Before the holiday season hits, it’s always good to prepare mentally and physically for awkward dinners with the extended family. No matter how unpleasant or awkward your in-laws are, they can’t compare to the terribleness of these 8 shockingly awkward dinner experiences in gaming.
Resident Evil 7 – Meet the Bakers
The harrowing return to horror form in RE7 kicks off with a bang as our hero protagonist faces down a deeply unhappy bunch of maniacs. The Baker family are a gaggle of angry southern psychos – they don’t just bring you to dinner, they force feed you with a knife to the teeth. It ends with chopped-off arms, shouting, and everyone leaving the table unhappy after barely touching their meals. So this is basically a (slightly) enhanced version of Thanksgiving dinners across the country.
Far Cry 4 – Dinner With Pagan Min
At the start of your revolutionary adventures in the open-world FPS Far Cry 4, the cruel dictator of your home nation Pagan Min invites you to dinner under mysterious circumstances, treating the player like a prized guess in his fancy mountain retreat. Pagan Min sits down for dinner – only to promptly leave and torture a political prisoner.
What makes this dinner scene so special is that you’ve got an invisible choice – most players are going to high-tail it out of there. But, if you wait patiently for Pagan Min to return, you’ll finish a conversation, get the high-class treatment, and take off in a helicopter. Yup, there’s an alternate ending right at the start of the adventure. And it all hinges on how long you, the player, can stomach an awkward wait.
Final Fantasy 6 – Negotiating With Gestahl
Time for a trip to the nostalgic past. Final Fantasy 6 features on doozy of an awkward dinner when the heroes are invited to have dinner with Gestahl, the evil Emperor that’s been the big bad villain up to this point in the story. Being that he’s still a problem for everyone involved, the scene plays out with dialogue trees, forcing you to follow the proper etiquette while in the evil Emperor’s presense.
There’s no way to fail the scene, but the added layer of etiquette earns this dinner a place on the most awkward dining scenes in gaming history. Also, the evil clown Kefka is locked up in a prison cell nearby – and, duh, it’s all a lie. Emperor Gestahl turns on the good guys pretty quickly after all this eating and politeness.
Deadly Premonition – The Sinners Sandwich
Instead of dinner, we’re dealing with (quite possibly) the most awkward lunch ever documented in human history. The main man and hero of Deadly Premonition, FBI Agent Francis York Morgan, witnesses the arrival of local creep and rich guy Mr. Stewart, and the following scene (embedded above) ensues to our horror.
The silent, marionette-like reactions. The too-happy whistling music. The rhyming. The Sinners Sandwich scene is high on any legitimate list of gaming’s true, deep yawning wells of insanity. The Sinners Sandwich in question is made with; turkey, strawberry jam, and cereal. Francis York Morgan recognizes the concoction right away – a “sinners” sandwich, “Self-inflicted punishment to atone for past sins.” Good job, Swery.
The Walking Dead Season 1 – Cannibal Farm Fun
It doesn’t take long for Clem and Lee to encounter crazed backwoods cannibals in Telltale’s The Walking Dead: Season 1. By Episode 2, you’re stuck on a farm of human-hungry rednecks, and there’s an exceedingly awkward dinner scene involved, so it just had to go on this list.
Here’s the setup. Clem is sitting down to dinner with the family of homesteaders, when Lee finds the butchered, still-living remains of Mark – another member of their survivor group. Rushing back, you’ll get a choice – stop Lee from eating, or just let it happen. Too bad Lee didn’t get to enjoy that fabulously awkward scene before rushing in to break up the cannibalism feast.
Little Nightmares – Banquet
Little Nightmares features plenty of terrifying food-related situations, including a twin pair of killer chefs as they cook endlessly for unknown reasons. Well, later in the game, tiny Seven encounters the true purpose behind the floating Maw. It isn’t just a creepy cruise ship, it’s a place where mis-formed monstrosities stuff their gullets endlessly with food. And they’ll eat anything in sight.
They’re so voracious, they don’t just grab Seven as she walks by. The crowd of terrifying, loose-skinned creatures claw and scrape along the ground, desperate to eat their living prey, entire crowds of these creatures becoming a tidal wave of flesh just to consume the player. It’s disturbing, gross, frightening – and kind of awesome. Its one dinner we won’t soon forget.
Darkness 2 – The Opening
The Darkness 2 starts out like any proper gangster story – at a restaurant. Jackie Estacado, after the events of the first game, becomes the leader of the Franchetti mob, and enjoys a visit to a bustling bordello filled with his criminal associates.
The actual dinner part of the evening doesn’t quite get started. Instead of a fancy meal with two interested women supplied by your over-eager consigliere Vinnie – already a super-awkward situation – a gang of assassins thankfully arrive, killing most of the Franchetti mob in the process. When it comes to awkward dinners, it’s easy-come, easy-go.
Infinite Undiscovery – The Dinner Dance
Look. Just watch the video. I can’t explain this. No one can. Some people just really, really want dinner.
This is another cheat. No dinner here. No one eats a single morsel, there’s no table, there’s no talking, there’s none of the accoutrements I demand in my dinner scenes. No forks. No plates. No knives. But, as far as demands for dinner go, this is probably the most awkward. This is up there with Tidus laughing. I’ll be honest, I didn’t know about the Xbox 360 exclusive Infinite Undiscovery before putting together this list, now I feel like I understand even less than before.
