comedy in games.

[bitesize]

seems to have been a bit of a resurgence in comedy games lately, which is most welcome. been playing Comic Jumper [nb]an XBLA title from Twisted Pixel, developers of other fantastic games The Maw and Splosion Man[/nb] recently and it's a fairly mediocre game [nb]repetitive twin stick shooter/platformer hybrid, pretty similar to the old Earthworm Jim games, another comedy classic[/nb] saved by a great comedy script - full of in-jokes and references to other games, comics, films etc. there have also been a few other comedy games out on the XBLA service (presumably PSN as well) recently, DeathSpank and Costume Quest, plus re-releases for the first 2 classic Monkey Island titles too. then there was Brutal Legend last year, new Sam & Max games, and probably some other ones that i've missed too...

what games have made you laugh?

[Buchstansangur]

Conker's Bad Fur Day was just rubbish, wasn't it? I'm sure people only found it funny because you weren't supposed to have jokes in games.

Point'n'Click games win the funny race.

[Treguard of Dunshelm]

Conker's Bad Fur Day was just rubbish, wasn't it?

No.

It was toilet humour, sure, but done well enough. That said, I was about 14 when I played it.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

LucasArts' Armed and Dangerous is ridiculously silly and great fun. A third person shooter game where the scripting and the ideas seem to have been given over to frustrated comedians. It's a product which plays as though the developers had great fun making it, which is always important.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

I had been thinking about starting a thread about this subject, so thanks for saving me the effort.

Ratchet and Clank 3 (and I presume the earlier ones too) was a funny one. Captain Quark had some lines that were worthy of Zapp Branigan himself and the cut scenes were really well animated and shot.

If humour has indeed made a resurgence in games, I wonder if its absence was partly due to technical limitations. Low poly counts and such making for inexpressive characters. Also, there seemed to be several years where really bad voice acting was the norm.

[eluc55]

Conkers Bad fur day was at times utterly brilliant; and despite its reputation, certainly not all toilet humour and film parodies. It was certainly crude, and sweary... but it was also very clever, and full of jokes about the cliches of gaming itself. Conker would stop the game, talk to the designers, make referance to lazy level design, and it frequently parodied the music/characters/dialogue of computer games. In one memorable scene, you have to guide a man with a bomb attached to his back round to a wall where you can kill him, and every time you fail, you have to fetch him again. The character always reintroduces himself with the same "pre-scripted" speech, but with each subsequent mistake, conker gets more impatient, interrupting, pre-empting him, and acknowleding how absurd the convention is. 

More than any other game I've ever played, it showed total contempt for the tradions of platformers, and gaming in general - and while it wasn't perfect by any means; the camera was truly awful at times  - it's wrong to assume the game wasn't without wit or imagination, since it was packed with both. 

Plus any game features pacifist "tickly" beas can't be a bad thing.

EDIT: it also has one of the best endings I've ever seen.

[madhair60]

I've never laughed at a joke in a video game - driving off the sandcastle 300 times in Micro Machines V3 with 3 mates, yes, but the jokes are just never funny to me.  I think it's a pacing issue.

I love Monkey Island, but it's not funny to me.  Endearing and interesting, but never humourous.

_{Also Psychonauts is shit and Tim Schafer's a prick, bring it on motherfucks}

[bitesize]

If humour has indeed made a resurgence in games, I wonder if its absence was partly due to technical limitations. Low poly counts and such making for inexpressive characters. Also, there seemed to be several years where really bad voice acting was the norm.

could be... i guess 'back in the day' it was mostly about point + clicks and text adventures [nb]completely forgot about text adventures before! HHGTTG was amazing...[/nb]where all the humour was text-based, but now you got full on voice acting and believable people.

never really played much of Bad Fur Day, despite being a huge Rare fan - just didn't appeal, i guess i assumed it was all toilet humour but it sounds like it might be a bit better than that... they did a re-release not so long ago didn't they? can't remember if it was for 360, or back to original XBox.

[Treguard of Dunshelm]

I found Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon hilariously surreal, and a decent though flawed 3D platformer. The insane plot (stop the bad guys turning Japan into a giant musical!), weird out of place canned laughter and general sense of anarchy make it very memorable.

Oh, and the songs! Jesus:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FchGIDPFANM

[madhair60]

I found Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon hilariously surreal, and a decent though flawed 3D platformer. The insane plot (stop the bad guys turning Japan into a giant musical!), weird out of place canned laughter and general sense of anarchy make it very memorable.

GANBARE!  SON GANBARE!

JAAAAMES DEEEEEAN

PURASIMAAAAAAA

etc.

Game is brilliant.

[Buchstansangur]

Here is the funniest thing that ever happened in a game, for me:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvbtcCpWf-w

Physical comedy in a game!

[Slaaaaabs]

The Fable games have some wonderful little quips from villagers, and despite the bigger names getting the attention it is the work of Simon Greenall that really gives the game a lot of character in my opinion. I believe Mark Heap is doing some voices for the third game.

