The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Justin Says: A classic example of how a little repetition quickly rolls downhill from chuckle to hilarious and then finally bottoms out at annoying depending on your tolerance. The phrase “I used to be an adventurer like you, but then I took an arrow in the knee,” was certainly not the first of it’s kind, but for the briefest moment is was one of the funniest things in gaming, until over-saturation finally did it in. Skyrim also had its fair share of other unintentionally hilarious moments. Whether it’s the mighty dragonborn prancing around the fields collecting flowers and butterflies while a dragon attacks a nearby town or boxing with a bear to get your armor skill up, while scarfing hundreds of potatoes to regen health, Skyrim has it’s laughable moments when looked at in context.
Revolution X
Paul Says: I sunk so many damn quarters into this arcade shooter in my younger days, because this game was not only fun, but just plain silly to boot. Set in the far off dystopian future of 1996, the “New Order Nation” has taken control of the world and banished all music, tv and video games, and has even gone so far as to hold the rock band Aerosmith hostage. It falls to you and your stockpile of explosive CDs to save the day and bring NON down. Are you a bad enough dude to gun your way through countless yellow and black uniformed mooks, ninjas, and spear-throwing Amazonian natives (I wish I was joking) to save the members of America’s greatest musical treasure?!
And if you need extra incentive, you’ll get to hear a nifty digitized versions of some of Aerosmith’s best hits, like “Eat the Rich” and “Sweet Emotion” on loop throughout the whole game! Remember, music is the weapon!
Rogue Warrior
Paul says: This first person shooter has you play as Richard Marcinko (based off of a real live ex-Navy Seal of the same name) on a mission to take out missile launchers hidden throughout North Korea. Rogue Warrior was panned by critics, due to many bad bugs, poor controls, and just being plain uninteresting to play. But! What makes this game so freaking funny is that not only is the protagonist voiced by Mickey Rourke, but the star of The Wrestler and The Expendables curses like a mad man almost the entire game. “Looks like a douchebag convention,” he’ll snarl, when a group of enemies come rushing in, AK-47s blazing. “Drop dead motherfucker, you fuckin’ amateurs!” he’ll yell out while silently knifing a guard in the back. And just when you think it can’t get any worse (or better), someone went and turned all of Mickey’s classic one liners into a rap song for the end credits. Amazing.
Two Worlds
Justin says: Sometimes all it takes is a single poorly chosen word to suddenly change the mood. In Two Worlds case it was taint. In defense, taint is a perfectly valid word for trying to describe your corrupting dark magic. It does however have some less common anatomy related definitions, it being slang for perineum. As much as we all like to think that we’ve moved past our pre-pubescent snickering, it’s just hard to take anything seriously any more once the booming narrator proclaims the land has become infected with the taint. Two Worlds was a pretty awful game anyways, but let this be a lesson to you. Maybe before naming that end boss you should check with ubrandictionary before all your players burst out laughing at Baron von Stiffy.
You can hear Graham and Paul from LRR roast the whole intro in Unskippable.
Resident Evil
Justin Says: Some games age better than others, something like Super Mario World is basically just as good today as it was in 1990. Resident Evil is not one of those games. Back in a bygone era when voice acting was mostly done by whoever was around the office instead of professionals, Resident Evil managed to piece together some laughably bad moments of dialogue. A combination of cringe-worthy puns, poor talent and script that was likely hastily and shoddily localized from the original Japanese Bio Hazard, does a bang up job of sucking pretty much all the tension out of this otherwise survival horror.
Roller Coaster Tycoon 3
Paul Says: RollerCoaster Tycoon and its sequels let players build their own theme parks, most notably with gigantic sprawling roller coasters with all kinds of loops and twists. But the real mayhem was when you unintentionally (or intentionally, if you’re a horrible human being) designed your roller coasters into high speed death traps that would throw your park guests into walls or fling them out across the sky. Heck, you could even build rides that would keep park guests stuck in their seats for months of in-game time. Things could get even crazier in RollerCoaster Tycoon 3, which introduced ragdoll physics and let you experience your amusement park attractions/killing machines from the perspective of your poor victims.
Metal Gear Solid Series
Paul Says: Metal Gear Solid was certainly a great stealth action title, but it’s hard to deny that parts of the series have become increasingly bizarre over time, most noticeably its story and increasingly outlandish characters. You’ll have situations where Snake and Otacon engage in a serious conversation about the impact of war, child soldiers, and other horrible things humanity has done to each other – and then five minutes later you’re introduced to a comic relief character with a really nasty case of irritable bowel syndrome. And then there’s that one time that one bad guy lost his hand, replaced it with the hand of another bad guy, and then the second bad guy took over the brain of the first bad guy. Then there’s the various global conspiracies involving super advanced AI or nanomachines or something and there’s also the question as to if love can bloom on a battlefield…
Damnation
Justin Says: Man, how do you screw up a concept as awesome as a steampunk American Civil War (besides Wild Wild West)?Damnation started life as a Unreal Tournament mod, and while there have been a number of mod projects that successfully jumped to retail, Damnation didn’t. Part of the problem was the overuse of steampunk as a magical filler for making whatever you want. Damnation tries to be all serious and badass, but it just comes apart at the seems as cheesy. Oh yeah, and the female lead wears what can only be described as a pair of sleeves held together with string. It’s one of the silliest “sexy” video game attire around.
Damnation is another title that got what’s coming to it in Unskippable.
Civilization Series
Paul Says: Ah yes, the Civilization series, one of the most beloved of all turn-based strategy games, and one of the most insidiously addictive titles ever to steal your free time. But upon closer inspection, many of its game mechanics can get a tad… weird. Sometimes you’ll find yourself climbing up your civilizations tech trees in odd ways, leading to circumstances where you’re researching something like the combustion engine without actually having invented The Wheel. Warfare throughout the series has always varied between entries, but you’ll have an occasional ludicrous battle where your modern battle tank is destroyed by a very lucky spear man. Anachronism abounds, where you build dozens of ancient wonders in famous cities like Pittsburgh, or there are massive world wars involving the likes of Japan, The Roman Empire and the Ottomans. Lastly, your interactions with the various world leaders can be equally (and unusually) hilarious. After all, everyone expects the Aztec ruler Montezuma to go around trying to crush everyone, but the one person you really have to keep an eye out for is the normally peace loving Ghandi, who, over the time span of the series, has developed a real strong love for nuclear weapons (and he ain’t sure afraid to use them, either).
Basically Any Game with Ragdolls or Killcams
Justin Says: Once random chance, happenstance, and sometimes a bit of skill get involved, the sky really has no limit on the hilarious things that can happen during gaming. From Rube Goldberg-esque sequences where a grenade bounces off a helicopter, down a vent and blows up some unsuspecting victim to the sometimes hilariously improbable poses enemy NPCs get left in once you’ve wasted the whole room. These little humorous moments are what have us all watching replays and snagging screenshots for some meme. Hell, some gamers take it so a whole new level of challenge by piecing together the most elaborate ways to say kill someone in Battlefield.
What games did we miss? There are certainly plenty more. We spent a bunch of time discussing whether certain games were intentional or not, but let us know your thoughts in the comments.
