Games that devolved into absurdity.

[Tallim]

http://twinbeardstudios.com/frog-fractions

Pretty sure i win.

Frog Fractions is a work of unmitigated genius. It does not devolve into absurdity, it rises majestically against the sunrise.....

 

[Nalgas D. Lemur]

Fahrenheit kind of goes without saying.

Sort of slow, creeping dread and edge of madness skating becomes SUPER SAIYAN BLAST AIR BATTLE.

Also, it's established that the temperate basically drops to a level wherein it's not safe to go outside; so why on EARTH would you undress and *ahem* in a train carriage of all things?

Yeah, there's also that, the unexpected sex scene. Wat.

Have to agree with everyone else who already agreed with this. That game started out so good, and then it ended up so bad. Possibly the biggest trainwreck ever in terms of game story scripts, at least that I can remember. It was mostly realistic in tone at the beginning with hints of something supernatural going on, and then all of a sudden it goes completely batshit crazy with nonsensical conspiracy theories and basically quaffs a glass of Kool-Aid and goes for a ride on a comet.

http://twinbeardstudios.com/frog-fractions

Pretty sure i win.

That is the first thing that came to mind when I saw "absurdity" in the title, but it doesn't exactly devolve into it. It starts there and then progresses further into it and invents entirely new levels of it as it goes along.

 

[nexus]

Metal Gear is it's own trope for absurdity.. but that being said -- Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty.

Years ago, I stayed up all night playing through the final few acts... and just... what, what. What. I was already very tired and loopy, and so was my friend who happened to be watching while I went through the acid trip known as the final act.

That game really set the bar for me on how a game could get absurd. For MGS2, even when you thought you set the bar high enough... it wasn't enough..

 

[IckleMissMayhem]

Final Fantasy X

Eh, what?

Mass Effect 3

FINALLY. The ending may have given me rage-induced amnesia.. Everything up to

Spoiler

Anderson getting slotted

made sense and seemed fairly logical, but after that... pfft!

 

[Silverback91]

Never before has a game fallen apart in the second half for me like Condemned 2. The beginning levels were great, with dark claustrophobic environments and pitched melee battles with bums. The end levels? Breaking up gunfights with magical shouty superpowers.

 

[alphamalet]

Final Fantasy X

Eh, what?

Spoiler

Tidus himself was a walking, breathing dream. If that doesn't sound absurd, then I don't know what does.

 

[Infernai]

Metal Gear is it's own trope for absurdity.. but that being said -- Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty.

Years ago, I stayed up all night playing through the final few acts... and just... what, what. What. I was already very tired and loopy, and so was my friend who happened to be watching while I went through the acid trip known as the final act.

That game really set the bar for me on how a game could get absurd. For MGS2, even when you thought you set the bar high enough... it wasn't enough..

Ah yes, MGS 2...the game that made me go into a screaming fit of "WHAT THE FUCK!?" after it finished. Oh, don't get me wrong, fighting in a katana duel atop federal hall is epic in and of itself but...the plot hurt my head. I mean REALLY hurt my head.

Poor Metal Gear Solid 4, that game was stuck trying to bring logic into that mess. It was still a good game, but....there's only so much you can do when your previous installment brought so much batshit insanity and outright realism shattering (Ok ok, i realize Metal Gear as a series wasn't the most realistic thing ever made but...they at-least made an attempt to have scientific explanations for most things. Come Metal Gear Solid 2 though? Suddenly ghosts and men running on water right the fuck outta nowhere) bullshit into your series.

I'd also like to bring up Drakengard, although in that game it was literally the purpose of the developer to make your mind break.

 

[IckleMissMayhem]

Final Fantasy X

Eh, what?

Spoiler

Tidus himself was a walking, breathing dream. If that doesn't sound absurd, then I don't know what does.

Fairy nuff. I just assumed that that was just Squenix being miserable buggers... an opinion backed up by FFXIII-2s ending. Aaaaanyhoo... Just glad someone agreed with me on ME3!

 

[anthony87]

I'd also like to bring up Drakengard, although in that game it was literally the purpose of the developer to make your mind break.

And your soul. Seriously, every single ending in than game just sucks the joy out of my soul. And that's without mentioning the levels with the child soldiers screaming as you kill them, the child-eating elf or the peadophile priest with the psychopathic fairy.

As much as I love that game, it's ridiculously fucking depressing.

 

[alphamalet]

Final Fantasy X

Eh, what?

Spoiler

Tidus himself was a walking, breathing dream. If that doesn't sound absurd, then I don't know what does.

