Photographs in Games

[drauch]

I dunno, I love the little mementos or easter eggs in games where it's a photograph of characters. Like the insane bronze locket photo in the opening of Axelay, or the great group shot of the squad in Final Fight 2 opening. I try and make note of these when I can, but I'm sure there's a ton out there. I'll update this post later when I can with pictures of the aforementioned. Arcade, modern, whatever. In the meantime, let me see what you can come up with!

Some other notable good ones:
Resident Evil 1: STARS squad and Wesker & Co. Evil Science Team
Resident Evil 2: Birkin family
Max Payne: Wedding photo
Nosferatu: Couple portrait continue screen
Duke Nukem - Life's a Beach - Ending pool polaroid
Half-Life 2: Photos of Lambda corp, Vance family photo.

Resident Evil 1 (original and remake):

Spoiler

Resident Evil 2:

Spoiler

Max Payne:

Spoiler

Will update more as I have time!

[EmperorIng]

My favorite, from the ending of Cadash. Utterly improbable but man what a cool way to end the fantasy game. Cherish those memories Especially when combined with that bitching credits tune.

[BIL]

Patrician thread. I came steamin' in off the top rope with a big Nosferatu Continue elbow, but was PWNed by the title post's steel chair counter. For now, here's Gun Frontier.

Life sure was peaceful here on FUTURE WILD WEST COLONY MATSUMOTO VII



Until... Not pictured, sounds of tragedy as those 4D LIZARDMEN SCUM invade!



ITS TIME 4 REVENGE



On par with Axelay's splendidly shmuppin' af REVENGEONER intro, imo.

"THEY FIGHT ON, KEEPING ANGER IN THEIR HEART"
"SADNESS, AND REVENGE" - Dead Connection

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Batrider's got a couple good ones in Miyamoto and Car-Pet's solo endings.



These are posters rather than photographs, technically, but whatever. They're awesome.

There's also that time you help a coat chick literally catfish her pen pal, the dude from Sim City SNES who makes a cameo, in Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening. The goat girl sends a picture of "Christine" aka Princess Peach, and Link doesn't think to tell the guy his pen pal uh... looks slightly more hairy. Link's an asshole in his dreams, apparently.

Fixeight's uses edited photographs of folks like Mike Tyson, Sharon Stone, and an iguana for its playable characters. Mike Tyson a.k.a. Cull-Horn becomes an African president (and has what appears to be a bad toupée):

[BIL]

"Excellent People" sounds like a Donald Trump-named militia

[Rastan78]

The Excellent People are very good people. I know these people. They're very good friends of mine. They're being treated very unfairly right now. They might need to be pardoned. I don't know. We're looking into it.

This one is blurring the lines of the topic a bit bc it's video rather than still photography. It cracked me up when I first saw it as the contrast between the video footage and the blocky ps1 era models is so stark. And the kids are just so fucking stoked:

https://youtu.be/t2t0lVl_pro

Also the last kid that comes out doesn't look like a kid at all, but a tiny man. Maybe it's his business casual attire.

[BulletMagnet]

First one that came to mind was when you beat Dracula in the prologue to Symphony of the Night, then the scene freezes and it becomes a sepia photograph, which then catches fire. Doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but looks cool!

Not a game too many have played, but in Phoenotopia Awakening there are as pair of pixelly photographs in your starting house that you can look at; one is of you and your adoptive family, and explained as such, another is of folks you don't know, and never outright revealed, as the player has to piece together who they are later on in the story.

Not actually in-game, but I recall a bunch of promo art for the older King of Fighters games showed the cast posing for group photos, which I always liked, as it lent more weight to the "tournament" setting than most fighting games; sure, a bunch of wacky world-rending nonsense will inevitably show up before it's all over, but who cares, before the bell goes off you're doing your publicity shot right next to the guy you've sworn to kill.

[BIL]

^^^ KOF '98's AES boxart could easily be the front cover of some... I dunno, "Hello!" magazine equivalent for improbably beautiful, unblemished professional fighters, and I love it.

Spoiler

Even having suffered a brutal self-inflicted death in his debut game, Yashiro's quite the ladies' man! Good too see Heavy D (just out of frame on left, in the boxart crop) apparently didn't hold a grudge over the ol' stolen ticket trick, either.

+1 on SOTN's intro, classy and clever! AND masterfully parodied by yours truly. ¦3

[Rastan78]

Shinkiro is such a fuckin weirdo. I love it. But only he would draw something like that as fighting game cover art.

Here's another one of his surreal glamor shot style KOF illustrations:

Spoiler

[BIL]

Haha, Jubei looks jealous, Terry's more like "Yo! I thought he was gay for sure!" What a treasure Shinkiro is.

Forgot I had this excellent CRT shot of Nosferatu's "Continue?" screen, courtesy of andsuchisdeath!



Such a mood, this game. 80s karate badass VS 20s monster mash, via Prince of Persia Real Platform Simulator. It's one of those games I've procrastinated on forever, but have seen enough of to rank its OST and other flourishes among my favourites.

