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Leisure Suit Larry's Maker On Wedgies v. Bullets
simoniker writes "Al Lowe, the creator of lounge lizard Leisure Suit Larry, has been talking about his comeback game with new developer iBase Studios, Sam Suede, asking why games nowadays are too violent, and revealing of his new title: "there's going to be guards, but instead of slitting their throats, you'll give them a wedgie." He also asks: 'Let me put this way, the shelf is full of racing games and shooters, RPGs and action games. Where are the comedies?' Well, where are they?"
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
Last genuinely funny games I played were the Monkey Island series of games. So this guy is certainly speaking a lot of truth.
Leisure Suit Larry games were never funny, mildly titilating if you're a 13 year old maybe, but funny? No. So I'm not sure how qualified he is to talk about making funny games.
Does someone need a clue? Pleae mod back up.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
I think many nerds will think this game is offensive. I mean, they are the main victims of wedgies...
Seems like blatently dangerous and illegal activity is endorsed by the industry (shooting people; blowing things up; etc) - while perfectly legal stuff (wasn't the sex in the GTA mod consentual?) ends up being shunned and forbidden.
What kind of lesson is that?
If I were making the rules; game rating should he based on the illegality of the activities in the game -- if there's murder or similar - keep it away from my kids. If it's minor misdemeanors (like this new game sounds like) that's better.
Funny Games
Metal Arms - Glitch in the System
Conker's Bad Fur Day
The Bard's Tale (PS2, XBox, PC)
Metal Gear 3 - Snake Eater (very comical commentary, involving a box)
These are just off the top of my head.
This sig isn't original enough, it's time to come up with something witty...
Comedy is hard.
You are so boring that when I see you my feet go to sleep.
Comedy is hard,
blowing shit up is (relatively) easy.
I remmeber play Lesiure Suit Larry when I was in high school, it's an awesome game (for the time)
plantronics headset
Was alt+x in the original game.
You better watch out, there may be dogs about . .
A joke is only really funny the first couple times you hear it, but often killing the enemy gets even more fun the more times you do it. So naturally they make the games you'll play over and over.
I remember playing LSL on my Apple//c many years ago. While it was not exactly a wholesome game I'd give to my kids, it is a stark contrast to modern day, Grand Theft Auto's Hot Coffee. LSL was almost a clean dirty.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
All your iBase are belong to us, Al Lowe!!!
Missing option: tourists. I like your sig though :c)
All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.
The whole "quest to get laid" was fantastic, and the censored bar moving up and down was pretty damn clever.
Sure, some of the jokes were a bit hacky, but all in all I thought the game was clever and the whole meta-commentary ("it's hard to find the right girl, and when you do she steals all your money") was pretty clever as well.
You better watch out, there may be dogs about . .
...but maybe that says more about me than it does about the game...
Corporate Jenga: You take a blockhead from the bottom and you put him on top...
If the definition of "comedy" being used is "includes wedgies", I think I'd rather not have any "comedy games", thanks.
Now, a game that aimed at a grown-up audience and had a sophisticated sense of humor, that I could get into. But "sophisticated" is not the first word that jumps to mind when I think of Lowe's portfolio, so that's probably too much to hope for.
Read my blog.
The LSL games were big hits if they sold 20,000 units. Games today have to sell millions to be considered sucessful. Targetting the larger market means they aim for the lowest common denominator.
Those Sierra adventure games were and still are my favourite games.
In *my* idea of a cool James Bond game, you would be faced with all the same sorts of adventure-game intrigue and scenarios that you would expect. However, as the player, you had a choice of solutions to each problem, and you would select from different famous portrayals of James Bond to use them. You could pick any Bond actor you wanted for any problem, but the methods used would be quite different depending on that choice.
Wine and dine and charm the lady? Of course, everyone would pick Sean Connery's Bond for that one. But maybe you could detonate the truck as you jumped over it with a motorcycle, so switch to the action/adventure Timothy Dalton. If you could just gain computer access through the use of a one-liner retort that's crisper than a tux and dryer than a martini, well, Pierce Brosnan seems more adept at that sort of thing. And if you want to see how clumsy buffoonery and cheap cable-crane stunts can serve Her Magesty's international showdowns, we all know that's the only way Roger Moore won't disappoint.
