In today's era where gay pride parades draw millions of people, it has become accepted to love one's own kind. It happens regularly that games indulge in this new right and show their love for other games by hiding subtle hints somewhere in the debts of their levels. These would usually mean nothing to the average viewer but they are instantly recognizable to other gamers.

It's always so nice to encounter one of these. It shows another side of the developers. A side that isn't a game designer as much as it is a fan. It makes us feel closer together as our understanding of the jokes alone testifies that we are all part of a cultural movement which is bigger than ourselves. In celebration of these little inside jokes, I present you ten games, or series of games whose developers most creatively paid their respects to their brothers in the industry or even to their own creations.

Mega Man X



Capcom is obviously proud of their Street Fighter franchise. They have been sneaking its characters into other games all the time. In Final Fight 2 on the SNES you get to see Chun-Li treating herself to some rice in the background while Guile encourages you to unload your fists during a boss fight. Chun-Li also appears to have eternal youth as she's still looking young as ever in the year 20XX for her part in Mega Man 9. She did say goodbye to fighting however, as she's now working as a newscaster that first tells Dr. Light and his trusty blue bomber about eight new raging robots.

It gets even better when they actually start putting in Street Fighter's moves where they don't really belong. This time we're talking about Mega Man X and finding this reference ain't no picnic. After you beat all eight bosses, get all the energy capsules, get all the sub tanks, climb a hard-to-get-to cliff and die on purpose five times, it's possible to unlock Ryu and Ken's Hadouken fireball.

I know what you're thinking: "Are you really expecting me to do all that?!". I have to admit that I've never had the patience but on the other hand it's tempting. The hadouken can kill pretty much any boss in a single hit and you get it delivered to you by Dr. Light wearing a karate gi. I mean, how often do you get to see a scientific genius dressed like that? Did I mention you actually have to do the button combinations from Street Fighter to pull off the move? Very nice, Capcom! They would later repeat this little stunt by putting the Shou Ryu Ken-move into Mega Man X2.

Shadow Warrior



I've made it no secret that I'm a big fan of what I like to call the build games; a number of games with very similar gameplay that all ran on Ken Silverman's Build engine. Nearly everyone knows Duke Nukem 3D and I have already dedicated an entire blogpost to Blood. This one, I haven't talked about yet and I really should. In a way it's the spiritual successor to Duke Nukem 3D. It was released one year later but 3DRealms developed the two alongside each other.

This generation of early shooters was generally ridden with cultural references. Movies, books, anime... You name it. Nothing was safe for these tongue-in-cheek gunslingers. Other games were never their primary target but they all managed to muffle at least one reference in somewhere. Duke Nukem had "one doomed space marine" lying mutilated behind a church window. Blood in turn had Duke Nukem himself dangling from a chain while bleeding like a stuck pig and Shadow Warrior set its sight of the most iconic game-babe of its age: Lara Croft. Usually she's a dangerous gunslinger herself but this time, she's nothing more than a helpless damsel in a cage.

Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines



Originally based on a pen-and-paper RPG and as a sequel to Vampire: The Masquerade - Rendemtion, Bloodlines is a fascinating game in a dark world where any would-be goth is going to feel right at home. This series was destined for greatness but never got there completely. Troubled development cycles and rushed releases caused both games to ship with a significant amount of bugs and got mixed reviews.

I loved Bloodlines. It was my first time to see Valve's source engine in action and I remember turning up the volume and making the room as dark as possible when I made it to the haunted house level. No matter how much I love this game though, I can't deny how buggy it was. I was relatively unimpressed with the Source Engine until I finally did get my hands on Half-Life 2 and saw just how vastly superior it looked despite using the same engine and being released on the same day.

Unfortunately the shaky development didn't only cause bugs in the final release, it also ranked a gaming tribute down from completely awesome to just plain nice. You see, at some locations in the game, the player would encounter arcade machines of older Activision games. This is a very fun gimmick in its own right but the original plan was for you to actually be able to play these games. Can you imagine being a sexy vampire and creep trough the night, seducing attractive young women and feasting on their blood only to geek out a moment later and play pitfall at the arcade? That would have been so awesome! Such a shame that this didn't make it into the final game. I guess it just wasn't meant to be.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl



Stalker always had this mythical aura surrounding it. The fact that the game takes place in the zone of alienation around Chernobyl should have been more than reason enough. There is another reason for it mythical status though. The game, which was originally planned for 2003, didn't see the light of day until March 2007. By this time many people were considering it to be the next Duke Nukem Forever. The developers failing to deliver the game to contest winners who were promised access to an early build didn't help its reputation either. Fortunately for us, it finally did get released and it was a great game.

Nowadays there's another title which we've been craving for three years and still doesn't show any sign of being released. That game is Half-Life 2: Episode 3. The second episode left us with one hell of a cliff hanger and we gamers are dying to know what happens next! It is my sad duty to inform you that it will never happen. As I was making my way through the zone, I stumbled upon Gordon Freeman's corpse in an underground parking lot. This is a sad day for gamers everywhere. God damn his bosses!

