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[mattiewheels]

Who knows if it's the limitations of the medium, or just that game writers just don't have comedy talent, but funny games are pretty rare. There's what could be called "amusing" content in games, but compared to the best professional comedy writing it could definitely suffer. The Beastcast discussion made me try to remember games that could stand up as being more than just amusing. Sometimes I think the only reason Tales From The Borderlands worked so well as a comedy was because of the significant lack of interactivity. That might be a key to comedy, who knows if the timing of an interactive game just completely runs counter to comedic instincts or not. It just seems like an interesting subject to try and take apart, kind of a white whale of the industry, maybe.

 

[Dangansona]

I think it's like you said, timing. Movies work well because in truly funny movies you have the cameras and actors behaving just the right way with perfect pacing. That's so hard to account for in games.

It can be done though, it just requires experimentation in how the jokes are delivered. Portal and South Park both are highlights imo.

Edit: Double Fine and old TellTale are good at humor too.

Edit 2: and Uncharted, Persona, and Ace Attorney. Actually funny games aren't that rare, they just usually aren't AAA titles.

 

[Ceallach]

South Park and Undertale are both hilarious.

 

[Mauricio_Magus]

The You Don't Know Jack games are amusing as fuck.

 

[jett]

GTAV was the first truly funny game I had played since the glory days of the Lucasarts/Sierra days. I actually laughed several times while playing that thing.

I agree that it's seemingly hard to pull off, but almost nobody even tries. Uncharted has some funny moments I guess.

 

[1upsuper]

LISA and Undertale are both hilarious at times.

 

[Wazi the pa]

I guess you haven't played Psychonauts...... Or Grim Fandango.

And if any one of you says that Kingdom Hearts has some funny scenes that made you laugh.... I'll laugh at you.

 

[Storm Raider]

The Metal Gear games, albeit V, are packed with humor, done mostly right.

 

[Dangansona]

I agree that it's seemingly hard to pull off, but almost nobody even tries. Uncharted has some funny moments I guess.

Uncharted is legitimately funny at times. It's mostly because they have such believe characters and relationships that the banter between them works. Just look at the sequence in the trailer for 4 where Drake and Sully are driving down the mountain. I laughed out loud at some of the things they were saying.

 

[Orayn]

Chiming in with Undertale as well, since it made me laugh longer and harder than anything I've ever played. I feel that a lot of its effectiveness comes from the way it integrates humor with actual gameplay and subverting player expectations.

 

[-Pyromaniac-]

Persona 4 had me laughing a ton. I miss those guys. Sigh.

It was odd being curled up in bed in the dark just laughing at a convo between virtual characters in between random dates and hanging out and dungeon crawling.

#gaming

 

[Tom Nook Sawyer]

South Park and Undertale are both hilarious.

I thought South Park is a perfect example of the thread's subject. I love the show, but hated the game. Those battle one-liners got old suuuuper fast, and the pacing was excruciating.

You Don't Know Jack and Portal 2 are some of the few examples of game humor done right

 

[mattiewheels]

I guess you haven't played Psychonauts...... Or Grim Fandango.

And if any one of you says that Kingdom Hearts has some funny scenes that made you laugh.... I'll laugh at you.

Have em both, good call. I think Lucasarts in general set a very high bar for comedic writing in games, and priorities suddenly shifted to other kinds of production values when PC games deferred to consoles imo.

 

[Fat4all]

I thought South Park is a perfect example of the thread's subject. I love the show, but hated the game. Those battle one-liners got old suuuuper fast, and the pacing was excruciating.

You Don't Know Jack and Portal 2 are some of the few examples of game humor done right

YDKJ and a lot of games in the Jackbox are hilarious.

 

[epmode]

GTAV was the first truly funny game I had played since the glory days of the Lucasarts/Sierra days. I actually laughed several times while playing that thing.

You should try the Ben and Dan adventure games. The dialogue is every bit as good as the best Lucasarts games, although it's gets a bit raunchy.

 

[Dangansona]

Persona 4 had me laughing a ton. I miss those guys. Sigh.

It was odd being curled up in bed in the dark just laughing at a convo between virtual characters in between random dates and hanging out and dungeon crawling.

#gaming

It's cool dude, I feel the same way. It's a similar thing to what I said about Uncharted. When the characters and relationships feel real, they can riff off each other and it works.

That might actually be the secret to improving comedy in games. Unfortunately not all games are good at creating the characters of Uncharted or Persona. That's when you get third person shooter middle school jokes.

 

[Seven Force]

I thought the initial trilogy of Ace Attorney games were pretty damn humorous.

 

[eojoko]

I was thinking about this after listening to the Beastcast too.

The Mario and Luigi games are laugh out loud funny to me. Also LucasArts adventure games, Day of the Tentacle especially, are laugh out loud funny.

 

[Boink]

It's part of why I liked Bulletstorm so much. That and is was fun

 

[SephLuis]

Trails in the Sky SC had me laughing a lot sometimes. I really like the little texts they put into the chests too.

 

[MetroidPrimeRib]

Yeah I would agree. For me the games I would call truly funny are Undertale, South Park Stick of Truth, Mario and Luigi Superstar Saga (I haven't played Paper Mario but those games are probably funny too) and Charles Barkley Shut up and Jam Gaiden.

I should play some of those older point and clicks. I'll play the Grim Fandango and Day of the Tentacle hd releases at some point.

 

[Andodalf]

Persona 4. You just know the characters so well.

 

[hughesta]

Persona 4 had me laughing a ton. I miss those guys. Sigh.

It was odd being curled up in bed in the dark just laughing at a convo between virtual characters in between random dates and hanging out and dungeon crawling.