[Koa Zo]

The closing snapshot of the celebratory ground crew and pilots from Thunder Force III. Gimme the fanfiction that tells the story of all those characters.
How about the morphing portrait faces for the skyscraper hologram billboards in Stage 1 of Sapphire. Those are some turbo-grafx!
The bathing suit babe who opens the races for Super Monaco GP, and the super sweet driver portraits.
The ending congratulatory screens for Turbo Outrun - I don't know how I remembered that!

I have vague recollections of a bunch more but can't pin down what games they were. Something on Game Boy, Apple IIe ...there's gotta be some more on 8-bit systems.
The ending of Super Mario Bros 2 (US) came to mind, but then relooking at it, I wouldn't consider that a photo, even the TFIII ending is questionable. Is that a photo or just an illustration? It has the feeling of a snapshot to me at least.
This is a neat topic, something that would easily be taken for granted. Especially in the days before JPEG, digitized photorealistic images; even stylized or cartoonish, were rare and exciting to see in a game.

The Gekisha Boy games (and that one Nickelodeon GBA remake) kinda deserve a shout out.

[BulletMagnet]

I have vague recollections of a bunch more but can't pin down what games they were.

Same here; when I first saw this topic I thought "oh, I've seen in-game photos a million times across decades of playing, I'll have loads of entries"...and then managed to come up with a whole two and a half (and presumably Pokemon Snap and Fatal Frame would be too cheeky). It's one of those things you spot constantly but never take note of.

Shinkiro is such a fuckin weirdo.

Seriously - a fully clothed Mai Shiranui?! Madness!

[Rastan78]

From Twin Eagle II:


Mall hair totally to the max.



Congrats on the no miss no bomb clear, baby. I'm so proud of you.



Sounds good, cool SETA dudes. I'll see you then. Take care.

[BIL]

Ha, excellent SETA combo! Yes, that's definitely my lady's reaction when I tell her of my high-earning STG exploits! (caption: "Now will you please consider therapy?")

Speaking of long-suffering waifus (warning: rated MA-17 for XTREEM HORROR TARGEDY)



Rick: OH HELLL NAWWWWWW



Rick: Oh. Yeah, thanks!

Splatter3's got some nice digitisations goin' on throughout, though IIRC, that's the only one portrayed as a photo. There's also a rather bangin' scan of Goya's Saturn Devouring His Son, among other works, which Rick and Jennifer shoulda really thought twice about decorating with, given their uniquely horrific marital issues!

[drauch]

Brilliant stuff so far lads!

Shit, I can't believe I forgot SH3! I was thinking about all the scenes, but kept thinking nah, it's just the individuals. As a horror nut child, seeing that Goya in some history book in school, then seeing it in the game I was obsessed with too was such a delight.

[Rastan78]

Some ladies really appreciate a man who has maximum hangtime.

[BIL]

Ah shit Another HARD GAMING BELTSCROLLER TARGEDY, only this one's not the Worst ending, or even the Bad ending - it's the ONRY ending



BGM ♫ 3; (yo, Kazunaka Yamane owns)

DD2AC is unironically one of the best VG "revenge dead lover" stories. FC ver? Pfft! No DBZ Bullshit™ here, friendo. We're on Hokuto no Ken rules, ie SHE'S DEAD, JIMMY. The only miracle you're getting is an FPV psychotic break

And now, Willy's carked it too! That's right - unlike in the kinder (and superlatively great) DD Advance, Willy is lying still not from exhaustion, but because he's fucking dead. It's too bad you didn't kill him the first time around! Wait - oh fuck me, it's an incarnation of nihilistic wrath that's stolen your face and can make your heart explode. At least you can beat the shit out of it, that'll teach it to laugh - oh. It laughs at that, too, then fucks off. End result: A FEAST FOR CROWS WHERE DOGS AND VULTURES EAT

"Alone... all alone..." - Splatterhouse Part III

Moral: sparing the wicked might make you feel warm and fuzzy, but some villains need killing. This Easter, don't be a Billy. Be a Cody, and kick that screaming cripple out the window of his penthouse suite.

Legit second-best sequel story, just behind its own followup, the knowingly unhinged Misty Town Densetsu ~ Jimmy Lee Gaiden.



"Have you seen her?"

"No, sorry. Who is she?"

"My fiancee. I don't know why I think she's here. Machinegun Willy murdered her three years ago. Then I killed him and his whole gang with my bare hands and had a bad trip. Prison doc said it was probably that shovel to the head that brought it on..."

"I gotta go."

"Wait, look! She cries sometimes!"

Mayne, I love SH1-4's ambiguously analogue low-fi world. Kinda 70s, kinda 90s. Eerie photos and hand-written notes galore, and so many audio and video cassettes to *clack* and *chunk* into their players, which audibly *whirrr* to life as their A VISION OF DARK SECRETS issue forth!

[Jeneki]

This one always gets a chuckle out of me. Both dudes making their best creeper faces with their hands going who-knows-where, while her face is a desperate cry for help.

All that's missing is some bad pickup line dialog, "Hey baby, you want to know why we're called the Double Dragons?"

[BIL]

Yeah, it's pretty fucking unfortunate-looking.

"Hey baby, you want to know why we're called the Double Dragons?"

This should've been the game's tagline.