Viewing Single Trivia
▲
1
▼
Whenever Samus approaches a Bombu, the screen fills with static to show electrical interference with her visor. According to programmer Zoid Kirsch, as the game's developers worked on this detail, a big issue that came up was the memory use of the noise texture since the GameCube only has 24 MB of RAM. If they used a low resolution texture (64x64) to save memory then the static effect would come out blurry and not crisp.
To solve this problem, one engineer came up with the idea to use the memory holding the Metroid Prime code itself, and they discovered that machine code is sufficiently random to pass as a static noise texture. In the final game, whenever Samus' visor is affected by electrical noise in-game, the player is actually seeing the bits and bytes of the Metroid Prime software code itself being rendered on the screen. This same technique was originally employed by game designer Howard Scott Warshaw during the development of the Atari 2600 game Yars' Revenge.
To solve this problem, one engineer came up with the idea to use the memory holding the Metroid Prime code itself, and they discovered that machine code is sufficiently random to pass as a static noise texture. In the final game, whenever Samus' visor is affected by electrical noise in-game, the player is actually seeing the bits and bytes of the Metroid Prime software code itself being rendered on the screen. This same technique was originally employed by game designer Howard Scott Warshaw during the development of the Atari 2600 game Yars' Revenge.
Zoid Kirsch tweet:
https://twitter.com/ZoidCTF/status/1590012270071152640
Correction by Kirsch:
https://twitter.com/ZoidCTF/status/1590037731065102336
https://twitter.com/ZoidCTF/status/1590012270071152640
Correction by Kirsch:
https://twitter.com/ZoidCTF/status/1590037731065102336
Comments (0)
You must be logged in to post comments.
Related Games
Metroid: Samus Returns
Metroid Prime 2: Echoes
Metroid Dread
Metroid Prime
Metroid Prime 3: Corruption
Metroid Prime Hunters
Metroid Prime: Trilogy
Metroid
Metroid Prime 2: Echoes
Metroid Prime 4: Beyond
Metroid: Other M
Metroid Fusion
Metroid Prime: Federation Force
Metroid Prime Remastered
Metroid
Super Metroid
Metroid: Zero Mission
Metroid II: Return of Samus
Super Smash Bros.
Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS
Famicom Mini Collection
NES Remix 2
Super NES Classic Edition
Ultimate NES Remix
Super Smash Bros. Melee
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
Metroid II: Return of Samus DX
Super Smash Bros. for Wii U
Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition
Nintendo Land
Super Smash Bros. Brawl
Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition
Final Fantasy Tactics Advance
Uniracers
Sonic Rush Adventure
Mickey Mouse
Dr. Mario 64
Poochy & Yoshi's Woolly World
Wario Land 4
Panel de Pon
Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Tipping Stars
Vermin
Advance Wars: Days of Ruin
Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games
Doubutsu Banchou
Densetsu no Starfy
Disney's Toy Story
The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks
Mario Kart World
New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe