2004-12-01 - 9:11 a.m. Violence, Humor, and Video Games Something I would care to note is the lack of humor in most video games today. Being that video games are actually doing better than Hollywood, you would think that there would be more humorous video games. The fact remains that the funniest moments in video games for me are usually when someone named Donut dies 14 times in a row to someone named Cakes, when the final kill sends his corpse sailing end over end into the sky. Morbid humor. But most of what video games are about are being a badass. The correct formula for a successful franchise is simple. Have a challenging (but not Atari impossible) game in which the star of the game preys upon the innate weakness and shortcomings of the game player which is usually letting the human player dive into a world where they are powerful and in control. Now there are some games in which this is not entirely true, like Civ 3 or starcraft, where you play from a omnipresent perspective, but even Blizzard noted this and I think that�s what made the hero so attractive. If you don�t know anything about video games that was the most boring sentence you ever read. And the fact also remains that video games are male oriented. My girlfriend really could never get to into Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (hi google!). I enjoy occasionally ramming a chainsaw into the dead corpse of a hooker that I killed so that I could use her money to buy myself a bass boost to my fly wheels. It�s a dark game, that as we play it, note to ourselves that this is bad for America. But make no mistake�I play it. And if you are a guy reading this�go buy it. You won�t really ever play a better game. This is because men enjoy violence and the power of being in control. We also enjoy the puzzles and driving and challenges in the game, but if this were just a driving game, it wouldn�t be nearly as successful. The fact that Samuel L. Jackson plays a dirty cop framing me for murder, getting me to fire bomb Mexicans who he�s �sick of fucking with his shit�, well�lets just say it wouldn�t be as successful. While I don�t have any bright ideas for including women in these game, I would like to note that the men that go to see Blade 3, X-men, and Spiderman, also are buying GTA. And those same men who go to those movies also see Happy Gilmore, Billy Madison, Bad Santa, and other such humorous movies. And as I was playing GTA last night I realized that it just wasn�t THAT funny. For everything right with it, I created my own humor. The game didn�t really provide me with all that much story that was genuinely funny. There was this nerdy guy who just didn�t amuze me. He was voiced by a comic, and while this game is VERY entertaining, it wasn�t funny. And on that, this is the funniest video game I have played (outside of GTA: Vice City when I was selling drugs to kids out of an ice cream truck). The best games out there, like Halo, Half Life, Warcraft, and even the Mario Games, aren�t funny. I think there is a large window there for both video game marketers and for writers looking to sell their talent. The funniest thing in most games is shooting the person talking to you in the head, which video game programmers started not allowing allowing the game to progress. I can�t really put my finger on why that�s funny, but there is something about seeing the person trying to help you head explode from your shotgun. It reminds me of this one time I was with my girlfriend and she started laughing. I asked her what she was laughing about and she said, �Kicking you in the head.� On second thought�maybe Shelly could really get into Grand Theft Auto. | |||||||||||
