No Laughing Matter
- Thread starter Reid McCarter
- Start date
Stand-up comics (the good ones) are a fantastic way to see the difference between the well-studied and the poorly-studied "funny people." The best ones? Well, for one, they're honest about their influences -- they won't pretend not to have any, and they'll list quality guys. Also, you'll be able to tell they were actually influenced by these guys, rather than just listing people they've heard others say are great.Reid McCarter said:
Then you've got your Carlos Mencia's, who are so thoroughly unoriginal... but it's a sincere sort of unoriginality, in that they don't actually realize they're stealing...
Speaking of influences, I suppose you've watched Louie on FX? That show is great at portraying comedians offstage and on, even if it's acted.Dastardly said:
I really wish this thread would get bumped to the top of the list to replace the gamegirlz-show-boobs article. It's a little more insightful.
Huh, I never knew that humour in games was thought of as primarily dick jokes. You see I played the LucasArts adventure games, Thief, NOLF, Psychonauts, and Giants: Citizen Kabuto. You know games that had genuinely clever and subtle humour in them. Humour that does seem to be lacking in the games I play today.
Also, I liked Duke 3D not because of the pop-culture references (god help those who thought those Duke "quotes" were at all original) or the boobs, but because it was a step up from Doom and ROTT in terms of gameplay. It had some cool weapons and tricks, the holo-duke being a deathmatch favourite.
Also, I liked Duke 3D not because of the pop-culture references (god help those who thought those Duke "quotes" were at all original) or the boobs, but because it was a step up from Doom and ROTT in terms of gameplay. It had some cool weapons and tricks, the holo-duke being a deathmatch favourite.
Some of the best videogame humour is found in the GTA series. It provides a fantastic satire of contemporary American culture akin to "The Onion". Especially in GTA IV with its "Fox News" parody of "WEAZEL NEWS". The gags are smart, and although there is a lot of swearing and sexual content they just form part of the fabric of the game and the laughs come from the game world and character portrayal rather than from puerile shock humour.
As much as the writer of the article likes to bash Duke Nukem and even mention Conker's Bad Fur Day at one point, he can't see beyond the cheap thrills of humor the industry has to offer.
Conker's Bad Fur Day has it's fair share of tasteless and sexual jokes, but it also has a good share of jokes satirizing lots of movies and even satirizing the glitchy nature of bad programming in games.
I mean, I don't completely agree with the author, but I can see it's points and I0d like to see the day when games get better at jokes, even if they're dick jokes.
Also, gotta love the GTA series for delivering truly great humor.
Conker's Bad Fur Day has it's fair share of tasteless and sexual jokes, but it also has a good share of jokes satirizing lots of movies and even satirizing the glitchy nature of bad programming in games.
I mean, I don't completely agree with the author, but I can see it's points and I0d like to see the day when games get better at jokes, even if they're dick jokes.
Also, gotta love the GTA series for delivering truly great humor.
I don't recall Lucasarts's SCUMM games being about dicks and farts. I think that legendary group of games annihilates this opinion. They had a whole different sense of humor, and games like Monkey Island 2 are still, in some circles, considered to be one of the best games ever made.
The entire article can be negated by pointing out that humor is subjective not just in people but different moods that they're in.
To put it in game terms: Sometimes I'm in the mood for Psychonauts and sometimes I'm in the mood for Splatterhouse.
To put it in Escapist terms: This is a very odd column to hear on the Escapist considering that one of the most popular features on the site is an Australian man who delves heavily into dick jokes for his videos.
To put it in game terms: Sometimes I'm in the mood for Psychonauts and sometimes I'm in the mood for Splatterhouse.
To put it in Escapist terms: This is a very odd column to hear on the Escapist considering that one of the most popular features on the site is an Australian man who delves heavily into dick jokes for his videos.
Fallout 3 had some moments, so did New Vegas (if you chose the perk to have the humour at the beginning of the game). I definitely laughed at the super mutant who talked to a cow skull and the entire mission where I had to help euthanize a part-man/part-tree hybrid (or save him, which I thought was cruel).
Also, Blazblue Continuum Shift had some funny moments, pretty much anything with Ragna or Taokaka were funny in some way.
And the entire Oddworld series was hilarious, mostly in the cutscenes. But they had great slapstick humour as well as great dialogue based humour, too.
Also, Blazblue Continuum Shift had some funny moments, pretty much anything with Ragna or Taokaka were funny in some way.
And the entire Oddworld series was hilarious, mostly in the cutscenes. But they had great slapstick humour as well as great dialogue based humour, too.
Clearly you missed some of the better dialogue of Bulletstorm then, at first I was completely turned off by the game's dialogue but I've warmed up to it after seeing some Youtube clips taken from later on in the game.Nimzabaat said:
And DNF had humour? Sorry, I must've completely missed that. Last I checked it wasn't parody at all [http://www.destructoid.com/the-duke-delusion-why-duke-nukem-isn-t-a-parody-203745.phtml].
The difference between Bulletstorm and DNF is that Bulletstorm satires its protagonist, the world around him points out he's less than ideal. DNF plays it all straight, the very universe twists and bends itself to pander to Duke and to give him chances to prove how awesome he is when he really is a terrible scumbag. Making him some kind of Broussard's or Pitchford's sick male power fantasy. And when you see Randy Pitchford getting his knickers into a twist over the slightest criticism of DNF you can't help but see that he takes Duke more seriously than anyone ever should.