[
The first person that makes a game geared toward the middle school crowd that involves roaming around the school (of course, the usual stereotypes involved) and doing stuff like that to teachers,students, and staff members will make a fortune.
Duke Nuk'em Forever
Destroy All Humans, violent? yes, but still funny.
Spyder
I think comedy games lost ground partly due to the development of those trigger-happy genres, which are in turn becoming more complex and diverse to survive (well, some FPS/action games are, others are still bang-bang run-run festivals.) It seems to be about the same as traditional Adventure games, look at what happened to the classics like King's Quest; they tried a 3rd-person hack-and-slash and it flopped. Maybe they need to do what the game in the article is doing, well, at least the idea (wedgies just aren't hip anymore, though maybe more subtle humor will round it out.)
There is an interesting point in the article, which I never considered since I never really played the Leisure Suit games, but he says something about using hints of sex as a way of getting people to try the game. Thinking about it, at least there was a believeable expectation for something like that in the game, at least more than most game advertising these days (box cover + sexy woman + car = never appears in the game.)
The reason why there are no comedy games on the shelf is simple, IMHO. It's because they offer 0 replay value. When was the last time you picked up Leisure Suit Larry for an additional play-through, or any other game that does its best to be funny? Now, when was the last time you decided to go through the Halo campaign again, on another difficulty level perhaps? Granted, Monkey Island has a lot of replayability - but that's because it's such a superbly made action adventure game that it's impossible not to enjoy it another time. But it's not for the humor. The nature of comedy is such that it gets old quickly, and innovation is everything. Racing games and FPS's don't suffer from these problems.
I'll tell you where. In your pants! It's a fucking joke down there!
Qualitas edurus commercium, nullus penitus net rimor, nullus deus beneficium
Where are the new Sam'n'Max games?
Full Throttle?
Maniac Mansion/Day of the Tentacle?
Monkey Island?
Lucas isn't good for much any more, but he's got this IP in his vault and isn't doing a fucking thing with it. Instead he's producing uber-violent, xenophobic, pornomythic rubbish for the big screen and grubbing for tie-ins.
I know they're aimed at kids, but I thought the Spy Fox series by Humongous Entertainment was very funny, nice spoof on spy movies. "A spy without gadgets is like a shopping cart without a broken wheel," or words to that effect.
I agree about Leisure suit Larry not being funny.
... but these games came out after I totally stopped playing computer games as I was not able to control it and computer games had become an addiction to me, uqm was a fall back that showed me that I am still not able to control this addiction)
Sure as a 13 year old kid I also found the Leisure suit Larry series interesting, but it sure wasn't the humor that attracted me back then.
Now I was thinking Day of the Tentacle and The Ur-Quan Masters (aka. Star Control 2) was never than the Monkey Island games, but I guess that is because I never played the never version of the Monkey Island series (which is just sad actually
Crap man... do you have any grasp at all of the English language? Can someone translate the blurb into English for us non-Timothy speakers?
Please please please, no canned laughter. BH
In case if you still didn't get it, it's your job to keep that stuff away from your kid. And now stop getting in my way of blowing shit up.
I think he is saying that the ratings should be this way. And they probably should. Young children may not know right from wrong, and parents sometimes buy titles based on the age rating (as wrong as it often is these days). Of course, they might surprise me with their knowledge of right and wrong, as children often do.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
Talk about a great game. I got more laughs from the manual than I got from most comedy games! The manual can be found here: http://www.allowe.com/FPFP/manual.pdf. The picture of the guy with rabies is one of my favorites.
PREGNANCY
A temporary, usually nonfatal condition involving a parasitic embryo, a host female, and a disinterested third party (usually a father). The embryo attaches itself to the inside of the females' uterus and fees off of her blood and other bodily fluids, growing very rapidly, much like a tapeworm, only rounder. Fortunately, the parasite usually detaches itself within 8-9 months, after which its parasitic tendencies become largely financial in nature.