Fairy nuff. I just assumed that that was just Squenix being miserable buggers... an opinion backed up by FFXIII-2s ending. Aaaaanyhoo... Just glad someone agreed with me on ME3!

Hah! Yeah I think the FF13-2 was pretty terrible as well, but that whole game was so damn absurd that I don't think it struck me as much as X's ending.

 

[Dalisclock]

The game that first springs to mind is Modern Warfare 2. The first few missions were vaguely plausible but then it just went completely crazy.

I kind of agree with you but I'm curious how you see a mission where two men kill an entire base off by themselves and then jump over a canyon on snowmobiles and consider that vaguely plausible, as opposed to "James Bond antics"

 

[IckleMissMayhem]

X's ending.

...meaning... FFX-2(?) If so, I agree wholeheartedly!! - I jest - I know what you mean, it was a major wtf-territory, but I think the alternative "everything comes up roses" ending would have been a little bit too saccharine, n'est-ce pas? - See FFVIII/IX. Though those endings didn't make me want to smash up my controller in raaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaage!!! ;O)




[sub]Why do I bother with FF games? They do so much make my head kersplode... but I do loves them so....[/sub]

 

[AnotherAvatar]

Indigo Prophecy
Silent Hill 1
Silent Hill 3
Metal Gear Solid 2
Condemned
Condemned 2 Bloodshot
Dragon Age II (fuck this game)
Final Fantasy X
Mass Effect 3

I'd suggest getting the bad ending for Silent Hill 1, makes the whole thing make a lot more sense.

 

[lacktheknack]

http://twinbeardstudios.com/frog-fractions

Pretty sure i win.

I don't know what I just played, but as I floated serenely down the aqueous vents of Bug Mars, dodging missiles on the silhouette of my dragon as a placid voice explained the origins of boxing, I knew I had found my game of the year.

 

[lacktheknack]

http://twinbeardstudios.com/frog-fractions

Pretty sure i win.

That is the first thing that came to mind when I saw "absurdity" in the title, but it doesn't exactly devolve into it. It starts there and then progresses further into it and invents entirely new levels of it as it goes along.

I'm pretty sure it's a "devolution" when it ends with erotic pictures of bug porn. Just saying.

(Don't worry, mods, it's censored.)

 

[MrGalactus]

Alright, so I've just been playing a lot of Sleeping Dogs, just did the last few missions and... holy fuck, what happened.
For those who haven't played it, Sleeping Dogs is an undercover cop style game with fistfighting and slow-mo John Woo style gunfights. The only time realism seems to invade is in the cutscenes. Or so I thought.

Spoiler: Big spoilers for Sleeping Dogs, all the way up to end game

Okay, so up to this point, the game's been kind of straight faced about the story. People have had limits, and when someone gets shot, it's normally fatal. Seems realistic enough, it achieves what it's going for.

Then I get to one of the last missions. Through a series of events your character, Wei, gets kidnapped and tortured. Fucking brutally. It builds up this amazing sense of vulnerability in contrast to all the dick smashing you've been doing before.

Wei gets lucky and escapes, and goes through that bit in every modern game where the protagonist is injured and going all slow and stuff, ends up killing a couple of dudes through a massive effort, really building up this idea that you're injured and near death. Feels really good.

Then you enter the next room, and there's like, 8 guys. All of a sudden, Wei springs up, charges in, and starts kung-fu kicking guys and throwing them into buzz-saws despite getting his bones smashed with a hammer and kneecaps drilled about 5 minutes ago.

It gets better. After some fucking free running, you take out the guy who tortured you, steal his comically oversized knife, and basically go on a fucking murder spree with this giant knife. Seriously, nothing can stand against you with this thing, and you just fucking bash dudes with it until Wei is COVERED in blood.

Some more free-running, and you get in a gunfight. Pretty standard for this game, until you remember the aforemention drilling.
So after gunning through a small army of gangsters with apparently the biggest balls ever, you open the next door to the lead antagonist, at which point he shoots you point fucking blank with a shotgun. Apparently he forgot to load it though, because he runs out of ammo.

So what happens next? He runs, you chase him, jump onto his moving boat, he crashing it into a gas station, causing a massive fucking explosion which you're pretty much on the center of. No worries though, you pat yourself off, and have enough time to climb onto the wreckage.

Turns out Mr Bad Guy did too though, and you have to fight him, MSG4 final boss style, with really weak punches and a really hard fight.
Or it would be if you couldn't counter him with full fucking force.

