screenwriters write the script, and he took one look at it and said, 'That's not what I say,' and he then rewrote his script. If you don't like his dialogue, blame him!"
Spec Ops: The Line:
Everyone who's seen a trailer or a demo recognizes the ubiquitous Nolan North as main character Captain Walker, but producer Greg Kasavin points out, "One of your squadmates is voiced by Chris Reid, the 'Kid' in '90s group Kid 'n Play. So fifty percent of Kid 'n Play is in our game."
Splatterhouse:
Producer Dan Tovar points out that Splatterhouse has sort of a memorial to the fallen, by saying, "There's a zombie named after one of the associate producers who's no longer at the company."
Star Wars: the Force Unleashed II:
According to project lead Haden Blackman, "In the first game, the voice of Starkiller, Sam Witwer, also does the voice of the Emperor." He also adds, "General Kota was modeled after the traditional ronin, or 'masterless samurai,' both in his look and his fighting style."
Super Scribblenauts:
As a goofy meta-joke, Scribblenauts creator Jeremiah Slaczka says that you can input in "Maxwell's Notepad," which in itself will randomly spawn items within the game.
XCOM:
A 2K Games representative tells us that, "XCOM's story editor has also written for Howard the Duck."