In the Megazeux GCS community, comedy games are a pretty big deal. Not only are they easy to make, they're also deeply satisfying for players of all genres and fandoms. This is because no matter what kind of game you prefer to play - FPS, RPG, RTS - there's one genre everyone can relate to - WTF.
Case in point: Inmate 2993's 'Cans' series - nearing its tenth birthday - is one of the most popular and widely known games to ever be made for Megazeux. These games, especially 'Cans' and 'Cans Episode One: Special Edition' are considered must-haves, alongside the other classics of Megazeux such as Adlo - an exceptionally well done platformer - and Bernard the Bard - an RPG considered to be the 'best game of all of Megazeux'. Guess what genre the 'Cans' series falls into?
Comedy.
Comedy games don't get much attention these days outside of their little niche. That's because they rarely feature the adrenaline-pumping action and pretty colors that are required to achieve any semblance of popularity in today's gamer culture, and forget getting the game published and sold in stores without a big name like 'Leisure Suit Larry' behind it. That doesn't mean comedy gaming is irrelevant, it's just underrated. I personally like a game I can both enjoy playing and get a good laugh out of, and if spending time with the Megazeux community has taught me anything, it's that I'm hardly alone.
There's also a solid video interview with Al Lowe over at OpenAlpha with one of the girls from Call For Help with Leo Laporte.
Anyone remember Planetfall? Or Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy? Hilarous through-and-through, but many other of Infocom's interactive fiction games had particularly funny moments. Of course, interactive fiction lends itself to humor more than most types of games.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Except for you: -1, Flamebait
Arguing about vi versus Emacs is like arguing whether it's better to make fire by rubbing sticks or banging rocks.
The little price tags attached to the same damn rehash of racing games, shooters, RPGs and action games.
It makes me laugh to think that studios can command such money for re-heated ideas....
*** Sigs are a stupid waste of bandwidth.
...Blue Skies in Games! :)
That why books stores never have comedy....
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Most of the enemies in SIN Episodes die in extremely funny ways, yelling stuff like: Aargh my legs! or: it burns, it burns!
If you score a headshot in GTA vice city the head disappears and the victim walks on squirting blood, hilarious!
In Carmagueddon you can chase grannys and score "style" bonuses if you made nice streaks of blood on the tarmac very inventive!
In Half Life 2 you can learn about physics by playing around with a sawn trough corpse hanging from a tree; both fun and educational!
The only comedy video game I would play is one in which you could repeatedly kill Kathy Griffin in thousands of ways.
"Something, perhaps this very sentence, tells you it would be very dangerous to go left or right".
I am not a crackpot.
Comedy is incredibly difficult to pull off well. Even if you do manage to pull it off well, comedy is so subjective that you'll doubtless leave some people stone-faced even while others are howling with laughter. The gentle humour in the Monkey Island series is probably the best that the gaming genre can hope for. Frankly, I'd like to see more along that line, especially since it would be a shot in the arm for adventure games.
P.P.S. I'm doing Science and I'm still alive.
Most of the posts suggest comedy is rare in computer/video games because 1) it's hard and 2) it doesn't sell as well.
I suggest that the impossibility of translating comedy into different languages might be the largest obstacle of all. In this era of computer gaming, a game needs to sell in more than one country in order to be successful, and it takes more than basic proficiency in a language to really appreciate comedy.
Coffee is my drug of choice.
Like how he'd get sick and turn colors (eventually plaid) and die if you slept with the hooker and didn't use a rubber. That was funny.
Not only was this scene funny, but playing as a 13-year-old it really helped drive home the point that condom use was a good idea.
I'm not saying it is the duty of video games to teach sex ed, nor am I one of those "video games are the root of child violence" people, however, I certainly see value in this sort of thing. Speaking for myself, I have learned stuff from all sorts of goofy sources, and more often than not, entirely accidentally.
barack to the future?