I always thought that the killing, overall joke of the Duke Nukem games was that people within the universe like him. He's a self-absorbed douche and yet people act like he's some sort of hero. Women flock to him like moths to a flame, despite being a chauvanist asshole. Children see him as a role model, and he uses his enemies neck cavities as toilets. The joke is that he's probably one of the biggest douchebags of all time, and everyone thinks he's God's gift to the human race. It's here where the real humor is, and all the stupid jokes only support this main idea. The only thing is that not many people recognize this, not even some of the developers.
It is because of this that I found Duke Nukem Forever to be amusing. The two weapon limit held it back a little, as well as the regenerating health and load times, and it really didn't live up to DN3D (did anyone expect it to?) but overall, I found it to be a genuinely fun game.
Now, look at Bulletstorm. This is what I don't get: I know the joke is that Grayson is a drunk pottymouth asshole and everyone but he knows it, which would be very funny if everyone else in the game wasn't that way. Everyone acts like Gray is a comlete jerk, even though they all act exactly the same. I did like the part when they recognize how stupid everything they say sounds, and I wish it had more moments like that, but then it just returned to pottymouthed nonsense.
It is because of this that I found Duke Nukem Forever to be amusing. The two weapon limit held it back a little, as well as the regenerating health and load times, and it really didn't live up to DN3D (did anyone expect it to?) but overall, I found it to be a genuinely fun game.
Now, look at Bulletstorm. This is what I don't get: I know the joke is that Grayson is a drunk pottymouth asshole and everyone but he knows it, which would be very funny if everyone else in the game wasn't that way. Everyone acts like Gray is a comlete jerk, even though they all act exactly the same. I did like the part when they recognize how stupid everything they say sounds, and I wish it had more moments like that, but then it just returned to pottymouthed nonsense.
Thought it may be worth pointing out that The Escapist takes freelance article submissions so there's really no agenda being put forth by the site. I played Duke Nukem Forever, Shadows of the Damned and Portal 2 within a pretty short period of time from one another and got thinking about videogame humour because of it. There's no "site bias" that I know of. Maybe it's just that DNF wasn't all that good that people are so sore about it being criticized?Nimzabaat said:
(And defending the game as being poorly received because of "PC bullshit" is a pretty rough thing to say. There's nothing "PC" about being put off by completely self-aware misogyny and the willful perpetuation of harmful stereotypes that affect attitudes toward real world people. Whether anyone finds it funny or not is up to them but it's not just political correctedness that determines a stance on the game's jokes.)
Louie is so great. I love what he's doing with the format and how willing he is to experiment with what's possible in a 20 min. TV show.hooksashands said:
I mentioned classic LucasArts adventure games in an earlier draft of the article but had to cut their listing. They (particularly the Monkey Islands and Grim Fandango) have some of my favourite game writing and character-based jokes.Klepa said:
Oh, and I think dick and fart jokes are funny. They just need to be one part of a balanced comedy diet.
On microcomputers and PCs game humour was every bit as advanced, mature and sometimes subtle in the '80s and '90s as it is now. Probably even more so.
Lucasarts games is the obvious example, but Sierra adventures and text adventures in general rarely lacked humour.
Even 'normal' games that didn't have humour as their main selling point, often managed to squeeze in a lot of hidden references and funny details.
The humour of Fallout didn't appear out of nowhere, it was heavily inspired by the 1988 game Wasteland.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wasteland_%28video_game%29
There was a rich tradition of humour in video games and I feel this article ignores most of it, to drive home a point that is misleading and plain wrong.
Lucasarts games is the obvious example, but Sierra adventures and text adventures in general rarely lacked humour.
Even 'normal' games that didn't have humour as their main selling point, often managed to squeeze in a lot of hidden references and funny details.
The humour of Fallout didn't appear out of nowhere, it was heavily inspired by the 1988 game Wasteland.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wasteland_%28video_game%29
There was a rich tradition of humour in video games and I feel this article ignores most of it, to drive home a point that is misleading and plain wrong.
I'm a firm believer that, rather than disservice gaming as a medium/culture, criticism actually helps to promote growth and is more a labour of love than hate. Whether you disagree with my article or not is fine but I really don't believe that a piece like this should be able to "split the community completely". How else are we supposed to get more out of games if we can't talk about what they're doing right or wrong? Every fully formed artistic medium has evolved because of criticism and games shouldn't be any different.Haakong said:
I can see how you think the article ignores aspects of videogame humour but some examples had to sidelined or omitted in order to look mainly at prevailing trends. Missing out on seminal PC games from the late '80s and early '90s wasn't my intention but it's extremely difficult to try to name everything that has done a good job of advancing game humour while still writing something concise.Bostur said:
In an earlier draft I talked a lot about the good stuff going on in PC games (including some of your examples)in the introduction but, considering that much of this work was being drowned out by more mainstream (and of greater influence outside of gamer/dev. culture) games I had to cut these points.
It would be great to write a more exhaustive history of game humour that includes more titles but I think, ultimately, even with more detail (and absolutely everything considered that ought to be considered) we'd still see the same major trends in game comedy coming through. It's not misleading to concentrate on the most noteworthy examples in a shorter article.
Maybe it's a matter of perspective, but I as an almost exclusively PC gamer consider games like Monkey Island 1 & 2, Baldurs Gate II, Day of the Tentacle (just to name a few) as pretty mainstream and influential, and those had some great jokes and funny dialogue.Reid McCarter said: