Comments on: Playing For Laughs

By: Keith Wood

Keith Wood — Sun, 11 Sep 2011 10:09:17 +0000

Bad Taste Software did produce Di’s Baby and Santa’s Grotty Christmas back in 1984 – but Seal Cull was never in our plans (as best as we can work out it was part of a 1985 April Fools press release which somehow got attributed to Bad Taste Software by rumour and misunderstanding).

I personally only first heard of the Seal Cull rumour in early 2011 – and liked the title so much I decided to create it. Beta testers are now sought….

By: Adam

Adam — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 16:36:09 +0000

I find myself laughing at games for all the wrong reason. I love directed humour as everyone has proudly mentioned the origional LucasArts Heroic titles and perhaps more of the Dead pan George Stobbart as was referenced in the article, but when it’s expected of a game, you’re prepared for it a lot more and you arguably appreciate it less. It’s the less expected laugh out loud moments that get me and these only seem to crop up in multiplayer sections, bugs or just really bad writing. I think a lot of ‘serious’ games that go for the token comedy mission either try to hard or fall foul of ‘The Next Generation’ effect where it’s perfectly good on its own but try and look at what preceded it and what follows and it seems so out of place you wonder why they bother. Still, hats off to them for trying!

One of my all time faveorites was from a World of Warcraft jaunt where me and a friend walked (literally, slow walk, not running or mounted) from Stormwind to Ironforge -no we didn’t take the tram. It’s a long walk, it’s not a very interesting one either but we did it. Slowly we attracted attention, random people joined in which was a giggle in its own right. Then one person mentioned how we deserve to be bought ale by the GM’s when we arrived, I opened a ticket to the GM’s, perfectly deadpan explaining the situation. One of them got back to us and joined in the banter (again, funny in its own way considering these are people emplyed to be professional about dealing with serious in game issues), he said ultimately we couldn’t have anything yet when we got to Ironforge, he was standing in the tavern waiting, he waved and then dissappeared.

It doesn’t sound like much but it’s very rare to see the blue cloaked GM’s -it made our night in its own humorous way

Much <3 Jace.

By: MarkuzR

MarkuzR — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 09:39:58 +0000

Humour in games is, for me, the little things that sometimes escape your attention in that sort of “blink and you miss it” type scenario. As morose as Fallout 3 was, there were so many journal entries or little notes scattered around that were actually hilarious such as using the persuasion perk to get some guy in Girdershade to go fetch all the Quantums in exchange for a threesome, the fact that the Railway Rifle always sounds “choo-choo” whenever you fire it (reminded me of Monty Python with the coconut shells), the nailboard I found in Clifftop Shacks called “The Board Of Education”, watching the Metro ticket collector robots killing Ghouls and Super Mutants JUST because they don’t have a valid ticket cracks me up… the very fact that the game’s icon is a blond haired dood winking with his thumb up in a post apocalyptic world where everyone is either dead or dying… that’s fucking hilarious to me!

When I played through Borderlands I also found myself laughing at some awesome stuff, such as the “Turtles All The Way Down” graffiti scrawled on various walls, the fact that Marcus Kincade’s poster advertises “100% Cocking Action” and Scooter is advertising a beer called Clitz with the tagline of “It’s what’s under the hood”. This WAS actually going to be the subject of another article but I scrapped the idea as I’d have to ruin my enjoyment of games by stopping to take notes and I hate that… but humour in games is great when it’s done well. I’m not into “Bottom” style humour though, just never appealed to me.

By: richie

richie — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 12:11:58 +0000

Game humour is usually a little lame. Pitched at that kind of Pixar level.

For truly funny games you need to get into the Japanese things like Parappa and Bishi Bashi. But even then it’s just wierd, fruity Jap humour rather than killer gags. Fable 2 and Saints Row 2 raised a couple of chuckles but that’s about it recently.

By: Jace

Jace — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 17:48:54 +0000

Thanks for all the comments guys. I can’t believe I omitted Mr Threepwood and his exploits. That said, there’s a big difference between what makes you laugh out loud, and what you think is funny. I don’t think Monkey Island actually made me laugh out loud, but I did think it was funny if you get what I mean. Also loving Red Dead’s stab at hitting the funny bone, perhaps what’s more funny is the way John Marston reacts to the idiot characters in the game. Its an odd juxtoposition, as he doesn’t seem the type of character who’d tolerate all that larking about. There’s another kind of laugh in there too of course, the shocked laugh, like when Seth starts getting jiggy with the corpses. Ugh.

By: Ste

Ste — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 16:02:12 +0000

Theres a moment in Red Dead Redemption which I thought was pretty funny. One of the “stranger” missions is to pick some wild flowers for an old man to give to his wife for their anniversary. After finding the flowers for him the old man invites you in for a drink and to meet his wife. The cut scene shows John walking into his house and then you see thold old man’s wife’s rotting dead body sitting there in a rocking chair. The old guy introduces John to her who quicky makes his excuses and leaves.

Not so funny when I describe it here but definately worth a chuckle when you see it.

@Preach – I didnt like Sam and Max, abit too cheesy for my liking

By: The Preacher

The Preacher — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 14:53:03 +0000

There is humour out there… Monkey Island, as others have said, and also Sam & Max and Grim Fandango and the other Lucasarts point and clicks. The LEGO Star Wars games were amusing too, until it got old seeing the same old jokes in each of the sequels and other LEGO spin-offs. Left 4 Dead, as Kat mentioned, but Valve games generally have humour hidden in them somewhere, either very subtly, as in Portal, or more blatantly in the case of Team Fortress 2. Sometimes it’s just a moment or two in the course of a more serious game… Bioware games tend to have humour from oddball characters, and Ubisoft have found ways of injecting comedy into Assassin’s Creed at odd moments, sometimes working, sometimes not.

In terms of multiplayer, I tend to be the guy other people are laughing at, heh. The tale of how I accidentally challenged Pete to a duel in Borderlands and spent 10 minutes running away from him in a panic will no doubt never die.

By: Lorna

Lorna — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 12:44:07 +0000

It is always easier to go for the cheap laughs with toilet humour, but genuine comedy, I agree can be tricky. The Monkey Island games were great examples of games getting it right. Sadly, I haven’t had enough multiplayer experience to have had many moments of hilarity…unless you count shoving people of the cliff into the quarry in Burnout Paradise.

By: Kat

Kat — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 11:59:44 +0000

Interesting! I have to say the Monkey Island games sprung to mind immediately for me also. The L4D games have some humour in them – the chatter between characters, the odd scrawl in a saferoom.

By: Ste

Ste — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 08:43:35 +0000

I agree with Edward, I thought the Monkey Island games by Lucasarts were hilarious at times, I’d sit there chuckling to myself like an idiot quite often. I also totally agree with the multiplayer aspect of comedy in games, I used to play alot of City of Heroes and even during situations that weren’t supposed to be funny became hilarious when teamed with the right bunch of people connected to each other on Ventrillo. Good times