And after all this, Wei still has the energy to show him into some random fucking Ice Chipper. Fuck.

I didn't click the Spoiler, but that is great news. True Crime: Streets of LA turned into fuckin' Constantine half way through. and it was AWESOME.

 

[Kopikatsu]

I'd also like to bring up Drakengard, although in that game it was literally the purpose of the developer to make your mind break.

And your soul. Seriously, every single ending in than game just sucks the joy out of my soul. And that's without mentioning the levels with the child soldiers screaming as you kill them, the child-eating elf or the peadophile priest with the psychopathic fairy.

As much as I love that game, it's ridiculously fucking depressing.

I always found it morbidly amusing how your party consisted of a pedophile who only survived an attack on his parish because he was molesting a boy in the woods at the time, an insane Elf who ate children alive because she could never have any of her own, and...a boy who is eternally 8.

The fact that the boy ends up becoming a human sacrifice in most of the endings is probably the most merciful thing that happens to him.

 

[hazabaza1]

Alright, so I've just been playing a lot of Sleeping Dogs, just did the last few missions and... holy fuck, what happened.
For those who haven't played it, Sleeping Dogs is an undercover cop style game with fistfighting and slow-mo John Woo style gunfights. The only time realism seems to invade is in the cutscenes. Or so I thought.

Spoiler: Big spoilers for Sleeping Dogs, all the way up to end game

Okay, so up to this point, the game's been kind of straight faced about the story. People have had limits, and when someone gets shot, it's normally fatal. Seems realistic enough, it achieves what it's going for.

Then I get to one of the last missions. Through a series of events your character, Wei, gets kidnapped and tortured. Fucking brutally. It builds up this amazing sense of vulnerability in contrast to all the dick smashing you've been doing before.

Wei gets lucky and escapes, and goes through that bit in every modern game where the protagonist is injured and going all slow and stuff, ends up killing a couple of dudes through a massive effort, really building up this idea that you're injured and near death. Feels really good.

Then you enter the next room, and there's like, 8 guys. All of a sudden, Wei springs up, charges in, and starts kung-fu kicking guys and throwing them into buzz-saws despite getting his bones smashed with a hammer and kneecaps drilled about 5 minutes ago.

It gets better. After some fucking free running, you take out the guy who tortured you, steal his comically oversized knife, and basically go on a fucking murder spree with this giant knife. Seriously, nothing can stand against you with this thing, and you just fucking bash dudes with it until Wei is COVERED in blood.

Some more free-running, and you get in a gunfight. Pretty standard for this game, until you remember the aforemention drilling.
So after gunning through a small army of gangsters with apparently the biggest balls ever, you open the next door to the lead antagonist, at which point he shoots you point fucking blank with a shotgun. Apparently he forgot to load it though, because he runs out of ammo.

So what happens next? He runs, you chase him, jump onto his moving boat, he crashing it into a gas station, causing a massive fucking explosion which you're pretty much on the center of. No worries though, you pat yourself off, and have enough time to climb onto the wreckage.

Turns out Mr Bad Guy did too though, and you have to fight him, MSG4 final boss style, with really weak punches and a really hard fight.
Or it would be if you couldn't counter him with full fucking force.

And after all this, Wei still has the energy to show him into some random fucking Ice Chipper. Fuck.

I didn't click the Spoiler, but that is great news. True Crime: Streets of LA turned into fuckin' Constantine half way through. and it was AWESOME.

Not quite that absurd, sorry. Just breaks a lot of established rules in a rather extreme manner.

 

[cojo965]

Fahrenheit kind of goes without saying.

Sort of slow, creeping dread and edge of madness skating becomes SUPER SAIYAN BLAST AIR BATTLE.

Also, it's established that the temperate basically drops to a level wherein it's not safe to go outside; so why on EARTH would you undress and *ahem* in a train carriage of all things?

Yeah, there's also that, the unexpected sex scene. Wat.

Should we mention the fact that it may or may not technically be a necrophilia scene? At least they didn't attach a QTE to it.

And if anyone is doubting the "gloomy psychological thriller turns 'Dragonball Z'", and dismisses it as hyperbole, allow me to present:

<youtube=x1qUzXduT-Y&start=274>

The entire game is like that - you play a guy who just murdered someone, and have to survive police investigations and bizarre visions that are driving you insane.

Now explain to me how that turns into this:

<youtube=kw2pnkmYIhI>

Yep. At the 4/5 mark, two super-saiyan dudes have a *****-slap catfight while hanging in midair.

What.

WHAT.

... The fuck did I just watch?