Video games have become a part of pop culture. With many titles gaining worldwide recognition and a rapid fanbase.
So let’s dive into some trivia and facts about famous videogame series.
- Pro Evolution Soccer is a series of association football simulation video games developed and released annually since 1995
- The title is abbreviated as PES
- It is currently branded as eFootball PES, abbreviated as eFootball PES
- It is known in Japan as Winning Eleven
- Currently branded as eFootball Winning Eleven in Japan
- It is being developed and published by Konami
- It consists of eighteen main instalments and several spin-off style titles and it has seen releases on many different platforms
- It is itself a sister series of Konami’s earlier International Superstar Soccer
- It has been released under different names before the name Pro Evolution Soccer was established worldwide
- The series has consistently achieved critical and commercial success
- PES has also been used in esports. eFootball.Open is the esports world championship held by Konami annually since 2010
- It was formerly known as PES World Finals or PES League
- In association football circles, Pro Evolution Soccer has a longstanding rivalry with EA Sports’ FIFA series
- As with the FIFA series, PES allows players to perform their own unique goal celebrations
- It is listed as one of the best-selling video game franchises
- The series has sold over 107.4 million copies
- In addition to over 200 million mobile game downloads
- Konami also created a similar mobile game called PESCM or Pro Evolution Soccer Club Manager
- Ratchet & Clank is a series of action platformer and third-person shooter video games
- The franchise was created and developed by Insomniac Games
- It was published by Sony Computer Entertainment for PlayStation consoles, such as PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, and PlayStation 5
- With the exclusion of Size Matters and Secret Agent Clank, which were developed by High Impact Games for the PlayStation Portable
- The series is exclusive to Sony platforms and the intellectual property is owned by Sony Computer Entertainment
- An animated feature film adaptation produced by Rainmaker Entertainment and Blockade Entertainment and distributed by Focus Features and Gramercy Pictures was released on April 29, 2016
- The games take place in a science fiction setting and follow the adventures of Ratchet (a feline humanoid known as a Lombax, who is a mechanic) and Clank (a diminutive, sentient Zoni robot) as they travel through the universe, saving it from evil forces that consistently threaten it
- The series is noted for its inclusion of many exotic, unique and over-the-top weapons and gadgets, a concept that Insomniac Games has expanded into their other games
- Rayman is a franchise of platform video games
- It is published by Ubisoft
- Rayman was conceived by Michel Ancel in 1995
- The series has produced a total of 45 games across multiple platforms
- The series is set in a fantastical, magical world which features a wide range of environments that are very often based on certain themes
- The core games of the series are platformers, but there are several spin-off titles in other genres
- The protagonist is the eponymous Rayman, a magical being renowned for his courage and determination who, with the help of his friends, must save his world from various villains
- Resident Evil is a Japanese horror media franchise
- It is known in Japan as Biohazard
- It was created by Shinji Mikami and Tokuro Fujiwara
- It is owned by the video game company Capcom
- The franchise focuses on a series of survival horror games
- It includes live-action films, animated films, comic books, novels, audio dramas, and merchandise
- The story follows outbreaks of zombies and other monsters created mainly by the Umbrella Corporation
- The franchise began with the video game Resident Evil, released in 1996
- It has grown to encompass numerous sequels of various genres
- Incorporating elements of action, exploration, and puzzle solving, and storylines inspired by horror and action films
- Resident Evil has been credited with popularizing survival horror games
- As well as re-popularizing zombies in mainstream popular culture from the late 1990s onwards
- Leading to renewed interest in zombie films during the 2000s
- Resident Evil is Capcom’s best-selling video game franchise
- With over 103 million units sold worldwide as of June 2020
- The Resident Evil live-action film series is also the highest-grossing film series based on video games
- Silent Hill is a horror media franchise
- It is centered on a series of survival horror video games
- It is created by Keiichiro Toyama
- It is developed and published by Konami
- The first four video games in the series, Silent Hill, 2, 3 and 4: The Room, were developed by an internal group called Team Silent
- It is a development staff within former Konami subsidiary Konami Computer Entertainment Tokyo
- The later six games, Origins, Homecoming, Shattered Memories, Downpour, Book of Memories and P.T. (a Silent Hills playable teaser), were developed by others
- The Silent Hill franchise has expanded to include various print pieces, two feature films, and spin-off video games
- Silent Hill is set in the series’ eponymous fictional American town
- The series is heavily influenced by the literary genre of psychological horror, with its player characters being mostly “everymen”
- The Sims is a series of life simulation video games
- It is developed by Maxis
- It is published by Electronic Arts
- The franchise has sold nearly 200 million copies worldwide
- Itt is one of the best-selling video game series of all time
- The games in the Sims series are largely sandbox games, in that they lack any defined goals
- Except for some later expansion packs and console versions which introduced this gameplay style
- The player creates virtual people called “Sims,” places them in houses, and helps direct their moods and satisfy their desires
- Players can either place their Sims in pre-constructed homes or build them themselves
- Each successive expansion pack and game in the series augmented what the player could do with their Sims
- The Sims series is part of the larger Sim series, started by SimCity in 1989
- SimCity is an open-ended city-building video game series originally designed by Will Wright
- The first game in the series, SimCity, was published by Maxis in 1989
- The success of SimCity sparked the creation of several sequels and many other spin-off “Sim” titles
- Including 2000’s The Sims, which itself became a best-selling computer game and franchise
- In the SimCity games, the player develops a city from a patch of undeveloped land
- The player controls where to place development zones, infrastructure like roads and power plants, landmarks, and public services such as schools, parks, hospitals and fire stations
- The player also determines the tax rate, the budget, and social policy
- The city is populated by “Sims”, simulated persons, who live in the city created by the player
- The three development zone types are the major areas in which Sims inhabit: residential zones for houses and apartment buildings; commercial zones for shops and offices; industrial zone for factories, warehouses, laboratories and farms
- While there is no particular win condition in a game of SimCity, the balancing act of the above-mentioned factors provides the constraints which make gameplay possible
- To maximize population or profitability, to re-create real-life locations in-game, achieve an aesthetic design or to trigger as many natural disasters as possible are among the many possible goals one can determine for oneself while playing a SimCity game
- Soulcalibur is a weapon-based fighting video game franchise by Bandai Namco Entertainment
- There are seven main installments of video games and various media spin-offs
- These include music albums and a series of manga books
- Originally released as an arcade game, Soul Edge, in 1995 and later ported to video game consoles
- More recent versions have been released for consoles only and have evolved to include online playing modes
- The central motif of the series, set in a historical fantasy version of the late 16th and early 17th centuries, are mythical swords
- The evil weapon called Soul Edge and the subsequent sword used to oppose this evil, Soul Calibur
- Parsed as two words, while the game’s title is written as a single word
- While it has developed during its various iterations, some of the characters and gameplay elements have remained consistent throughout the series
- Project Soul is the internal Namco development group responsible for the Soulcalibur franchise after the release of Soulcalibur II
- Although the games are usually credited to Namco itself
- The team established its name to draw attention to the group’s combined accomplishments
- Street Fighter is a fighting video game franchise developed and published by Capcom
- The first game in the series was released in 1987
- Followed by five other main series games, various spin-offs and crossovers, and numerous appearances in various other media
- Its best-selling 1991 release Street Fighter II is credited with establishing many of the conventions of the one-on-one fighting genre
- Street Fighter is one of highest-grossing video game franchises of all time
- It serves as one of Capcom’s flagship series
- With a total sales of 44 million units worldwide as of December 31, 2019
Video games trivia | 100 did you know facts about famous series (part 7)
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