Why just go for one or the other when you can have both! I haven't played Postal2, but Postal was pretty darn funny
Humour is subjective, however selling sex, violence and high speed racing to men is a bit snow to eskimos.
http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/
It is Libre not gratis, but it is there all the same.
Are you a troll, or an idiot? Free Speech means the government is not allowed to censor you. It doesn't mean someone has to give you a soapbox.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Dragon's Lair 3D - the recent release, was funny.
Now I want a version of "Space Ace" to play on my PC!
How many escape pods are there? "NONE,SIR!" You counted them? "TWICE, SIR!"
You are forced to fight a bull and chasing you around the arena is thirsty work. Your inventory contains a bottle of laxative. Ah yes but the really fun part was the sound. In an era when sound was rare hearing that gurgling sound was hilarious.
Sure it ain't sophisticated and proper humor and all but Monty Python never minded some underwear humor and it is a lot better then shooting peoples faces.
By all means bring the funny adventure back. Hell any adventure. They ain't dead yet.
But I guess comedy is not just the hardest genre in movies, books and stage.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
a question in the link you gave was "What TV show featured an appearance by Richard Nixon?" but there was no answer?do you know what it was?
Graphic adventure games were replaced by first person shooters because first person shooters were the summer blockbuster movies of the game universe. They don't need a compelling story, just a lot of explosions and special effects.
The other day I challenged my nephews to play and finish the old Monkey Island games. They have Game Cube and Playstation 2 consoles at home.
They got hooked immediately. 15 year old games with outdated VGA graphics got the attention of my nephews. They have now moved on to the Quest for Glory series. (Hooray for dosbox and scummvm)
There needs to be a graphic adventure game revival. The games don't need to be the summer blockbusters of the game industry. They will make enough money just by filling a gap that exists in the computer game section.
Eric the Unready.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Psychonauts just came out in the last year or so and it's one of the funniest games I've ever played.
Simpsons Hit and Run would also presumably be considered a comedy game.
Now just allow the user to substitute Austin Powers and things will be set. Maybe even offer it as a bonus after the game has been completed once or twice.
This post is encrypted twice with ROT-13. Documenting or attempting to crack this encryption is illegal.
Hello!
please try out our comedy game... Zanthor.
http://www.imitationpickles.org/pyweek2
Zanthor likes flowers and killing.
You need python, and pygame to play it. Which are available on most distros. It works on windows and macs too.
Here are just a few off the top of my head: /silly and /dance emotes.
The race on the salt flats ala Star wars episode one.
Goblin sales guy that squeals "I got what you need!" Have to hear it to really know what I'm talking about.
The dwarven shooting range.
Gnomish Battle chicken.
Many of the
In general I think Blizzard has always had a good sense of humor. Remember the Cow Level in Diablo II? Comedy gold right there.
Zug Zug
Planned comedy is very hard to pull off unless you've already got a lot of skill in setting up jokes and comedic timing. Unfortunately, those aren't skills people acquire in the normal day-to-day of game development. You really need someone who developed their comedic skills on their own and also loves and understands games.
Can you imagine, with all the rushed art and programming that goes on in game development, how well humor would fare? Not well. You may have a joke that works well with the development team for some reason, but just completely falls flat on the audience. In the end, the publisher is going to want the game done and not really worry about whether it's funny or not.
The best example of a funny game recently is Psychonauts, by Double-fine. The dialog in that game was from Tim Schafer (Day of the Tentacle, Full Throttle) and Erik Wolpaw (from Old Man Murray - http://www.oldmanmurray.com./ The game was often delayed and was even cut from Microsoft's lineup because Schafer was hard to work with. It was eventually released by Majesco and despite lot's of great reviews, it wasn't exactly a smash hit. The humor is top-notch, but in the end, if people don't like the game and it doesn't have a huge publisher backing it, it's not going to sell.
Funniest software i've played with latley has to be Micro$oft Excell. Damn limits.
An Adventurer is You!
