Games are rly srs lately.

BabyHeadCrab

BabyHeadCrab

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Why not break the fourth wall occasionally? Conker's Bad Fur Day did this a lot, so did Metal Gear (Psycho Mantis fight, for example). What are some other examples of games breaking the 4th wall and succeeding? (for humor, spooks, or otherwise).

I think games need to be more self-aware, we're going through a phase where games take themselves entirely too seriously.

The indie scene seems to be keen on this, but mainstream and genuinely funny and/or self aware games seem to be severely lacking these days. Humor used to be much more popular in games: i.e. Duke 3D, Time Splitters, Postal 1/2, pretty much all the Lucas Arts adventure titles from ye olde days.

So, games industry, why so srs lately?

d0930ee984b0fa2f6d4385a44c2bafad.jpg
 
I have to agree with Bad Company being great - pissed myself so many times with that game.
 
BHC said:
So, games industry, why so srs lately?
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Without wanting to sound elitist it probably has to do with modern games' pretension or aspiration to serious values, to be taken seriously, and their simultaneous but unfortunate failure to actually be worthy of any such attention. Microsoft's absurd Dvotchka-scored Gears of War trailer (below) is a key example; it's hilarious to see this overwrought sentiment applied to a game about enormous deformed robo-gays eating chitin and shitting wisecracks. I think this pursuit of the 'epic' is a direct result of the rising position of interactive media. There's a chance for mainstream primacy, for games to be Respected, and apparently somebody thinks this is how to achieve it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FL_ZjJgbDmc

It's a golden time for people like Yahtzee, for whom it's fish in barrel season right now. The inflated seriousness of certain big games only makes it far easier to pop their bubble, and satire finds itself occupying a deeply satisfactory and very contradictory position: on the one hand continually and mercilessly undermining the medium's claim to mainstream acceptance, while simultaneously upholding the mature and even artistic virtues of certain 'good games' as a model to aspire to.
 
This is why I'm tempted to get a DS. When I play a PSP game I find it to be a bit depressing, whereas DS games tend to be a bit more light-hearted.
 
Get Eternal Darkness.

It breaks the 4th wall so many times that it's almost orgasmic.
 
I think youre right about Bad Company, there were some genuinely funny lines in that game. Whats-his-name with the glasses and then there was the mad Russian.

Maybe theyre just playing it safe and sticking to the trend to please the 'we-dont-know-what-we-really-want' masses?
 
Sulk nailed it. It's a case of developers wanting to be able to stand up and have their medium recognised as something serious and important.
 
World class chess tournaments are games to, and those are fun right?.


I agree, the industry needs to accept that it doesn't need to wreck itself trying to appear serious and important all the time.


Just make good games. TF2 is a fine example of a game that completely did away with taking itself seriously.

Portal was awesome too, funny but it was also epic in its own way and still managed to convey a really good sort of story along with the humour.
 
I'd say this is the case mainly with AAA titles. There are a whole bunch of mods, indie games etc that aren't all up their own asses.
 
Samon said:
Sulk nailed it. It's a case of developers wanting to be able to stand up and have their medium recognised as something serious and important.
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like that Fallujah game or CoD World at War ..it's laughable because a. cant take something seriously when you are literally depopulating an entire nation in the game

the problem is that there's very little artistic merit in games. their "serious" is watching some less than belieable character get blown up, even though a second later you've gone and done the same to an enemy only on a much much bigger scale

really I think the developers should try less to be serious and just concentrate on making the game fun. I avoid most fps these days because they take themselves seriously but with laughable results.
 
Serious? The biggest games are shitty little indie games sold on PSN/XBL about filling buckets with water or putting a colored block into a worm or some weird shit

Also, Wii mother****er
 
Ok Imo this is the problem, I mean when was the last time you walked away from say a big game title and felt as though your life had been enriched after playing it? You don't really learn anything in the process of the 'fun'.

So what's the point in getting serious if all your coming away from a game with is RSI and some hand eye co-ordination skills.

Edit: This is my point exactley:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rN0qRKjfX3s
 
There are plenty of comical games out there. Stop focusing on the blockbusters and perhaps you'll discover them. I very much doubt there are less of the funny games compared to the old days, there are just more of the srs ones which make it hard to find the comical ones.
 
Krynn72 said:
There are plenty of comical games out there. Stop focusing on the blockbusters and perhaps you'll discover them. I very much doubt there are less of the funny games compared to the old days, there are just more of the srs ones which make it hard to find the comical ones.
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Plus the srs games are the ones that get all the marketing and, thus, all the media attention.
 
RedAlert2.jpg

red_alert2_screen002.jpg

Everyone and their mothers played this game, and you know the cheesy lines and videos were well worth the fight! Another prime example of a game not taking itself too seriously
 
I chortle so loudly at those people who actually find Gears of War has any, any slim chance of portraying a serious storyline.
 
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