Games that devolved into absurdity.

[Ascarus]

You forgot the part where, after cutting a bloody swathe through legions of guards who were just doing their job, he gets to the guy responsible for all the killing, and lets him go. That's like, the exact opposite of what a principled assassin would be doing.

well if you are going to crucify AC2 for cutting down legions of guards you would have to crucify the entire series. how many guards on rooftops or just patrolling the streets can you just straight up murder with little to no penalty? all based on the flimsy argument that they "work for the Templars".

i enjoy the series immensely but that has always been one of my biggest criticisms. in truth, the assassins would be so hated every person on the planet would be rooting for their extermination.

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

http://twinbeardstudios.com/frog-fractions

Pretty sure i win.

Just played through the entire thing. I'm pretty sure you win good Sir.

 

[Pink Gregory]

You forgot the part where, after cutting a bloody swathe through legions of guards who were just doing their job, he gets to the guy responsible for all the killing, and lets him go. That's like, the exact opposite of what a principled assassin would be doing.

well if you are going to crucify AC2 for cutting down legions of guards you would have to crucify the entire series. how many guards on rooftops or just patrolling the streets can you just straight up murder with little to no penalty? all based on the flimsy argument that they "work for the Templars".

i enjoy the series immensely but that has always been one of my biggest criticisms. in truth, the assassins would be so hated every person on the planet would be rooting for their extermination.

Much as I enjoy the Assassin's Creed series; plot-wise, I do have to suspend my disbelief when you can literally rack up a bodycount of thousands in half a playthrough.

I reckon, for all that the first had going for it, that ultimately the problem with foreshadowing is that you have to foreshadow something that eventually is revealed, and is often underwhelming.

Still liked it though, I could believe what Ezio does, within reason (even if I do come to some of my own conclusions).

Could it be better written? Absolutely, but I don't hate it for that.

 

[Jolly Co-operator]

Uncharted 1 and 2. The supernatural enemies in the last act of each game just kinda seemed out of place when compared with the rest of the game. But, to be fair, they are at least related to the artifact you're searching for, so I'm willing to buy it. Besides, they had to escalate enemy threat somehow for the final act.

I would have picked something a bit more absurd than that, but the examples I can think of right now have already been said.

 

[wintercoat]

http://twinbeardstudios.com/frog-fractions

Pretty sure i win.

What...I...I just...wat...

There has never been, nor will there ever be, a greater creation of mankind than Frog Fractions. I am truly changed because of this game. 100 years from now, when society looks back, they will remember this as the turning point to greatness.

 

[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.

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

Breaking established rules in a rather extreme manner = absurd, doesn't it?
A detective/redemption story where there is no implications of supernatural anythings for the first two-thirds, for them to show up unannounced as a major plot point at the end of one mission and just sticking around like it's normal for the rest of the story is not absurd? What counts as absurd?

 

[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.

Breaking established rules in a rather extreme manner = absurd, doesn't it?
A detective/redemption story where there is no implications of supernatural anythings for the first two-thirds, for them to show up unannounced as a major plot point at the end of one mission and just sticking around like it's normal for the rest of the story is not absurd? What counts as absurd?

It gets absurd, but not zombies and dragons and supernatural shit absurd.
Although the halloween DLC coming out seems to give you spells and have you fight demons and shit so that looks like it'll be cool.

 

[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.

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

Breaking established rules in a rather extreme manner = absurd, doesn't it?
A detective/redemption story where there is no implications of supernatural anythings for the first two-thirds, for them to show up unannounced as a major plot point at the end of one mission and just sticking around like it's normal for the rest of the story is not absurd? What counts as absurd?

It gets absurd, but not zombies and dragons and supernatural shit absurd.
Although the halloween DLC coming out seems to give you spells and have you fight demons and shit so that looks like it'll be cool.

OOOOHH I got that totally backwards. I thought you were criticising my choice of absurd shift, saying it wasn't absurd enough.
You were saying Sleeping Dogs isn't as ridiculous as True Crime.
I'm with ya, now.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

I can think of two. The first was Army of Two.

Given that Army of Two started out fairly absurd, to say it somehow was further reduced to absurdity is notable. Early in the game it is mentioned in an off hand way that "We (US) lost an aircraft carrier to terrorists". While a bit of a long shot, one can conjure scenarios where terrorists manage to sink such a ship.

Later it is revealed that when the say "lost", they meant "missing" because what the terrorists actually managed to do is hijack an aircraft carrier.

Somehow, terrorists managed to penetrate a screening force of aircraft, get past a support group armed to the teeth, and then board a boat with a crew numbering in the thousands. Then they managed to fight through this vessel and seized both the engine room and the bridge without effort. Then they managed to neutralize any aircraft in the air. Then they managed to neutralize the entire fleet supporting them. All without the carrier being sunk. And then, we simply "lost" the ship. Vessels that are the ultimate expression of modern military might and we just "lost" it.

It is the second most absurd thing I've seen in games and only the fact that Army of Two had no pretensions towards realism made that level bearable. As it was, I seem to recall I spent the entire course of the level sputtering to a friend about how stupid this entire scenario was.

