Humor in Games

Why does it seem that the only person whose games are consistently funny is Tim Schafer? Am I forgetting someones games, or even specific games that were very funny?

Certain games have their moments, and others are funny is a zany or quirky way (like Panic for instance), but no games seem to be consistently funny all the way through like the games made by the master of the PAC adventure game.

Thoughts? What games am I forgetting about?

PS: For fun, also name some games that are consistently hilarious, absolutely by accident :)

PS: For the brits the title can be read as "Humour in games". Cheers.

Conker's Bad Fur Day was funny... though it was way too in your face/over the top :)

I enjoy humor in games, some of my favorite parts of Final Fantasy's are the funnest part... Like the Rally-ho part in IX and all of Tidus' winning in X...

And yeah Conkers was a hilarious game... in a way it was like the comedy of movies of video games... did that make any sense, I hope so...

Who's Tim Schafer

Earthbound has many funny moments if your into fart-jokes.

Earthworm Jim was funny for a while.

Star Wars Chess for Sega CD is fucking hilarious, albeit unintentionally. Those kill animations had me rolling.

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Originally posted by Korian
Who's Tim Schafer

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tim schafer is responsible for grim fandango, among other brilliant games.

thousand arms was unusally funny for a translation, especially the fight between nelsha and the girl robot (ratchet?) with the bleeped out swearing and the you getting slappedrepetedly. zelda ww surprisingly had a good bit of humor.

Working Designs always gets me rollin! Nothing like anime-nerd humour to make you wish for death.

Geppy-X
Crazy Climber
Shenmue (unintentionally)
Cotton II
Harmful Park
Puyo Sun
City Connection always gets a giggle

erm...

Who'se the guy in Evil Dead? I forget his name, but he did commentary in the training missions for Spiderman: The Movie, game. He was hilarious in that.

'For the players who have short memory spans, which would be m...ost of you, you can access the...'

Good stuff.

A quote from a PaRappa the Rapper 2 song~

"Slurp it! Suck it! I know you all like it!"

Whoo!

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Originally posted by Andrew
Who's the guy in Evil Dead?

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Bruce Campbell.

Why there aren't a lot of Tim Schafers around:

-People in the world who are funny: Let's say 10%
-People in the world who are funny and seriously enjoy video games: 5%
-People in the world who are funny, seriously enjoy video games, know how to program them: .1%
-People in the world who are funny, seriously enjoy video games, know how to program them, and would work in a genre where they can express humor over gameplay: .00001%

If I were some kind of prodigal comedy genius, I'd be out making movies or doing stand-up routines, and not spend years laboring over a game that would probably get overlooked anyhow.

"but those diamonds are just made from my shi........"

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Originally posted by Andrew
Who'se the guy in Evil Dead? I forget his name, but he did commentary in the training missions for Spiderman: The Movie, game. He was hilarious in that.

'For the players who have short memory spans, which would be m...ost of you, you can access the...'

Good stuff.

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Hot damn! Bruce Campbell did that? I knew he was in the actual movie but I didn't know about the game. Cool.

Escape From Monkey Island is pretty funny. :)

games whose whole concept is based around humor, are hard to come by. But someone mentionned Earthworm Jim? I couldn't have said it any better. You might wanna try Stupid Invaders if you dig the "Ren & Stimpy" type of humor.

I do enjoy a good joke once in a while. The last laugh I had in a game was while driving around in GTA Vice City and listening to radio commercials. hehe.. The Exploder!

Steve Purcell and the "Two Guys from Andrommeda" have always given me laughs.

Conker was funny, as was Monkey Island on the PS2. Rent a Hero No. 1 looks to be hilarious as well.

Oh yeah, I think Doug Tenappel is hilarious, but I know not everyone agrees.

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Originally posted by Rob
Shenmue and Brave Fencer Musashi are the funniest games I've played that I can remember. Dangun Feveron has also been a real winner lately.

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The part in Musashi when you have to dance against the boss is priceless. Also I thing the GTA series had tons of humor--real vulgar like and a lot of double entendres (big and veiny).

EDIT: oh yeah once someone mentions Sam & Max you gotta mention Day of the Tentacle and the original Maniuac Mansion...adventure games are teh funny.

How the hell did this thread go on this long with no mention of Sam & Max? It's only one of the funniest games ever made.

Bangaio really cracks me up. That game is top banana.


"Mrs. M:
You'd like 2D-games, wouldn't you?
Riki:
Right!
Riki:
We are prepared to live in the plain and die in the plain.
Mrs. M:
Thus, to the question of the day.
Mrs. M:
Stacked-up missiles Will often pursue you.
Mrs. M:
Although they may look like a single missle, pay careful
attention!
Mrs. M:
Their combined effect is many times worse!
Riki:
Presumably nothing can be done about this, or indeed M.?
Riki:
That's probably down to the 2D-display!
Mrs. M:
True enough!
Riki:
The beautiful world of 2D! The tension is getting good! Three
cheers for Bangai-o!"


I'd love to play the Lucas arts point and click games. I really need to get round to it.

yeah, I loved the Bangaio information bits. My favorite parts were when W came in in place of M and called in the spirits of famous dead people to speak to you.

Like Galileo who said:

"I am Galileo.

The headquarters of the cosmo gang is on the planet known as earth.

Make your way to earth! May God protect you!"

Or the sage advice of Napoleon:

"Riki, Mami, make an effort! May God protect you!"

Whoever had the idea of great historical figures showing up to give the most generic advice ever is great indeed.

The last laugh I got from a game came from the Adventures of Sandra. When you get to the last section, you get to see what's become of the people you came across in the game. There was this one fellow that wanted to be a musician, but his dad wanted him to keep the family medicine business going. The kid asks you which one he should do , so I told him to sell the medicine. Later, near the end of the game, I see him walking by shouting ,"here;s some good medicine, fuckers!" repeatedly. The actual translation is probably tamer though.Anyways, I thought it was funny.=\ What sucked is that I went through the "play music well" side-quest for him, and it was all wasted.=\

oh, and LucasArts p&c games were my saving grace as far as PC gaming was concerned. I got a computer in 92/93 to play RPGs(which i thought would be like console RPGs. . .they were not). . .then my friend gave me his copy of Sam and Max. . .

http://falcon.tp.devry.edu/~tmcn9298/lsl.gifWhat's up, homey.

Ironically (?) you can find a lot of humor, or attempts to posess such, in many dating sim titles. Sometimes all it takes is a videogame reference (FF8 like battles in Tokimeki 2, Samurai Shodown mini-game in Welcome To Pia Carrot 1, etc) to get a laugh... or if they actually know how to make a character, have something story related.

The ZORK games are usually funny in a clever way.

More recently, and not a point-and-click game, Ratchet & Clank had some funny moments (although most were too contrived), and I found Captain Quark's trailer for his training grounds quite amusing, as were some of Ratchet's derogatory comments toward Clank.

Or how about the story mode in SFA3? -Hilarious! -Zangief's mad gay love with Honda ending? -Hilarious!

I've gotta agree with the vote for Tim. He is an amazing game designer.

Yes, Tim Schafer is great, but don't forget about Ron Gilbert.

Boogerman was good fun back when. :)

A.P.B. is an older arcade game with a great sense of humor. It was an overhead police driving/pursuit game released by Atari Games in arcades in the late 1980's. The game was fun to play, and contained a copious amount of funny sound bites, cute graphics, and stereotypes.

There was also a pretty good rendition of the game released on the Atari Lynx in 1991. It was scaled back a bit (no more button-mashing "confession" sequences), but much of the humor was retained, including most of the popular voice samples.

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Originally posted by Satsuki
"but those diamonds are just made from my shi........"

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:lol:
Blazing Dragons, Disc World's 1&2, Monkey Island series, Sam & Max: Hit The Road, a host of Shiney games, Anf the Fallout series have all been consistantly funny. I forget it Giants: Citizen Kabuto was a Shiney game but if it wasn't that was fucking hilarious.

Giants was a Shiny game. :D

Giants Citizen Kabuto was not a Shiny game, it was developed by Planet Moon, a company that yes was made up of ex-Shiny employees, but they were EX employees.

Tim Shafer games are funny, yes, and his games provide the best proof of why English language titles will always be preferable to Japanese translations.

I could have sworn it said Shiny on the box.

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Originally posted by bbobb
How the hell did this thread go on this long with no mention of Sam & Max? It's only one of the funniest games ever made.

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I already mentioned Steve Purcell...

I happen to think anything that was translated by working designs always has amazing jokes.
Vanguard Bandits was a personal fav. They really changed a lot in that game, and im glad they did.

Baddie: "I shall defeat you, and add your woman to my harem!"
All party females : "EWWW!"

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Originally posted by Captain Vegetable
I could have sworn it said Shiny on the box.

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I hate your guts. ;)

Shadow Hearts has some great adult humor moments and character banter.

Primal also has some good and funny character interaction.

Kung Fu Chaos is full of jokes and spoofs.

Harsh, diffusionx, harsh.

BTW, the planet moon guys are working on a title for Lucas Arts called Armed and Dangerous. Some info can be found at Gamers.

As for the main topic, many old Sierra adventure games were pretty funny, particularly the Space Quest series.

For just a second there I could have sworn I was in the thread of ownage...

I second the Doug Tennapel vote. Every cinema in Skullmonkeys is a work of genius, although my favorite is probably the "Beans beans, musical fruit" one.

Now somebody bring over the Bobobobo Bobobo game.

James

I can't believe Earthbound was only mentioned once and only in relation to fart jokes.

Earthbound is a freakin' hilarious game. The subtle and not-so-subtle jokes, disgusting humor and dry statements. Very excellent.

YES! SkullMonkeys, excellent choice.

"A baaaaad man, fell from the sky"
"Look Ma, im a SkullMonkey"

Not to mention a excellent OST....if anyone has that, ill give sexual favors for it.

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Originally posted by §eraphim
Not to mention a excellent OST....if anyone has that, ill give sexual favors for it.

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By Terry Taylor as well. However, I've not seen the actual soundtrack around anywhere, unfortunately.