The Twitter account for the Aaron & Tommy: Super Pod Saga asked people to share the “most useless piece of video game knowledge” they know. The tweet blew up, receiving 20,500 likes, 18,800 quote tweets, and 2,461 retweets at the time of publication. Gamers took the opportunity to share fun facts like the voice of Mario appearing in another video game and the metro in Fallout 3 actually being an NPC with a train for a head.
Here are some of the best “useless” facts from Twitter.
Two heads are better than one
Our managing editor Jez Corden jumped in on the trend, sharing a fact about Dragon Age: Origins regarding an interesting game of chess.
There’s a hidden room in a random dungeon basement in Dragon Age: Origins Awakening DLC.
Inside, there’s a skeleton with two heads apparently playing chess with itself. #DragonAgeJez Corden
Goldeneye glitch
With Goldeneye making its way to Xbox consoles and the Nintendo Switch, it’s good to brush up on facts from the gaming classic. Twitter user and Trivium vocalist Matthew kiichichaos Heafy shared a way to make invisible proximity mines.
Semi useful. In goldeneye. Proximity mines. If you set a proximity mine on an ammo (or proxy mine) crate and pick it up… when it respawns. The mine is invisible. But will still blow people up.
Matthew kiichichaos Heafy
Fallout devs using their head
The following fact from misterOwO is relatively well-known, but it’s still quite interesting to see how game developers work around problems.
The metro in fallout 3 is an npc with a giant train for a head.
misterOwO
Our colleagues at PC Gamer took a look at this phenomenon back in 2021. It turns out the metro is actually a piece of the NPC’s arm, not their head. In any event, it’s still funny.
Fake speed
John Epler, the Creative Director of Dragon Age shared a secret about “sprinting” on a horse.
when you ‘sprint’ on a horse in DAI it doesn’t really do much because frostbite couldn’t stream in levels fast enough, so we just added speed lines and changed the camera so it felt faster
John Epler
Epler clarified that riding a horse in the game is faster than travelling on foot but that the sprint and normal run for the horse are the same speed.
A mysterious mug
In the final chapter 6 map in Portal 2, there is a wood-textured, glowing mug floating far out of bounds. I found it as a kid but haven’t ever seen anyone mention it https://t.co/pi2hzRI42w pic.twitter.com/6HrHcxdDu2January 23, 2023
It’s unclear why, but a mug floats outside the boundaries of the final chapter 6 map in Portal 2. Twitter users @MasterSwrdRemix shared a clip of the odd object.
Oblivion oddities
Due to a bridge that is often drawn in Oblivion, you can rarely purchase a specific home. Sheesh. Even in video games, it’s hard to get on the real estate ladder (via @SHOOREHPLPPL on Twitter).
Gro Yarug is an NPC in oblivion who sells you the most expensive house in the game, the problem is his daily routine requires him to walk through an elevated bridge who’s often elevated when he tries to cross it meaning he jumps to his death and you can never buy the house
@SHOOREHPLPPL on Twitter
Twitter user Madithen shared another strange NPC in Oblivion. All they do is watch ham.
bethesda forgot to give this lady at brina cross inn an AI package so she doesn’t eat or sleep, just watches a ham being cooked 24/7
Madithen on Twitter
A coding accident sends the Bravil castle steward to their death every single day. It’s a tough life living in the world of Oblivion (via @saltandbrepper on Twitter).
In Oblivion, the Bravil castle steward, Dro’Nahrahe, accidentally had her home coded as a house in Bruma, a different city halfway across the world map.
Every day she walks that red line until she is inevitably killed by wildlife or some other roaming threat. Usually on day one.@saltandbrepper on Twitter
Baking bread in Oblivion can be risky business, at least if you’re Salmo the baker. Twitter user @KiroUsako highlighted that you can cause the game to crash by adding bread to Salmo’s inventory. A bit ironic.
Drivable cars in Max Payne
Max Payne 3 uses the same engine as GTA 4 and 5, as highlighted by Rich Evans Thug Shaker on Twitter. That means that every vehicle in the game is drivable.
ok so max payne 3 runs on the same engine as GTA 4 and 5, every time you see a vehicle parked or otherwise it’s actually a fully simulated drivable vehicle ala GTA
Rich Evans Thug Shaker
A hidden narrator
The developers behind Fallout: New Vegas came up with a clever way to present the outro sequences. Twitter user @Its_Jabo showed off how the game uses a projector-like screen and a hidden narrator.
In Fallout 3, the outro sequences are just 29 possible video files glued together.
But with New Vegas having more outro slides, they instead placed the player infront of a giant projector like screen, and placed an NPC behind it, playing the voice lines named Ron The Narrator…@Its_Jabo on Twitter
Runner up voice actors
You’ll get a little treat if you defeat an optional boss in Legend of Dragoon for PS1, as pointed out by Prim just be tweeting.
Okay so, in the Legend of Dragoon(PS1). There’s optional boss fights where you battle against the original dragoons from 10,000 years ago. Who are actually voiced by the runner ups who didn’t get the main characters part.
Prim just be tweeting
Mario in The Game
Charles Martinet is best known for his iconic performances as the voice of Mario, but did you know he appears briefly in The Game (via Ben Prunty)?
Charles Martinet, voice of Mario, appears briefly in the David Fincher thriller The Game, as Michael Douglas’s late father.
Ben Prunty
Overwatch Easter egg
Twitter user @retro_wen shared a fun little Easter egg that plays if you shoot the bells on the Dorado map in Overwatch to form a certain tune.
On Overwatch’s Dorado map, you can shoot the bells in the first attacker’s spawn and play the Overwatch theme.Doing this with Wrecking Ball selected will trigger an adorable singing voiceline. https://t.co/gU8omWf0iQ pic.twitter.com/tuEfFKoO15January 23, 2023
Blowing up blimps
GTA 5 makes you invincible when you start a mission, which opens the doors for all sorts of fun. User @jbzingo on Twitter showed off how blowing up a blimp is one option at the beginning of the “dead man walking” mission.
in gta 5, the game makes you invincible around the starting points of missions, meaning that the mission “dead man walking” can be started by crashing a blimp into the observatory https://t.co/pjBZruzhJ4 pic.twitter.com/c9Mo4hB51nJanuary 23, 2023
Throwback Halo
If you miss the days of the Warthog from the original Halo, there’s a way to get that driving style back, as highlighted by Jaime Griesemer.
If you set the inertia tensor of the Warthog in Halo 1 to a negative number it drives like an older version. This was done because last minute tuning broke the final jump of the trench run, so that one Warthog needed to be reverted.
Jaime Griesemer
“Not” an X-Men game
8-Bit Alchemy shared the fact that the NES game Werewolf was going to be an X-Men game. That didn’t happen, but the sprites in the game are rather obvious.
The NES game Werewolf was originally supposed to be a Wolverine game before losing the license, but many enemies are still clearly X-Men in origin including the last boss that looks just like Magneto
8-Bit Alchemy
Hidden gems
Games provide countless hours of entertainment, both with their intended plots and mechanics as well as glitches and errors. While most players prefer a polished game, a few mistakes here and there can add charm to a title. A floating mug, an NPC marching to their death, or a person staring at ham cooking is a bit of fun on top of the core elements of a game.
A lot of the facts shared on Twitter aren’t mistakes at all, they’re clever ways to work around the limitations of a game. For example, Metro Exodus using invisible rats to control a character’s eyes allows the developers to use a preexisting mechanic to perform a task (via @mac_shirk on Twitter).
