Shown Their Work/Video Games: Difference between revisions

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* [[Sid Meier]]. Reading his manuals for the original ''[[Railroad Tycoon]]'' and ''[[Sid Meier's Pirates!|Pirates!]]'', for example, was downright educational. The original ''Pirates!'' even forced the player to figure out where they were by using a sextant to identify only their latitude and land masses to get their bearing. See ''[[Alpha Centauri]]'' below for more evidence of Meier's diligence.

* ''[[Shadow Hearts]]: Covenant'' has the Gallery of the Dead, which could also be called "Learn Cyrillic! With Princess Anastasia".

*** This was also for [[Copy Protection]] purposes: the game would ask you to enter a certain word on a certain line on a certain page to keep playing.

** In certain countries such as Japan, the game '[[Gran Turismo]] 4' came with a booklet a couple hundred pages long, that was filled with expertise from professional drivers describing basic racing strategies, and car dynamics and so on.

* ''[[Astro Boy]]: Omega Factor'' for the GBA sets itself up as prime [[Adaptation Distillation]] through this trope, including as many characters from the original works as narratively possible, along with an extended character biography section, which includes information about their first appearances, and sensical justifications for any changes that have been made for appearance in the game.

* The 90's Windows game ''[[Odell Down Under]]'' has surprisingly detailed information on a number of aquatic species found in the Great Barrier Reef. Every time you start a game or a new round in a game there's an info screen which gives you details about the fish you're playing as. The whole point of the game, in fact, is to keep your fish alive by having it eat what it actually eats, avoid predators, and get cleaned by cleaner fish. The sharks didn't always need cleaner fish however, thanks to the remoras that live on sharks and eat their parasites. There was even an in-game fish encyclopedia on the title screen that gave detail on other lifeforms you couldn't play as like plankton and algae.

** This was also the game that began its manual with three pages on the precise effects, graded by the scale of the bomb, of a nuclear detonation. Biology wasn't the only thing ''[[Fallout]]'' took seriously.

** When Bethesda Studios took over the production of ''[[Fallout 3]]'', they based it in [[Washington DC]]. Their studios are based in a suburb of Washington, DC (Bethesda, Maryland; yes, we know, not a very creative name). This is why the landscape is so detailed: they know the area. Gamers based in the DC metro area noticed and praised Bethesda for it.

*** Actually, Bethesda was founded in Bethesda MD, but has since moved to Rockville MD. The attention to detail isn't just in the map, take a look at the western horizon in the game. Those gently rolling mountains don't just look like the Appalachian and Blue Ridge...

** [[Fallout: New Vegas]]: [[The Empire|Caesar's Legion]], full stop. Their founder and leader, a former [[The Federation|New California Republic]] citizen and member of a society that was dedicated to preserving knowledge in the [[After the End|post-apocalyptic wasteland]], explicitly [[Putting on the Reich|modeled them on the Roman Empire]], and he did his homework.

*** They use the denarius silver coin as their currency, as well as the golden aureus, which is worth 25 denarii in-game, just as it was in ancient Rome.

*** They practice historical punishments such as crucifixion and decimation.

* The makers of ''[[Gabriel Knight]]'' appear to love research more than life itself. While the information is both useful and interesting, you'll be very glad that the game has provided you with a tape recorder that allows you to play back all the conversations that Gabriel has had with various Voodoo experts.

* Developers of ''[[Command & Conquer]] Tiberium Wars'' contacted MIT students for input on the propagation of Tiberium, and even have a mocked-up scientific paper on the subject.

** Similarly, its successor ''[[Age of Mythology]]'' has a massive encyclopaedia dedicated to the mythological creatures. Right down to listing not just the names of the original Valkyries, but ''what each name meant''.

* ''[[World in Conflict]]'' does a frankly superb job of depicting downtown Seattle circa 1989. This would be expected if Massive Entertainment was one of the multiple developers based in the area, but they're ''Swedish''. They even play with it by having the invading Soviets {{spoiler|blow up the Kingdome, which was demolished in reality a few years before the game's release.}}

* Westwood's ''[[Dune II|Dune]]'' ''[[Emperor: Battle for Dune|Games]]'' depart heavily from the Duniverse with regards to storyline, factions and characterisation. That said, the dialogue in particular is so chock full of tiny references and nods to the books that one gets the feeling that with all the liberties taken, the makers still knew the books by heart.

** They also managed to replicate [[David Lynch]]'s style to a tee during cutscenes.

* The aftermath of using white phosphorus “''Spec-Ops: The Line''” is actually as [[Nightmare Fuel| graphic]] as you would image. If anyone has been to a war or area where such weapon was used and played the game, [[My God, What Have I Done?| it’s clear how awful]] it can be {{spoiler| like the mass killing of innocent victims, that looked burned beyond before.}} One of the soldiers tries to protest the decision on using white phosphorus, and another gets into an augment over it. To sum it up, just do a search on white phosphorus and play the game to see how bad the substance can be.