Crate Expectations - Television Tropes & Idioms

"If there is a crate, I will push it."

-I Am Resident Evil

Games can be rated and compared based on the shortest amount of time it takes a player to reach the first crate, which represents the point where the developers ran out of ideas. This number is measured in seconds and is called "Start to Crate" or "StC". The smaller the StC, the worse the game.

-Erik Wolpaw, who later became head writer for Portal.

The crate is extremely common

in videogames. They are a key gameplay element, allowing players to hide from patrolling Mooks or shelter from enemy fire. They are so widely used that the term "Start-to-crate" shows up in reviews

of games, referring to the length of time between starting a game and encountering the first crate.

Crates can often be broken open to reveal a Power Up or treasure, though usually only one per crate and much smaller than the crate itself (considering the lack of additional wrappings, it's surprising that most of the items manage to stay at the center of the crate). (Why did this one food item require a crate just for it, again?) Slid or carried into place, they provide a staircase to otherwise inaccessible areas. This satisfies three of our basic monkey drives: climbing, finding things to eat and breaking things.

Sometimes the crate bites the hand that bashes it: the explosive filled crate is no friend to the crowbar ... but can be a great help when shot from afar.

Crates are often arrayed to form a maze or feature in Block Puzzles. Crates are close friends with Barrels. After hours of looking at big crates in rooms with small doors and/or not a pallet or forklift in sight, one might experience a moment of Fridge Logic.

Crates are easy to render in 3D: six flat sides that can take a flat texture without causing too much comment. This adds to their popularity with game developers.

Pallets aren't as common as one might expect, even if the scenery includes forklift trucks. The Empire must have vast armies of slaves who do nothing but manhandle crates around the place.

Finally; how often do you see wooden crates in real life?

See also Die Chair Die, Exploding Barrels.

Examples:

