Since this took multiple attempts to post (1up kept saying it was too many characters ... it wasn't, I just switched computers and it uploaded fine), I might leave it up for a bit more of the day than usual tomorrow.
So today was fun. Luckily, I got my 3 mile walk in before mom and I tried to fix a clogged pipe in our kitchen by ourselves. We're thinking it's the way they hooked up our new dishwasher last winter. Hard to get a snake in where the pipes connect;m I think I got a little bit, but not enough that the sink drains properly. Bastards.
Anyway, in celebration of me deciding to have BaD Satire Saturdays without actually having ideas for it, and 1up inadvertently saving my ass by having humor in games week, here's the type of humor most often used in videogames.
Funny Unlockable Codes/Characters (THSP, Bust a Groove, Tekken, Most FPS Games, or at least old ones)
Nothing better than blasting away your friends when they have tiny bodies with big heads. I'm not phrasing that to be any less creepy or wrong, I'll just let it sit there like that, and hope you can figure out I'm talking about four-player Goldeneye in the 90s.
Bro, do you even have a face?!
Yeah, that was ... well, to be honest, I never actually found it that funny, but friends did. Always a good sign of future Ivy Leaguers. You think I'm kidding, but I swear it's the friends I've had that went on to graduate from private, hoity-toity colleges like SMU are somehow always the ones with the goofier sense of humor. Remember kids, if a midget with elephantitis of the head walks by and everyone else tries to be polite while there's one jackass pointing and laughing: that jackass is a medical doctor from Harvard.
Of course, having graduated with top honors myself, there's something about a kangaroo with boxing gloves that just does it for me.
Favorite beer: Foster's; favorite pastime: backhanding raccoons
Actually, having strange characters in settings they feel out of place is a long-held tradition in games. Just ask Officer Dick.
He's not one for prostitution, but a good ol' fashion striptease contest never hurt anyone
Most of the games that have these characters aren't heavy on deep storylines, so the humor is simple, farcical, and mostly based on "tee hee, animals don't act all human-like," but I'm always a fan of injecting a bit of humor into a fun pastime, especially with character designs.
Speakerphone/Radio/Disembodied, Humorous Voice (Portal, GTA)
My older brother once had an app on his phone that played GlaDOs sayings (I don't know which letters are supposed to be capped or not in that name, so apologies for spelling it like a 16 year old girl confessing a crush on facebook on purpose), but personally I want one that plays soundbites from GTA's radio stations.
It's like listening to Rush Limbaugh through beer headphones
Unlike goofy characters and big ol' head codes, these tend to be more satire than farce, lampooning the sorry state of media/journalism as it is now. And I love it. Portal is also a form of satire, I think. I don't actually know, I never played it, and I forget the quips on the app, but I'll go ahead and say it's high-art so that you'll all love me and think I'm cool. I crave the approval of people that smell like the local Gamestop.
Game Premise (Sly Cooper, Viewtiful Joe, Mad World, Bayonetta, Timesplitters, Saints Row III)
Again, I must admit that I've never actually played Saints Row III or Bayonetta, but I want you to know I take back what I said. You smell nice, and when I've been to your room it seems pretty clean, and I actually like those pizza boxes, it makes your place look like a modern art exhibit, kind of.
I do know a general bit about both of them though: they involve lots of TITS & AMMO. And as much crap as games get for being shallow, deep down, we all know there's movies like Transformers where Megan Fox is there cause tits, and women have those old softcore porn novels with Fabio on the front (for those of you too young: think 50 Shades of Gray if the cover artist was a horny female that happened to like the band Manowar).
In Soviet Dragon Land, EVERYTHING is Phallus
It's stupid and shameful, and can lead weaker minds to dumb decisions but if you wear a con... if you admit to yourself everyone just wants dumb fun once in a while, you don't have to feel ashamed of the occasional Japanese witch striptease set to rap music and done with a pole made from a giant purple dildo... I think I might be mixing the two games up. Also, Madworld: it's really fucking violent and has a Runnin Man theme. I hope you've enjoyed this afterthought about MadWorld.
And then there's more kid-friendly fare like Sly Cooper, Viewtiful Joe, or even Ratchet and Clank whose Saturday morning toon-like cutscene humor makes you smirk and smile. They've got that Disney-like charm to keep you going.
Don't fuck with Inspector Fox. She boxed her share of kangaroos in her day.
And then there's the series 1up dedicated an entire article to: Timesplitters is like the FPS version of Saints Row before Saints Row existed.It had a humorous time-travel plot with funny refernces to movies like Bonds and Blade Runner, and it gave a bunch of guns to some monkeys.
Jungle Boogie: Reloaded; This Time, It's Primal
In a sense, a lot of these are extensions of the "tee hee, that animal shouldn't be doing that!" joke from unlockable characters, etc., but with clever, original storylines built around the goofy premise.
Self-Referential Humor (Paper Mario/RPG, Conker)
I'll Let This Speak for Itself
Rather than totally just let that video speak for itself, let me just say that we've all had that friend that jokes about Mario thinking he's big and in a giant kingdom because he's tripping on magic shrooms, and that Birdo is the embodiment of some very large-mouthed prostitute he met once manifesting herself in the form of a bird while he's "non-sober," like it's the most original thing anyone's ever thought about the goofy premise of Mario.
Nintendo, unlike that annoying friend of yours (myself in middle or high school), has a kid-friendly and much more clever style of humor it takes with its own characters, especially in its RPGs. And now I'll let the video speak.
Character-driven humor (Sonic, Earthworm Jim, Battletoads, The Tick)
So The Tick, Earthworm Jim, and Sonic made for some decent Saturday morning cartoon shows, huh? What with Earthworm Jim and his gross out... cows. And you gotta love Tick's dumbassery. Oh, oh, and Sonic's got a charm to him, and Robotnik's an egg-shaped scientist! Pretty clever, right? Actually, how long did Battletoads last, I never watched it. One episode? Well, damn.
Yeah, I played these games and watched their shows, but at only 22 years old I'm becoming senile and forgetting details about the most worshipped decade in all of Internetland.
So, I've decided to just end this blog with an important message from the blue blur.
Editing courtesy of Amy Rose
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