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New Easter Eggs found in... Ivory Tower?
Posted By: Jordan117Date: 6/29/09 6:33 p.m.


After my laptop crashed I was reinstalling all my old software when I came across Entity UE, the Halo 2 model viewer/editor I talked about a few months ago. I never really figured out much about this program beyond the model viewer, so I decided to reinstall it and have another look.

Pretty soon I found a way to browse the assets within each map file, including things like the bitmap images for every environment in the game, which include cool things like:

Earth (from Cairo Station)
Earth (from Midship) -- interestingly, both are the same basic model but with different shadowing
Moon (from Cairo Station)
Black Sea -- Africa -- New Mombasa region
Electronics panels
Warthog advertisement
New Mombasa transit map -- message boards -- welcome sign
New Mombasa skyline -- Space tether
Assorted signs -- More signs -- Turf signs

Unfortunately not all assets are this easily visible. Many of the game files refer to lightmaps, spawn locations, etc., some of which can be viewed in the model viewer. But it's usually not very interesting. It's kind of cool to see the original names for things, though (Cairo Station = spacestation, Terminal = triplicate, Ivory Tower = cyclotron).

But I promised easter eggs! And here they are: most of a level's geometry (buildings, walls, floors, terrain, etc.) is referred to in the game files, and each structural element is given a name. Well, I was browsing the files for Ivory Tower when I noticed that each of the skyscrapers in the fog outside the main play area have specific names. (I know they refer to the towers because there were 15 names and 15 buildings). There are some repeats with a number or letter on the end, but they're still pretty amusing. Here are the names of the buildings:

cpc_incorporatedb
cpc_incorporatedh
cpc_incorporatedd
cpc_incorporatedg
cpc_incorporated
cpc_incorporateda
carew_tower
austrian_sweetnessb
austrian_sweetness
wu_hqd
wu_hq
cpc_incorporated_ii
cpc_incorporated_ii01
cpc_incorporated_little_ii
cpc_incorporated_little

Make of those what you will, but I do know that Carew Tower is the name of a skyscraper in Cincinnati (link).

And of course... Wu HQ? Ha! I wonder which buildings were meant to be Wu's new pad...

Lastly, I noticed that two of the plants are named: one is a red alder, and the other is a salal. Both of these plants are native to the Western US, so I'm guessing that Ivory Tower is set near Seattle and not New Mombasa -- especially since "Ivory Tower" is the nickname for Marty's Kirkland recording studio. (Not to mention all that fog screams "Pacific Northwest").

I wonder what other interesting gags are hidden in the game's files?


Message Index




Replies:

New Easter Eggs found in... Ivory Tower?Jordan117 6/29/09 6:33 p.m.
     Re: New Easter Eggs found in... Ivory Tower?Stephen L. (SoundEffect) 6/29/09 6:42 p.m.
           Re: New Easter Eggs found in... Ivory Tower?Jordan117 6/29/09 6:53 p.m.
                 Re: New Easter Eggs found in... Ivory Tower?Stephen L. (SoundEffect) 6/29/09 9:37 p.m.
     Re: New Easter Eggs found in... Ivory Tower?FyreWulff 6/29/09 6:44 p.m.
     Re: New Easter Eggs found in... Ivory Tower?Dojorkan 6/29/09 7:41 p.m.
     Also...Jordan117 6/29/09 9:03 p.m.
     Re: New Easter Eggs found in... Ivory Tower?General Vagueness 6/29/09 10:59 p.m.
           Re: New Easter Eggs found in... Ivory Tower?Louis Wu 6/30/09 8:06 a.m.
                 That's reasonable *NM*General Vagueness 6/30/09 9:14 a.m.



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