The Weighted Storage Cubes in Portal, used to weigh down switches. One unique cube in a late stage, the Weighted Companion Cube, has become quite possibly the best-loved inanimate object in any game ever, to the point of having a trope here named after it.
- Considering the above quote from Wolpaw, it's surprising that Portal has a fairly low StC(ube) time, given that one is needed to complete the first puzzle.
Most of the early games in the Ratchet And Clank series had dozens of crates that were usually there to be broken for bolts (read: cash). The game also featured red exploding crates, that counted down when Ratchet so much as touched them, and metal crates, which could only be broken by explosives. The third game introduced the multiplier crate, which for a short while doubled the amount of bolts Ratchet got from other crates, enemies, and the environment in general, and the Inferno crate, which turned Ratchet into an unstoppable dual-wrench-wielding engine of destruction.
Crates in the Super Smash Bros series appear to be broken and get the items inside. One must be careful though as some of them explode. Also in Brawl the crates and barrels are themed to the level and some come with wheels.
- Brawl also has a specific explosion crate that can be triggered early by fire attacks. Charizard and Bowser might want to keep their distance...
- And Captain Falcon for that matter. This troper learned the hard way that you should never falcon punch a blast box.
- Of course, these crates are perfect for characters with longer range incendiary attacks, like Link (bombs) and Zelda (Din's Fire).
- Crates are also heavy hitting items, the ones with wheels on the bottom especially.
Most villain lair types in City Of Heroes come liberally furnished with crates, the style of which inevitably matches the flavor of the lair (high-tech, warehouse, neo-Fascist base...). The default Mac Guffin when on a "find X" mission is a glowing crate most of the time, at least at the lower levels. Unlike their counterparts in many other games, though, COH crates are invulnerable to all damage and superglued to the floor.
Lampshaded in The Matrix Path of Neo during a training level in which Neo remarks: "Crates, how original"
Crash Bandicoot not only saw levels filled with crates, but destroying all of them in all levels are required to reach the full Hundred Percent Completion. In fact, crashing through crates is one of the series' defining gameplay elements, as well as the origin of the protagonist's name.
Super Mario Galaxy has crates in several levels, which can be broken up with spin attacks.
Crates are a mainstay in Command And Conquer, although they aren't very common. When moving a unit over it, the owner receives money or bonus units, or other effects such as improving the units speed, defense or level (after Tiberian Sun). However, there is also a chance for them to explode.
- Generals didn't have these "powerup" crates, but the main resource of the game were crates. The game never details what's in those crates, the content directly translates into money. It also had crates that had U.N. stamped on them that represented foreign aid supplies that gave you a nice cash boost. One of the funner GLA missions had you attacking towns being supplied by U.N. convoys to reach a certain amount of money; you're specifically told to kill the people and destroy their houses to get the supplies hidden there.
- The crates got a sci-fi redesign in Command and Conquer 3; they also made it possible to select a crate and tell what it would give you. However, Red Alert 3 not only reverted the design to a more classic look, it also made it easy to tell what type of crate it was at a simple glance, and made it so you had to specifically order a unit to grab a crate in order to grab one.
The Half Life series features several crates, mostly empty, although some have items. In Half Life 2, they can even be thrown at enemies with the Gravity Gun. One of the lesser-touted features of the HL2 engine is the materials system, meaning that broken crate bits float in water, and can often be used as bridges or platforms. HL2 crates can also hold more than one item.
- Unusually, Half-Life 2 also contains copious amounts of pallets! Although often located in rooms which would be impossible for a forklift to access...
- Half-Life's copious amounts of crates make sense, considering the game's signature weapon is a crowbar.
  - Which you use to bludgeon the crates open.
Crates in Star Fox Adventures tend to be of the "contains one food item" variety. A couple are completely empty.
Crates are parachuted into the battleground in Worms 2, presumably by the same air force responsible for the air strikes, napalm strikes, mail strikes and concrete donkeys. They give weapons or health, and explode if you shoot them.
The first level of Oni takes place in a warehosue full of crates.
Link comes across randomly located crates in The Legend Of Zelda : Twilight Princess, which he can destroy with his sword (or, in wolf form, through basic combat moves) to reveal hearts and Rupees. These crates are found all over the place; there are even crates, for no discernible in-game reason, on small islands in the middle of Lake Hylia.
- In Ocarina of Time, one crate in Kakariko contains a Cucco.
  - And then there's the boxes 'inside' Lord Jabu Jabu (the giant whale-god of the Zoras in Ocarina of Time) that you can break open to get hearts and other items.
Parodied in No One Lives Forever 2, which featured as enemies "Man-Crates", enemy Mooks who have been pressed into crate-shaped form for displeasing their boss. Their attacks consist simply of awkwardly rolling towards you and trying to bite you, while begging you to kill them.
Episode 2 Map 2 of Doom is essentially a maze made of crates.
Quake has a Time To Crate of zero since every episode begins next to a pile of crates.
- There's also a Game Mod for Quake that replaces all the player models with crates.
"It looks like Scout Flies are only in red boxes!"
The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind doesn't give you time to orient yourself before you see your first crate. The game also ButThouMusts you into interacting with a barrel just a few seconds later.
Like most games there are vases and other breakables but crates are the first you run into in God Hand. Amusing because the game is in a desert.
The standardized crates from Startopia. All the same size and shape, but their texture maps indicate their contents. Their complete interchangeability is important when it comes to animation and game mechanics, since it's about as big as a Scuzzer droid could hope to carry, and fills one slot in the standard cargo hold.
Both the Dynasty Warriors and Samurai Warriors series hide money, powerups, and weapons in crates. Which are often just standing in the middle of an open field or mountain path for no apparent reason.
From the 8-bit, 2-D era, the Chip And Dale Rescue Rangers NES game had crates as a primary means of defeating enemies (either by throwing them, or hiding inside and waiting for an enemy to trip over it). They came in two varieties— disposable wooden crates and stackable metal ones. All small enough for a chipmunk to lift.
Lampshaded in Kingdom Of Loathing, with a reference to the Start-to-Crate review system. One of the first areas encountered by a new player, Noob Cave, contains a number of adventures in which the player discovers some smashable crates:
You think to yourself "Hmm. It's probably a bad sign that I've encountered a bunch of wooden crates this early in the game..."
Stacking and smashing crates is one of the main gameplay elements in Team Buddies
Crates are a staple of the browser based game The Nethernet. They're the main tool of one of the six player classes, with various upgrades available.

Cranium Ride

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