Perhaps not what you're thinking of, but Kingdom of Loathing is a hilarious (and free) web-based game. If you haven't tried it before you really should.
Another one with funny bits is Nethack, of course.
I agree, though, that there should be more funny games. I miss the heyday of the Lucasarts comedic point-and-clicks. Day of the Tentacle was always my favorite.
-David
Like everyone else, I only discovered this game long after its re-release into the bargain bins. I didn't know it had a cult following, but I understand why - such a carefully constructed, subtle, humourous piece of work. If you like atmosphere and mystery, this game is a lot of fun. Go buy it for $5 or whatever it's going for these days, and be a travel agent in the Land of the Dead!
And yet, games are produced so quickly, they can't really expect you to replay them a dozen times. They keep making the graphics nicer, the gameplay smoother, etc., with new releases. Why wouldn't it apply to humor, as well?
Besides, he's talking about slapstick humor here -- a joke gets old when told three times, but a wedgie is just as funny the third time.
The first time I played GTA: Vice City i laughed my ass off at all the crazy things you could do. In San Andreas I liked to see how big of a car pile-up I could cause on the freeway, for example. I thought that was pretty funny. Although i would hesitate to call GTA an inherently funny game. Still, I think it is important to consider what makes a game funny. Is it jokes told by NPCs? Is it silly plot lines? Or is it just allowing the player to make their own fun if they want?
-matthew
"THERE IS NO JUSTICE, THERE IS ONLY ME." -Death
Ooops. You are correct.
you're trying to prove him, aren't you?!
> use breath spray
"It's about time!"
Yeah, humor is a matter of ... taste!
I hope I didn't brain my damage.
Where are the comedies?!?!?! The thankless task of keeping the world safe by killing hundreds, if not thousands, of vicious mutants, evil humans, and bloodsucking vampire alien face-eaters is not to be taken lightly. It requires a strong stomach, a lightning-fast twitchy trigger finger, and a titanium-clad sphincter. This is no place for comedy, even virtual comedy. You can thank your lucky stars that there are at least a few warriers who are willing to sacrifice numerous hours of time, at the cost of their very hemmorhoids, to repel wave after wave of invaders.
The Russians have won. They have made the world a cesspool of distrust, greed, fear and hate.
Our treatment of sex is what causes problems.
...and this is where you missed the boat. What we need to accept, in reality, is that being 1) willing and 2) able does not make you 3) ready.
This much is true.
You know what would reduce the instance of teen pregnancy? Accepting (teen) sex as natural and unavoidable, and educating teens on the use of contraceptives. If we try to hide sex from teens, they'll be exceptionally eager to have it.
And if we want people to use condoms, we should teach girls how to put them on for guys. Guys don't have a stake in the matter; they don't get pregnant. Therefore the decision should not be left to them.
That is fact.
Birth control is a boon for mature, ready couples who would prefer not to have a child at the moment but could handle it if they did. It shouldn't be a license to have sex at whatever age you're physically able.
And then you claim that girls should be responsible for condoms, to the point of forcibly wrapping their partner's meat? (At least, that's how it reads...) Give. Me. A. Break. If a guy isn't mature enough to protect both himself and his partner, he shouldn't be having sex. Period.
It's called "doing the right thing," and "being responsible". I realize in America we're accustomed to doing whatever the hell we want, consequences and preparedness be damned, but we're talking about human lives. If all parents were to heed your advice, not only would we be seeing an influx of teenage pregnancies, we would be training our young men that it's ok to be irresponsible because someone else will look out for their safety.
Please, please re-think your position here. If not for my kids, then for yours.
Sony ha
When you play through an adventure game, you generally don't play it over and over again. You try to progress through it in a linear fashion, like reading a book. So the humor is fine as long as it's good at least once.
Some of the 3D shooters did manage to pull off comedy pretty well too, IMHO, but they suffer from being too repetitive. At best, you get to the parts that were funny a couple times, and you get kicks out of showing your friends.
Doom one, and two had comedy.
I liked the secret wolf level. The john romeros head on a stick with his voice playing backwards.
