Humor in Games?

commiesubverter writes "Slate.com has an article up about humor in games. It's a decent summary of where the gaming industry has been and is going with its humor. From the article: 'Comedy is typically marginalized into background sight gags and interstitial cut scenes. Even games that generally strive to be funny incorporate humor into window dressing: In Grand Theft Auto, you can sow mayhem while listening to a mock-NPR that's broadcasting a roundtable discussion on violence.'"

Comments

Monkey Island

[Anonymous Coward]

Nothing beats the Monkey Island series!

Re:Monkey Island

[accelleron]

I particularly like the first three Monkey Island games (the ones based on the SCUMM engine).

P.S. For all the geeks with a Pocket PC (what self-respecting geek is without one?), there's ScummVM ( http://www.scummvm.org/downloads.php ), which I've been using for MI 1-3 and great old games like DOTT (Day of The Tentacle for the newbie geeks). I highly recommend it.

Misguided article

[Ignorant Aardvark]

I play games because they're fun, and not for any other reason. Recently I've been playing GTA:SA, and I can see why WCTR is window dressing - because it gets old. It only has so much content, and after that, it becomes stale and repetitive. To make a good game that is genuinely funny the whole way through would take a LOT of work - and frankly, I'm not even sure it would be possible. It's much easier to make a game fun by allowing you to run over pedestrians or what not - this stays fun for awhile. But once you've heard a joke once, it's pretty much used up.

Re:Misguided article

[WWWWolf]

Here's a whole page devoted to this... uh... art form.

No One Lives Forever

[Anonymous Coward]

I've only played the sequel and that has to be the funnies FPS I've played. Some of the conversations between the guards were priceless, and the overall goofiness was highly entertaining.

Humor in games in the past 20 years

[BrotherZeoff]

Actually I thought that a lot of the earlier games were firmly tongue in cheek.

Infocom's Zork and Enchanter series had a lot of gags. Planetfall and Hitchhiker's Guide were, too.

Bard's Tale, as the aticle mentioned. But Keef the Thief and Escape from Hell were funnier. There were quite a few funny cut scenes in one of the Duke Nukem games--I remember Duke ripped off a defeated alien's head and, uh, took care of business down its throat...

I think gaming used to be geekier and have more self-depracating and sarcastic humor. Later, console systems opened gaming up to a younger and less geeky population, and games became more fast-paced and serious.

These days, it seems that Blizzard is keeping up the humor tradition more than most other publishers.

Monkey Island is still good for a laugh but

[fussili]

... if you want an FPS which will make you laugh check out Giants: Citizen Kabuto. Absolutely hilarious plot as a bunch of Cockney Aliens end up on a planet with a magic using race of merfolk and a 300 foot tall beast.

The cutscenes are brilliant but the comedy is left out of the action with the exception of the various cockney aliens chiming in with progress reports and saying things like "Oooh my leg!".

And as for comedy being annoying upon repetition. I could play Monkey Island till Guybrush Threepwood actuall becomes a mighty pirate.

Come on people! Bob, Float, Drift? What's NOT to love about that series!?

Scripted comedy... no thanks

[ldm]

Surely this depends on what you personally find amusing? I have fond memories of Dungeon Keeper & DK2, which I thought were wickedly funny... torture, anyone? Similarly, Carmageddon & Carmageddon 2 had me laughing out loud as zombies exploded around me whilst pulling off utterly insane stunts. A whole bunch of LucasArts games (Sam & Max, Day Of The Tentacle, etc) are funny. Grand Theft Auto's gouranga bonus. Simply playing Unreal Tournament and for example, jumping at an oppenent, emptying a weapon at them, completely missing, and they pick you off with one shot... I find that funny (or maybe I suck at UT ;)). Max Payne. Countless sub/side games in countless titles.

Maybe I'm just twisted.

I don't think traditional comedy will work in games... you tend to get in-jokes in games, which is ok because those playing the games will usually get it. Jokes that are scripted and get forced at you again and again as you replay, whilst they may have been funny the first few times, they almost certainly aren't after a few dozen.

In my opinion, scripted humour can not replace gameplay touches that allow the player to make their own fun.

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Comment removed based on user account deletion

Who needs intentional humor

[mfivis]

Someone set us up the bomb
or
The President has been kidnapped by ninjas. Are you a bad enough dude to rescue the President?

My favorite in game humor... Warcraft/Starcraft

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone knows if you click the people in Warcraft/Starcraft enough, you get some funny jokes, but my favorite was in WC3.

"I'll attract the enemy with my human mating call. I'm so wasted! I'm so wasted!" -- The Dryad

Sierra's Space Quest

[DoorFrame]

Space Quest by Sierra was a funny game. You're travelling around in the crazy future universe that's kind of an odd combination of every future universe you've seen in movies and films. You'll occasionally see a Star Wars ship thrown on a trash dump or a reference to a Star Trek charachter.

The games were also very self referential. In one game (SP3) you had to save thinly veiled versions of the two guys who wrote the game. In another (SQ4) you travelled back in forth in time within the Space Quest series jumping from the original game into a game that hasn't yet been made like Space Quest 14).

My favorite line came from a moment when you asked to "get" a ladder and the game responded. "You get the ladder and put it in your pocket... Ouch."

Ah, the memories. That's some good abandonware.