Comedy In Games

[gunswordfist]

I've been meaning to make this thread even since Dr. Nefarious seemed like a bad modern Disney character to me. Cracking up while watching the intro to BattleBlock Theater reminded me to create this thread.

Anyway, talk about games you find funny and/or funny moments in games. Personally, I don't find too many games funny. Crack in Time barely made me crack a smile.

[Nel_Annette]

Portal 2 is pretty much the pinnacle of funny in video games to me. And I quite enjoy a lot of the banter in the Jak and Daxter games that I've played. There's also Mother 3, going by the translation, and I found the boyfriend in Lollipop Chainsaw pretty funny.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

To be honest, most of the intentional humor that a lot of games try to pull off just doesn't work for me, unless its so ridiculously over the top that I at least have to crack a smile. When I think of comedy in games, most of what is actually funny enough to make me laugh out loud happens to be unintentional humor. I mean stuff from the older RE games and others of that sort with bad English voice-acting and horribly written dialogue. I just get a kick out of that stuff. Of course, games that have an intentional cheese factor to them can get me to laugh at times, like with Resident Evil 4 or Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening. That said, most of the games that try to be silly all of the time or force humor down just don't turn out to be that funny, IMO.

[Foggle]

Games I find hilarious:

Portal 2
House of the Dead: Overkill
Borderlands 2
Resident Evil 4
Max Payne 2
MadWorld
Saints Row 2
Devil May Cry 3
Deadly Premonition
Resident Evil (Original) - Unintentional, but hey

Games that are also funny but don't make me laugh nearly as often:

Portal
Borderlands
Max Payne
Saints Row The Third
Ratchet & Clank series
Blood 1 & 2
Bulletstorm
F.E.A.R. 2
Alan Wake
SiN
Jak 2
No More Heroes 1 & 2
Lollipop Chainsaw
Shadows of the Damned
Metal Gear series
Serious Sam series
Resident Evil 2 & 3 - Also unintentional, of course
Deus Ex - Definitely unintentional

I'd say all of those games have great senses of humor. I'm surprised you guys don't seem to enjoy comedy in games much, it always adds to the experience for me because I love to laugh.

[talonmalon333]

At some point I might go on a rant on how and why these games have brought me so many laughs, particularly Curse of Monkey Island. But for now, they are some of the funniest games I've played.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I'm surprised you guys don't seem to enjoy comedy in games much, it always adds to the experience for me because I love to laugh.

Its not that I don't like comedy in games. Its just that I honestly don't find most "comedic" games to be all that funny. I love comedy when it can be pulled off right, but that's much easier said than done, especially when it comes to video games.

[Foggle]

I don't think it's all that hard to write a funny video game. I mean, it's not much different from writing a funny movie. There just aren't as many good video game writers as there are for other mediums.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Well, comedy is a very subjective thing to begin with. That said, a lot of video games that try to be intentionally humorous just seem to have a lot of jokes that come off as really forced and really don't do anything for me. I think the intentionally over-the-top approach of games like DMC3 and RE4 work better for me, but even then I wouldn't exactly call either of those games laugh-out-loud funny, as much as they are enjoyably goofy and amusing.

[Spark Of Spirit]

Monkey Island, Mario RPGs, and Deadly Premonition are the only ones that get me laughing a lot. Otherwise I might chuckle a bit, but nothing really does more than that.

[Foggle]

Oh yeah, I forgot about Deadly Premonition. That game is funny as hell!

[gunswordfist]

Games I find hilarious:

Portal 2
Borderlands 2
Resident Evil 4
Max Payne 2
MadWorld
Saints Row 2
Devil May Cry 3
Resident Evil (Original) - Unintentional, but hey

Games that are also funny but don't make me laugh nearly as often:

Portal
Borderlands
Max Payne
Saints Row The Third
Ratchet & Clank series
Blood 1 & 2
Bulletstorm
F.E.A.R. 2
Alan Wake
SiN
Jak 2
No More Heroes 1 & 2
Lollipop Chainsaw
Shadows of the Damned
Metal Gear series
Serious Sam series
Resident Evil 2 & 3 - Also unintentional, of course
Deus Ex - Definitely unintentional

I'd say all of those games have great senses of humor. I'm surprised you guys don't seem to enjoy comedy in games much, it always adds to the experience for me because I love to laugh.

Vinnie Gognitti: Well, that was fun... in a fuckin' terrible, sick, not-at-all-fun kinda way.

Anyway, I LOVE comedy in games. I wish I could laugh out of nowhere like I did on BattleBlock Theater's intro but game humor rarely affects me. Like I was saying about Crack In Time, not even RAC does it for me. ToD isn't doing much for me either and I don't remember any of the PS2 Ratchet games making me laugh at all.

I really haven't played many games that are supposed to make me laugh though, which might have been one of my original reasons for making this thread  (thanks for the list) I also wanted to say that I think comedy is one of the hardest things for games to pull off.

[RacattackForce]

The Wind Waker was just filled to the brim with some nice humour. Infiltrating the Forsaken Fortress, unveiling the Tower of the Gods, Link pulling out the Master Sword, etc. And all the little things, like Link falling on his face if he slides too much on the ice.

[Eddy]

Games I find funny, to varying degrees and varying reasons:

Portal 2
Borderlands 2
Deadly Premonition
Paper Mario series
Mario & Luigi series
Super Mario RPG
No More Heroes 1 & 2
Shadows of the Damned
Lollipop Chainsaw
Resident Evil (Original)
Resident Evil 4
MadWorld
Portal
Borderlands
Conker's Bad Fur Day (though the movie parodies are very dated today)

[Kiddington]

The only video game I have ever found humorous is Bubsy 3D. /thread

[Foggle]

Kiddington confirmed as ex-Eidetic developer.