The bunny rabbit in the ending scene.
Ah. Gore and comedy together. Doom was like a bad horror movie that takes the piss.
Don't forget No One Lives Forever, where the object is mostly to sneak around, since you're a spy, or dispose of the baddies quietly. It's worth it to sneak around too- the guards in various places have conversations to alert you to their presence and such. The conversations are hilarious.
Two of them inside one of the "evil hideous" discuss how one's brother has gone into the business of kitchen remodelling, and the other asks for the brother's number as his wife has been nagging him to have something done about theirs.
Another trio of baddies earlier in the game wax philosophic about how "there just aren't any truly evil organizations anymore", and of course, at some point, there's a discussion involving how they don't get any respect. "Do this, shoot that. I tell you..."
It was great. In almost any other game, you just shoot the guards and bad guys. But in NOLF, you actually kinda feel for them. They're just regular Joes, wondering about which HMO plan to sign up for, renovating their house, not really liking their job, etc. Well, except that they have guns and they'll kill you if they see you.
I know there's a sequel out..I hope it's as good as the first one.
Please help metamoderate.
i learned so much trivia memorizing correct answers
http://www.livejournal.com/users/cixel
and extremely embarassingly cheezy now. like alot of 80s movies that didnt age well and you need to drink while watching them to avoid crawling out of your skin and running screaming from the room.
http://www.livejournal.com/users/cixel
can't be played any longer because the pace of life is so extremely accelerated there isnt time to do anything.
http://www.livejournal.com/users/cixel
could never be interested in an adventure style game. those only appeal to geeks because it the adventure style commandlines were like "MSDOS the videogame!"
the masses simply dont have the attention spans longer than a goldfish to support that level of concentration.
http://www.livejournal.com/users/cixel
towards more immigrants in the US population. I've noticed alot of them like humor i find to be infantile and stupid but they lap it up. It doesnt mean theyre stupid, maybe it has to do with a poorer grasp of western culture or the english language. I'm not really sure. I do see more and more people going to movies and saying theyre just looking to be entertained, they dont want anything that will make them think.
http://www.livejournal.com/users/cixel
I hate the religious/right wing/conservative mindset that to be safe from sex (as if it's a dangerous thing), one must know as little as possible about it.
It's ridiculous. As studies and stats, and quite frankly, common sense show: Teach them young, teach them well and good things will come.
Having your kids know about sex and the other sex, know about the feelings, the meanings, the consequences etc. young can make a huge difference.
I know that in my life myself and my brother knew about sex etc. a lot earlier than some, and that when, say, visiting a museum and seeing artifacts with phallic symbols, we found them interesting, while other kids laughed and giggled away at them.
I'll just ensure my family has a healthy non-closeted understanding of sexuality and other people can handle themselves.
There's an underlying assumption at work here that games that are comical are inherently non-violent. When asked how his new title, Sam Suede, will stack up against the "Grand Theft Autos" of the world, Lowe comments:
I think the easiest comparison would be that where action games today have violence as their currency, we have humor. So picture every place that you would shoot somebody or slice somebody open or something else. Instead, put in a laugh there. That's what we're going to do. So there's going to be guards, but instead of slitting their throats, you'll give them a wedgie. And instead of conversations with long cutscenes, we'll have humorous dialogue with conversation trees, which may be a carryover from the old adventure games and RPGs.
The fact is, humor is not mutually exclusive from violence. Anyone who has played the latest Tony Hawk Underground titles will note that while the story mode is often amusing and is driven by humor, there are still elements of violence at play. Granted - we're not talking about whipping out a Desert Eagle and carving a cranial canoe into the heads of opposing skaters, but mild physical violence and humiliation of opposing characters are certainly depicted in the story mode narrative. This is more or less what Lowe is talking about doing with his latest title - creating a compelling and funny action game with minimal violence.
But let's back up a second and talk about that "violence as currency" idea that Lowe establishes, and lets also look at Gamasutra's point of comparison - Grand Theft Auto.
