What are barrels made of?

[Gez]

An enterprising soul is free to research release dates for all the examples listed here and see if any predates Doom...

[Chilly Willy]

GreyGhost said:
They're made of 100% recycled steel - from car wrecking yards.

As we all know from watching too many action movies, when you drive a car over a cliff thare's a high probability it'll explode before impact,

FTFY. From Hollywood's point of view, the tires leaving the ground are what causes the car to explode. :D

which as we all know from watching too many episodes of MythBusters has nothing to do with the fuel tank. That leaves the steel chassis as the prime suspect - or a fortuitous combination of magnesium alloy from the wheels, powdered aluminium in the paint and a generous quantity of ferric oxide creating an impromptu thermite bomb.

It's clearly the tires spinning uncontrollably once they leave the ground that sparks the explosion! ;)

[Hex_Moon]

Damn good deduction skills o.o

Anyhow, maybe they could have hidden remote C4 in a gas tank, to add the effect to a movie? I know at least ONE person might have had this idea, but could it not have been done? -OR would the Union Aerospace Corporation really just leave exploding toxins lying around without notice?

[fraggle]

I suspect that barrels explode when you shoot them because it makes the same kind of "intuitive sense" as lamp posts falling over when you drive into them in GTA, or padlocks breaking when you hit them with a crowbar in Half-Life.

[Gez]

Or crates exploding into a dozen wooden fragments that then slowly melt (in Deus Ex and a lot of other games).