#gaming

Yeah, Persona 4 is a super good time that'll have you smiling most of the way through. I love that game so much.

Undertale too.

 

[BatDan]

Kid Icarus Uprising is loaded with hilarious moments.

 

[Jessie.Bristol]

Conker's Bad Fur Day was one of the funniest games I've ever played. Bought it at launch for the Nintendo 64 based purely on Rare's pedigree (and all of the media I had seen up to that point) as a studio and loved every second of the game.

 

[MetroidPrimeRib]

Thinking about it, Undertale is probably my top funny game ever. All because of Papyrus. I love you Papyrus.

Edit: well that or barkley shut up and jam gaiden

 

[petghost]

i think tales from the borderlands could've featured more traditional adventure game elements and still been just as funny. there is some fun dialogue in the rare instances where you take control and get to just walk around and talk to folks and the descriptions of scanned items were consistently funny. what the lack of interactivity does help with is timing and pace of jokes... like grim fandango is hilarious but you may be sitting there solving a stupid puzzle for 30 minutes with nothing remotely funny happening.

 

[Ploid 3.0]

Saints Row games crack me up. The Third and IV especially.

Don't wanna close my eyes
I don't wanna fall asleep
'Cause I'd miss you, baby
And I don't wanna miss a thing

I'm giggling just thinking about that opening.

 

[mattiewheels]

I have to say, one of the first games where it felt like they actually enlisted a specifically-comedic writer to work on it was Portal and Portal 2. It just had a polish that I'm trying to discuss here, that you really don't find even in the funniest games.

 

[JoseLopez]

South Park is great but man the most popular funny game borderlands 2 is the worst bottom barrel Reddit trash out there.

 

[Colocho]

The most I've ever laughed while playing a video game is with the Ace Attorney series (especially the original trilogy). A lot of other games make me chuckle for a bit and say "hey that was clever", but with AA I was literally laughing out loud like a fucking maniac. I guess the reason for that is the awesome well written characters the series has.

 

[Spring-Loaded]

That might be a key to comedy, who knows if the timing of an interactive game just completely runs counter to comedic instincts or not.

That's why the gameplay itself needs to be funny (Gang Beasts, Octodad).

 

[Admiral Woofington]

Tales won with this whole scene

Even if it's been done before it just worked so amazingly well, and the small interactivity made it all the better.

 

[KRaZyAmmo]

I have to throw in Stanley Parable. That game legit had me laughing.

 

[tiebreaker]

Ni no Kuni has some funny dialogues ..., and tons of puns.

 

[psynergylover]

as some have said; Persona 4, and Persona 4 Golden is even more funnier

Camp trip/Mystery Food X
Kanji bathing suit malfunction
Summer Band
night at the amago inn
ski trip

had me in tears

 

[Poodlestrike]

It wasn't wholly comedic, per se, but ME3 Citadel had me rolling in spots. "Is that what I really sound like?"

Saints Row games crack me up. The Third and IV especially.

Don't wanna close my eyes
I don't wanna fall asleep
'Cause I'd miss you, baby
And I don't wanna miss a thing

I'm giggling just thinking about that opening.

Also a good call.

 

[SalvaPot]

The Earthbound Trilogy is really funny, and that makes a nice contrast with the darker themes they can explore.

Mario RPG's also tend to be extremely funny affairs, and their boss battle are extremely inspired.

Also The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy game is brilliant stuff.

 

[timetokill]

I feel like RPGs and Adventure games can do it the easiest because they are presented in such a way that they can control the timing and all the relevant info is usually on the screen. Interesting to note that the Mother games, South Park SoT, Undertale, Mario and Luigi series, Paper Mario series, Grim Fandango, Ace Attorney, etc.

 

[REDSLATE]

Armed and Dangerous was pretty good, but the gameplay itself was bland and repetitive (even with some rather unique weaponry).

 

[thelastcrusader]

I love the humor in Disgaea and Hyperdimension games.

 

[cj_iwakura]

Shadow Hearts 2 probably had the funniest line I've ever seen in any RPG, ever.

You know the one. 100% execution.

 

[Gnilres]

I love the dry humor in Fallout 4, especially when it comes to the Vault Boy and eveyting he goes through not only in the SPECIAL videos but also the perks screen.

Also the first time I used Jet and Psycho at the same time and my normally calm, collected character screamed "FUCKING KILL" made me lol

 

[KaoteK]

I laughed out loud playing GTAV mainly because Trevor is such a dick, and The Stick of Truth because, well, South Park.

It's interesting that games just don't do humour that well, but it must be very difficult to pull off in anything other than story driven games.

Also, I don't think the standard of writing is that fantastic in games, when "proper" writers do it, you can see the difference (again Stick of Truth)

 

[Soriku]

I've laughed at a lot of games...except I think it's unintentional humor quite often.

 

[LAM09]

Stick of Truth is probably the funniest game I've played. Cracked me up

 

[Perfect Cha0s]

It's really hard to pull off humor when you can't control the timing, like you said. A lot of the most popular examples in this thread are cases where the humor occurs either in cutscene events, or otherwise scripted moments where the flow of the conversation, the mannerisms of the characters, and the timing of dialogue is mostly out of the player's control.

 

[Chezzymann]

I thought portal 2 was hilarious at times. Some of the best writing in games in general.

 

[Bleepey]

Hector and the badge of carnage is truly fucking hilarious, an underrated gem. The duckman adventure game made me chuckle a fair few times too. I heard nothing but good things about the Deadpool game.

 

[JoBo4]

Earthbound is probably one of the funnier games i've played

As are the mario and luigi rpg games (for the DS)

I do remember Ratchet and Clank and jak and daxter being super hilarious, too