The Grand Theft Auto series is arguably one of the most violent depictions of reality ever brought to gamers' living rooms. While there are other games that celebrate gratuitious violence in great detail (like Mortal Kombat), GTA celebrates gratuitous violence in situations of far greater magnitude (ie. killing 50 cops in 5 minutes will get you "Respect" from the locals, whereas the MK series rewards you for one intensely gross kill). GTA also presents a far more real world setting for most gamers than most violent games on the market (sorry kids, but most of you playing Medal of Honor/Halo/Unreal/Cool FPS of the week are not marines living in a combat zone). The setting is a city designed with realism in mind. While the actions of characters within the game's narrative may not appear realistic, San Andreas, Liberty City, Los Santos, etc. look very much like the urban and suburban areas of the U.S. they are intended to represent. The game depicts realistic violence at a high order of magnitude in realistic settings and places players in the role of the anti-hero who kills with reckless abandon and without reason. GTA continues to be a hot seller and have great replay value not just because of its story mode, but also because anyone can fire it up and run off on an instantly gratifying rampage on a whim. For comparison's sake, I'll offer up any of the "Free Skate" options available in the Tony Hawk series as a game of the "non-violent" variety that offers the same ability for instantly gratifying non-goal-driven gameplay.
So why are we not all in an uproar clamoring for the heads of the folks at Rockstar? (Yes, there are some people who have spoken out against GTA, but they have been largely ineffectual and often ill-supported or intentioned.)
BECAUSE IT'S FUNNY.
Don't get me wrong - I'm not saying that the content within any of the GTA games is appropriate for the average 8 year old. I'm also not saying that GTA in any way breaks us away from damaging societal norms pertaining to race/class/gender/etc. But face it - the first time you put down the controller to look up the "All weapons" cheat and heard a "bag lady" walking by your character exclaim, "You ain't gettin' none of my welfare check!" you laughed. When you heard the ads on the radio or the cheesy 80's station's soundtrack, you laughed. GTA goes out of its way to be downright hilarious and its evident in the
I can't believe you think theres no comedy in a FPS.
I think it't hilarious when a group sticks close together in QuakeIII or Urban Terror and I drop a 'nade or two in their pockets.
Smoking the opponents spawn before showering fire into it is loads more fun than a half cup of lime jello in your shorts,as well.
Perhaps it's just perspective on what is comedy.
It't not whether the glass is half full or empty,its whether it has sufficient urine content before the chump downs it.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
Granted, its a niche of a niche, but seriously. I read another Discworld book (man he cranks them out) yesterday, was transported into the realm of nostalgia, and nearly tracked down a mud client so that I could play the Discworld MUD... this is during a scheduled WoW raid, mind you. I saw my friends playing with a Discworld adventure game once and it seemed to have the hilarity down right... if they could make an RPG or something I'd buy it in a second.
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
Sure, non-violence may be a good thing and all, but... wedgies instead of bullets?
Boom, GROINSHOT!
Tell me something...it's still "We, the people"... right?
That would be a great game to update.
Cheers
Who is this delectable creature with an insatiable love of the dead?
The wedgie machine!
Why?
Well, one of them was asking what the engine hoist did. I didn't have an engine to hoist right then, so I had him step up to it. I quickly hooked it up and hoisted away...
BVD's.... A-OkaaaaaAAAAAAYYYYYYAAAAAAAAAA!!!
But all was not lost...
It was an empirical study to prove once and for all that you could NOT stretch underwear far enough to go from your rear end over your head...
No comedy in games? Go for the eyes, Boo, go for the eyes!
I play a lot of Unreal Tournament. It has taught me to kill everyone who is a different color than me and my friends. I might end up in jail if I ever meet a blue person ;)
Sometimes at night I imagine the darkness is filled with horrible things with too many teeth, like Julia Roberts.
Here's my idea of comedy in a video game:
/that/ is funny! :)
Bashing some unaware clod in the back of the head with the butt of my MP44!
Now
Steve
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
I mean in a form that is playable on current GHz machines?
Alternatively, which emulator/vm would you recommend?