[chand]

Ratchet and Clank 3 (and I presume the earlier ones too) was a funny one. Captain Quark had some lines that were worthy of Zapp Branigan himself and the cut scenes were really well animated and shot.

Always liked Qwark's opera in Secret Agent Clank on the PSP:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qB5O0pxUZyE

[Mister Six]

Here is the funniest thing that ever happened in a game, for me:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvbtcCpWf-w

Physical comedy in a game!

Ha! Brilliant. I do wish they'd used the voice of Sam from the first game, though.

[El Unicornio, mang]

Definitely the Monkey Island games for me, and obviously the GTA series (Vice City especially)

[waste of chops]

I've laughed out loud many, many times while playing the Phoenix Wright games.

Oh, and Wizkid.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

Take a mediocre game. Inject humour. Bang. Insta-sex. Memorable title people will go on about for years.

Or you could just make another arcade racer I suppose.

[bitesize]

it's a good point, are any comedy games really actually good games? like if you removed the comedy, would you still play em?

i love Sam & Max games, but really the gameplay comes down to 'click on everything you can, listen to the funny dialogue'. are there any comedy games that stand up as games in their own right?

[madhair60]

Take a mediocre game. Inject humour. Bang. Insta-sex. Memorable title people will go on about for years.

QED Grim Fandango, Psychonauts, Brutal Legend.

Not Full Throttle, that was good.

[Buchstansangur]

i love Sam & Max games, but really the gameplay comes down to 'click on everything you can, listen to the funny dialogue'. are there any comedy games that stand up as games in their own right?

Beneath a Steel Sky and The Longest Journey are point'n'click adventure games with much less emphasis on humour, and many people regard them as classics.

[Phil_A]

QED Grim Fandango, Psychonauts, Brutal Legend.

Not Full Throttle, that was good.

Grim Fandango is a mediocre comedy game? You're crazy, dude.

[Pedro_Bear]

The development of Lords and Ladies in Max Payne 2?

The Deb of Night in Vampire The Masquerade Bloodlines, with the nutty conspiracy theorist finally working out what was going on. The tv broadcaster who kept breaking the fourth wall was neat, too. They're both progressions of GTA.

And typing of GTA... hahaha... there's this...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CiYhG_AkKLU

... which personal opinions[nb]The good news for haters is that they can mod GTA and gun down a whole street's worth of Gervais, should they be so inclined.[/nb] about Gervais aside, I think is a really good thing for comedy in computer games, and hopefully there will be more comedy clubs to visit now in other titles.

[Famous Mortimer]

The Infocom text adventures from back in the olden days - "Hitch-Hiker's Guide...", "Nord and Bert Couldn't Make Head Or Tail Of It", "Leather Goddesses of Phobos", "Bureaucracy"...good times.

[Mister Six]

... which personal opinions[nb]The good news for haters is that they can mod GTA and gun down a whole street's worth of Gervais, should they be so inclined.[/nb] about Gervais aside, I think is a really good thing for comedy in computer games, and hopefully there will be more comedy clubs to visit now in other titles.

It's a good idea poorly executed. Gervais's material isn't strong enough and the other performers rely too much on their personality, which doesn't translate well to CGI. They should've got Emo Philips and other wordplay-using comedians in.

[glitch]

How about comedic characters in otherwise po-faced video games? HK47 in KotOR would surely win that one. Dragon Age's Shale is good but a poor clone.

[madhair60]

Grim Fandango is a mediocre comedy game? You're crazy, dude.

Unless there's a version with controls that actually function.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

It's a good idea poorly executed. Gervais's material isn't strong enough and the other performers rely too much on their personality, which doesn't translate well to CGI. They should've got Emo Philips and other wordplay-using comedians in.

Regardless of the comedian, the thing that strikes me about that is that it breaks the flow of the game. You can listen to the radio stations while you're doing other stuff, but with this you'd be just as well pausing the game and watching a DVD of the comedian.

Unless I'm wrong about it. I haven't got that far, because I'm rubbish at it.

[thehungerartist]

I found the original Grand Theft Auto a very funny game.  The series' strut towards realism meant comedy was an inevitable casualty (though each of the 3D sequels do have their moments, and you could never accuse Rockstar of abandoning the laughs completely). It struck me, however, in GTA IV that the lauded Gervais and Katt Williams turns were shoehorned in - along with stuff like 'The Men's Room' - as blatant relief from the game's supposed grittiness.  Too obvious for me.

Duke Nukem 3D was broad enough to appeal to my lowbrow sensibilities and Carmageddon had plenty of funny moments: the replays were gold.  Despite the 'murder sim' tag that superb game was made and played totally for laughs.

[hpmons]

Beneath a Steel Sky and The Longest Journey are point'n'click adventure games with much less emphasis on humour, and many people regard them as classics.

Huh? Sure, they focus on the plot more than Monkey Island etc, but they both have plenty of humour.

[Buchstansangur]

It's almost as if they have much less emphasis on humour.

They're not defined by their comedy. It was an answer to somebody's question about whether the games would still be fun if clicking every item wasn't met with a comedy line.