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Judging by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building featured in Showdown With Omegaton, it's assumed that the level's location takes place in the center of Shinjuku City.
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The player can unlock concept art for a completely removed level known as Drive-In, an early version of the map Roadside Destruction. While the map was entirely scrapped, music for the level was reused in Roadside Destruction and the Training Campground segment in Chicken Con Carnage.
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By modding the game, it is possible to completely disable the blue screen of death glitch. The outcome varies depending on the level, and in most cases the game either crashes or becomes softlocked, but some unusual results can still come out of disabling it. In the final zone of Chicken Con Carnage, restarting the level with the dialogue popup on screen will result in Nimbus sliding away from the camera while idling.
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By swapping map files, it is possible to play the first two single-player exclusive levels in co-op mode. The first level, Roadside Destruction, plays like a regular co-op level while the second level, Chicken Con Carnage, requires player one to take control of the tornado while the second player grabs the Fire Flyers. This mechanic was eventually reused during the Vortex Race and Totem Battle segments after completing all zones.
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In 2009, audio engineer and programmer Scott Bilas released the Wwise project file for the game. While the project itself doesn't include the original .wav files, it's possible to reimport them within Wwise.
Designing Sound article:
https://designingsound.org/2009/12/16/scott-bilas-shares-wwise-tour-goodies-and-tornado-outbreak-project-file/
Wwise project file:
https://archive.org/details/tornado_outbreak_audio
https://designingsound.org/2009/12/16/scott-bilas-shares-wwise-tour-goodies-and-tornado-outbreak-project-file/
Wwise project file:
https://archive.org/details/tornado_outbreak_audio
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The Xbox 360 port of the game is the only version that natively supports 60 FPS. The framerate on actual Xbox 360 hardware is capped to 30 but can drop down to 9 FPS, because of the render distance and additional lighting. When emulated, the game maintains a steady 30/60 FPS depending on what's going on. Cutscenes, subtitles and loading screens move too quickly, and there is major slowdown when the game is running in 60 FPS. This is noticeable in the sixth level Ringling Village and the final level Showdown With Omegaton.
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Tornado Outbreak uses an in-house engine that incorporates a heavily modified version of RAD Game Tools' Granny 3D SDK. Unlike most video games that make use of the Granny 3D SDK, assets are compressed into one ZLIB archive that uses the .bgw extension. The core engine itself is written in C++, but also makes use of Lua scripting as well.
Developer Shane Whitfield's experience on the project:
https://web.archive.org/web/20120801081454/http://www.shanewhitfield.com/ShaneWhitfield/Tornado_Outbreak.html
Scott Bilas's experience on the project and the usage of Lua:
https://this.scottbilas.com/#prj-tornado-outbreak
Simple unpacker and repacker for the .bgw files that document the game using the highest level of ZLIB compression:
https://github.com/SamuraiOndo/tornado-outbreak-bgw/blob/main/bgw.py
https://web.archive.org/web/20120801081454/http://www.shanewhitfield.com/ShaneWhitfield/Tornado_Outbreak.html
Scott Bilas's experience on the project and the usage of Lua:
https://this.scottbilas.com/#prj-tornado-outbreak
Simple unpacker and repacker for the .bgw files that document the game using the highest level of ZLIB compression:
https://github.com/SamuraiOndo/tornado-outbreak-bgw/blob/main/bgw.py
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Two early names considered for the game during development were Tornado Alley, and Zephyr: Rise of the Elementals. The game was first pitched to Warner Bros. Interactive under the Tornado Alley name in July 2006. These early design documents, alongside the documents for the unproduced Dirty Harry: Excessive Force, were later trademarked in 2008.
Tornado Alley pitch bible:
https://uspto.report/TM/77202639/SPE20080304192012/
Tornado Alley sizzle reel variant with early title:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVDY1uNt3Ig
Engadget article with Zephyr: Rise of the Elementals title:
https://www.engadget.com/2009-06-01-konami-announces-zephyr-rise-of-the-elementals.html
https://uspto.report/TM/77202639/SPE20080304192012/
Tornado Alley sizzle reel variant with early title:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVDY1uNt3Ig
Engadget article with Zephyr: Rise of the Elementals title:
https://www.engadget.com/2009-06-01-konami-announces-zephyr-rise-of-the-elementals.html
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Unused sprite:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4POnvgHBwxA
Tweet by programmer Terry Franguiadakis:
https://x.com/TFranguiadakis/status/1805556049170112563
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4POnvgHBwxA
Tweet by programmer Terry Franguiadakis:
https://x.com/TFranguiadakis/status/1805556049170112563
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The location for Ringling Village is loosely based off of Wiltshire, a country from South West England.
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In-game footage of the fat horses:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nipb3Kbc4JI#t=825s
What's Opera, Doc?:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jDcWAWRRHo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nipb3Kbc4JI#t=825s
What's Opera, Doc?:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jDcWAWRRHo
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As the game was originally intended to be a Wii exclusive, the colors for the tornado were colored coded after the colors of the Wii Remote's cursor. Player one, having a blue tornado while the second player having a red tornado.
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The ability to strip the clothing of certain humans was originally intended to be used for a side mission for Military Mayhem. The side mission in particular would've involved Zephyr pantsing the wandering soldiers in the first zone of the level.
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It is possible to grab and throw Nimbus with the tornado via modding. Since he doesn't have a death animation, his model will be stuck in an A-pose.
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The Stone Stomper has two unused pouncing animations that were intended to play during the Stone Stomp tutorial segment in Carnival Carnival. The first one, being a regular pouncing animation and the second one being a cannonball pounce.
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