Doom II



Doom. A shooter among shooters. It was the first one to have textured floors and ceilings, the first one to include multiplayer deathmatch, the first one to name a horrifying man-eating demon Pinky and the first FPS I ever played. Even today this is still the only FPS that really scared me like survival horror games tend to do and I have to exercise extreme self control to not pen down an entire review with favourite level listings and so on! No, this time I'm bringing it up to explore which games it has paid its respects to.

Doom is pretty much a spiritual successor to Wolfenstein 3D, which is widely regarded to be the first true FPS game ever. One hell of a successor it was. B.J. Blazkowicz might have been killing Nazis 17 years before Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds but Doom's unnamed space marine is too tough for even hell to contain! There still appears to be some kind of rivalry between the two though. Even after surviving Demons on Mars and escaping from Hell itself, Doom dude still felt inferior to Blazkowicz. The only way he was ever going to be rid of this complex was to head for castle Wolfenstein himself and prove to the world that he's just as good at blasting Nazis as any man. Yep that's right, Doom II has two levels that look exactly like Wolfenstein 3D and have the enemies to match.

As much as I understand the rivalry between these gun wielding maniacs, there's one thing that doesn't quite sit well with me. After the Doom guy has plowed his way through the depts of castle Wolfenstein, he goes through another section of secret tunnels and eventually comes into the most horrifying room in the whole game. I can stand demons that eat people alive and crucified bodies with their guts hanging out but in this very room, they've hung that cutesy little Commander Keen by his neck!!! If that shattered your childhood memories and made you cry, then I suggest you stop reading now because the only way to complete the level now is to shoot him in the dick! That's not cool, man! It's just not cool. :(

Capcom and SNK fighting games



Since the dawn of time, there have been two major 2D fighting game companies: Capcom and SNK. It's a bit of a tough call for me which one I like best. Both companies' titles are very similar. There've got lots of fantasy attacks like fireballs and energy blasts, over the top character designs and super bars that allow you to execute spectacular high damage moves when filled. When I was a kid, I remember seeing SNK's Art of Fighting for the first time in a supermarket. My first thought was: "What a blatant Street Fighter II rip-off!", while my second thought was: "I want to play it!".

Capcom also noticed Art of Fighting when it came out. The main character, Ryo bore a striking resemblance to their own characters, Ryu and Ken, both in name and appearance. While they could have been an ass about it and sued, Capcom decided to do something much more cunning. For their next fine-tuned SFII release, they created a piece of artwork where Sagat was depicted holding an unconscious karateka by the head. This half-dead guy looked exactly like Ryo, wearing his trademark orange gi with black undershirt but had long brown hair in a ponytail. Exactly the hairstyle of Art of Fighting's other main character, Robert.

SNK then "retaliated" in their the King of Fighters '94 where the final boss collected statues of fighters fallen before him including one of Street Fighter's Guile. When the Street Fighter Alpha series kicked in, Capcom went another step further and created a playable character based on their "Ryobert"-artwork mentioned above. This was Dan, an overconfident and arrogant yet pathetically weak karate fighter bent on taking down Sagat and afterwards simply promoting his Saikyou school of martial arts. Then it was SNK's turn again and they got their revenge by having Ryo's sister, Yuri copy Dan's trademark thumbs-up taunt. Later in the Capcom Vs. SNK crossover titles, these back-and-forth jokes were played out to their fullest potential whenever two of the characters involved exchanged blows. Dan has since become a fan favourite. A lot of players use him to simply joke around and spam his taunts while others use him to show their dominance as they're able to beat other players by using a weaker character.

Killer Instinct



Capcom and SNK might be the two major producers of 2D fighting mayhem but they are certainly not the only ones. One other company that we've been bugging for a sequel since forever is Rare and the game we want a sequel to is of course Killer Instinct. This title beautifully combined Street Fighter's quick-middle-fierce button set-up with Mortal Kombat's graphic violence and spiced it up with a unique combo system of their own.

It was originally planned for a release on Nintendo 64 and the attract mode in its arcade version still refers to that system as Ultra 64 which was its working title. Due to the N64's delays however, the game was ported to the Super Nintendo instead where people got blown away by the beautiful sprites derived from 3D models; a technique they had used before in the Donkey Kong Country series.

Just like every other fighting game in existence, Killer Instinct owes a great deal to Street Fighter II and they know it. Do you remember that corny ending when you finish SFII as Blanka? A woman comes running and claims he is her long lost son, Jimmy. How such a normal looking woman could give birth to an green electric furrball with fangs that would gladly tear your children to shreds is beyond me but none of the other characters seem to mind. The two hug and everybody's happy. Killer Instinct references this in the Eyedol's ending and this time, the events play out a little bit more like I'd expect them to.