 

[Tyler Trahan]

I mean Final Fantasy VII, VIII, and X were all games that I could not finish because of the absurdity. The first two started off simple enough: Human versus Human conflict for the good of all, yeah I get it. However by the time the game is half way through we get introduced to stuff like (not going to mention SPECIFICS) aliens or genetic mutated beasts or the fact that your magical powers gave you amnesia and you all are actually connected somehow WHAT THE HELL WHERE DID THIS COME FROM GAME?!

 

[Icehearted]

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.

Fourth post in and it gets a nod, just goes to show how batshit that game really was. Murder mystery turns into some alien bird whoozit from another dimension or something? I don't know. I really loved the game (even the sex... sue me). You know things when awry when even the developer says things went awry, Molyneux notwithstanding.

Edit: I always kind of thought it was odd that the sex scene mini game in this didn't cause anyone to bat an eye, but the whole Hot Coffee thing caused those who blame all the worlds evil on video games to conspire to send Dan and Sam Houser on a one way trip to the heart of the sun.

Really though, sex in video games shouldn't be so controversial. We're way too okay with all the negative emotional narratives and interactions, but positive ones are shunned... why? I think in this case the game wasn't big enough to get any real attention, it didn't sell itself on sex like BMX XXX, it wasn't a mega-hit like GTA, and it's American release had it all cut out (we are the country of bloodshed over boobies after all).

Not trying to derail, but I'm glad nudity (and to a lesser extent sexual themes) are becoming more common in games, even if it's all still very rudimentary in how it's implemented and quite silly. Movies only permitted actors to kiss once, and then only for a set amount of seconds before it was deemed 'pornographic', and George Michael's "I Want Your Sex" was banned from radio for a while, so it all starts somewhere.

 

[Evil Smurf]

I actually read somewhere that THQ got mad at them for having a giant purple dildo baseball bat, so SR4 might be toned down abit, relatively.

Actually I think it was the company that they were using to distribute the game to Asian countries.

The censors made them smooth the thing out and edit out the floppy physics of the thing, so it just looked like a purple baseball bat.

that is no fun, you have not lived till you have killed a civilian with a dildo.....oh wait, that could be taken the wrong way.

 

[jhoroz]

Since somebody already mentioned Fahrenheit, I'm going to have to add Heavy Rain, which had pretty bad voice acting and mopey story in the first place, but completely fell apart towards the end where none of the characters actions and motivations made sense. The entire thing just escalated it's absurdity and cheesiness, desperately trying to provoke a sense of drama and strong emotion, where the only emotion it managed to provoke from me is laughter at it's badly written, overly-sincere, bullshit story.

 

[CrashertheSmasher]

yeah the ending to sleeping dogs was a little bat shit.

 

[Black Reaper]

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.

You have no idea how much that second clip made me laugh,that shit is comedy gold

Well,i don't think i have a worthy example,uh...Tales of Vesperia maybe?
You start off as a guy trying to repair a fountain,and you end the game climbing a floating tower in your flying whale-thing and using a BFS 100 times your size to cut a giant penis hanging from the sky(ok,it is not a penis,but i remember it as such) in half

Granted,it is a Jrpg,but if you showed the beginning and end of the game to someone in quick succesion,they would probably say a sentence that includes the words what,and fuck

 

[Wayneguard]

Condemned 1. It really devolved fast straight from the beginning to the end. Still a good game, the story was just hilarious though.

No dude... Condemned 2. It started off well enough then BAM! your fighting girls in sexy clown suits with battle axes and comically picking up horrendously oversized men with giant magnets. The do not exist enough faces to palm to adequately express Condemned 2's descent from totally fucking awesome to laughably bad.

 

[EightGaugeHippo]

Right after you install the Shivering Isles expansion for Oblivion. You quite literally step into a world of absurdity.

 

[Muunokhoi]

Don't know if anyone has mentioned this but Homefront managed to pull this off before you even reached the gameplay honestly North Korea conquering the entirety of America. Honestly when I saw that a my imagination gave me big puppy dog eyes before keeling over and dying. Rest in peace imagination innocence will enjoy the company.

 

[SL33TBL1ND]

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.

Man, that shit was hilarious. You make me almost want to play that again.

 

[Baron_Rouge]

You forgot the part where, after cutting a bloody swathe through legions of guards who were just doing their job, he gets to the guy responsible for all the killing, and lets him go. That's like, the exact opposite of what a principled assassin would be doing.

This is very true. The character of Ezio is not a "dark yet compelling" one. He is a childish, savage murderer, who continues to kill long after his quest for vengeance is effectively done, and then, in a frankly offensive piece of moral posturing, Ezio decides to "not become as bad as them " (that old bollocks) and not kill someone who might actually deserve it for once.

And yet, he was considered a strong enough character to bear the weight of a trilogy on his shoulders.

It is worth noting, however, that he does get called out on that crap by Machiavelli and the rest at the start of Brotherhood.