The Dope Fish



The Dope Fish is part of the pisces swimeatus family. It is said to be the second dumbest creature in the universe with an endless repeating thought cycle of swim, swim, hungry. It eats everything that comes near it but has a general preference for heroes. When asked to comment, character designer Tom Hal replied: "I just drew this stupid little fish". This most fascinating creature first appeared as an enemy in Commander Keen 4 and has since been leading a life of its own, appearing in over 30 games and counting.

It all started when Andy Edwardson and Shaun Gadalla were working on their Mario Kart-inspired DOS game, Wacky Wheels. They were discussing about what characters to use and both agreed that it would be awesome to have Dope Fish make a cameo. Of course, they were working for Apogee and thus needed id software's blessing. When they asked, id sent a very clear fax with only the words "use the fish".

Ever since then, Dope Fish has been making cameo appearances in all kinds of games ranging from classics like Max Payne to more obscure titles like Chili Con Carnage. He has appeared in the form of a poster, a statue, an actual fish, text on a wall or even a whole level being shaped like him. The fish is usually, but not always hidden in a really hard to find spot and uncovering one never fails to make me smirk. Including the Dope Fish in a game is one fine example of an inside joke that only people who are truly immersed into the gaming culture will get.

Final Fantasy 6



I've been playing this game so much lately that I start thinking my bicycle is a Chocobo some times. Actually it sort of inspired me to do this write-up. In my review of it last week, I mentioned how it was unofficially translated by RPGOne and the official re-translation seemed to pay its own little tribute to that. This put a smile on my face and got me thinking about how fun these little stabs are in general. I decided to go only for games that tribute other games though, so tributing a translation doesn't count. Fortunately FF6 has more up its sleeve.

If you've played it, you remember Sabin for sure. The young prince that didn't like royalty being shoved down his throat and decided to travel his own path. We don't get to see everything he did after this but I think I know anyway. He went to his little solitary house to become über 1337 at Street Fighter II! I can tell! I mean, how many times have you played as a monk in an RPG? If you're like me, then you've tried it at least a couple more times than you have fingers on one hand.

Now how many times have those monks actually required you do input typical fighting game combinations like quarter circle forward + punch, half circle back + kick, etc. If your answer is higher than one then please message me because I want to play the other game. For me, the only monk to ever hand me a blistering Capcom-thumb is Sabin from Final Fantasy VII. I say this is brilliant. Square wasn't just paying tribute to another game. They were paying tribute to an entire genre!

Asterix & Obelix XXL 2: Mission Las Vegum



Who hasn't grown up on comic books these days? Some fans of Marvel and DC comics even go so far that you'd swear they're ready to drink each other's blood if they were ever in a small room together. Being European and all, these two companies don't hold much nostalgic value for me other than some of their cartoon adaptations. No, one of the main comic series' that I grew up with is Asterix. I know for fact that this series isn't very popular in the States or Asia but even if it wasn't part of your childhood, I don't see how one can not love Gaul with wobbly noses beating the crap out of the Roman empire. Nevertheless these comics aren't popular there and that's a simple fact. A bit too simple for the publishers as they decided to release this little gem only in Europe. What a shame.

Even the comics were already full of cultural references. For instance, my favourite as a kid was called Obelix and co. The Romans tried a divide-and-conquer strategy by introducing the Gaul village to capitalism. A witty economist approached the not very smart but inhumanly strong menhir sculptor, Obelix and tempted him into greed by buying his menhirs at constantly increasing prices. As I kid, I loved it because I always liked Obelix and his menhirs, but now I love it because it's making so much fun of today's economy system. I also like how they were obviously not trying to criticise capitalism or anything corny like that. All they did was point and laugh. Asterix and Obelix XXL 2 carries over this attitude as it makes the transition from comic into game.



Getafix, the druid has seemingly betrayed his village and is now in Las Vegum themepark in Rome. With the help of Sam Shieffer (get it?), Asterix and Obelix set off on an adventure to get him back. You can barely play this game for ten minutes before encountering your next reference. There are Romans with blue err... things on their head while holding a ring in each hand. Other Romans have a suspiciously M-shaped bird on their red helmets and shoot water at you from a familiar backpack. Our moustached heroes dive down green pipes, blow up walls of Tetris blocks with equally familiar looking bombs so on. Final Fantasy 6 might feel all high and mighty for referencing a whole genre, but this one is going for the entire freaking industry!

When this game was first announced, I thought that they were going to force these jokes and rely on them way too much. I'm glad that it didn't turn out this way. The game is a 2D sidescroller in a 3D world, not unlike New Super Mario Brothers. It's not going to give you much of a challenge but it's nice to pick up and casually play. In that aspect you could actually say that it feels a bit like the original comics. The tributes everywhere usually don't make much sense but they're never in the way and a few like centurion Larry Craft had me laughing my ass off.

This brings the list to its conclusion. If you feel like there are games that I should have absolutely included but didn't, then I want to hear all about it in the comments!