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"Do you like scary movies?”. I love scary movies. Leaving the cinema after “The Blair Witch Project” with a flattened-out lump in the back of my trousers lays testament to that. I also like ‘scary’ computer games. Resident Evil and System Shock 2 are currently competing for the prestigious title of ‘Biggest Pant-Filling Bit in A Game Ever’. But hold on. I also like ‘funny’ movies. Comedies. However, genuinely side-splitting films, which unite their audience in screams of delight, are a bit thin on the ground. When was the last time a modern ‘comedy’ made you laugh?
Even better, when was the last time a game made you laugh? No, ‘really’ laugh. Most of us would hark back to when Sam & Max Hit The Road in ‘93, to find the last source of mirth from a computer game. Before this there was How To Be A Complete And Utter B*stard on the humble speccy and Cannon Fodder, where continually shooting the enemy corpses became de rigeur. Oh, how I laughed! And there was of course the time when my mate Billy told a rather rude joke concerning a banana and a slimy weasel during a particularly heated bout of Daley Thompson’s Supertest...
Admittedly, the current crop of games on the market are a tad po-faced. The last game I forked out good money for was the latest instalment in the Championship Manager series and before that, System Shock 2. A quick scan round my cluttered collection of computer game boxes reveals that the only titles I own with a decent amount of amusement chucked in are the aforementioned Sam & Max and possibly Worms Armageddon. This would either back up my latest rant or provide further evidence to the fact that I am indeed a sad sod.
Fear is universal. Comedy is not. What might make you and I laugh, may seem obscure or just plain silly to someone else. Therefore, ‘scary games’ can reach and affect a much wider audience than their comic counterparts. Most comic moments in games come either from multiplayer interaction (i.e. holding the Half-life crossbow to your best mates noggin and pressing the left mouse button) or from ‘dumbed –down’ style humour, a-la Duke-Nukem, where the laughs are tacked on as an afterthought rather than going for all out hysteria.
The truth is that games publishers are too scared to take chances. Long gone are the days of bedroom-programmed, cassette-tape games with £2.99 price tags. Nowadays, what with gargantuan profits and global penetration to consider, game developers literally can’t afford to make mistakes. The fact that the games industry’s fear of taking chances, which in turn produces scary games that leave you and I scared witless, is somewhat tinged in irony. If anyone is left rolling in the aisles over the current trend toward fear, then it certainly isn’t the average gamesplayer. Unless you’re a sadist. Or ‘quite enjoy’ Saturday Night TV…
Even better, when was the last time a game made you laugh? No, ‘really’ laugh. Most of us would hark back to when Sam & Max Hit The Road in ‘93, to find the last source of mirth from a computer game. Before this there was How To Be A Complete And Utter B*stard on the humble speccy and Cannon Fodder, where continually shooting the enemy corpses became de rigeur. Oh, how I laughed! And there was of course the time when my mate Billy told a rather rude joke concerning a banana and a slimy weasel during a particularly heated bout of Daley Thompson’s Supertest...
Admittedly, the current crop of games on the market are a tad po-faced. The last game I forked out good money for was the latest instalment in the Championship Manager series and before that, System Shock 2. A quick scan round my cluttered collection of computer game boxes reveals that the only titles I own with a decent amount of amusement chucked in are the aforementioned Sam & Max and possibly Worms Armageddon. This would either back up my latest rant or provide further evidence to the fact that I am indeed a sad sod.
Fear is universal. Comedy is not. What might make you and I laugh, may seem obscure or just plain silly to someone else. Therefore, ‘scary games’ can reach and affect a much wider audience than their comic counterparts. Most comic moments in games come either from multiplayer interaction (i.e. holding the Half-life crossbow to your best mates noggin and pressing the left mouse button) or from ‘dumbed –down’ style humour, a-la Duke-Nukem, where the laughs are tacked on as an afterthought rather than going for all out hysteria.
The truth is that games publishers are too scared to take chances. Long gone are the days of bedroom-programmed, cassette-tape games with £2.99 price tags. Nowadays, what with gargantuan profits and global penetration to consider, game developers literally can’t afford to make mistakes. The fact that the games industry’s fear of taking chances, which in turn produces scary games that leave you and I scared witless, is somewhat tinged in irony. If anyone is left rolling in the aisles over the current trend toward fear, then it certainly isn’t the average gamesplayer. Unless you’re a sadist. Or ‘quite enjoy’ Saturday Night TV…
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"Do you like scary movies?”. I love scary movies. Leaving the cinema after “The Blair Witch Project” with a flattened-out lump in the back of my trousers lays testament to that. I also like ‘scary’ computer games. Resident Evil and System Shock 2 are currently competing for the prestigious title of ‘Biggest Pant-Filling Bit in A Game Ever’. But hold on. I also like ‘funny’ movies. Comedies. However, genuinely side-splitting films, which unite their audience in screams of delight, are a bit thin on the ground. When was the last time a modern ‘comedy’ made you laugh?
Even better, when was the last time a game made you laugh? No, ‘really’ laugh. Most of us would hark back to when Sam & Max Hit The Road in ‘93, to find the last source of mirth from a computer game. Before this there was How To Be A Complete And Utter B*stard on the humble speccy and Cannon Fodder, where continually shooting the enemy corpses became de rigeur. Oh, how I laughed! And there was of course the time when my mate Billy told a rather rude joke concerning a banana and a slimy weasel during a particularly heated bout of Daley Thompson’s Supertest...
Admittedly, the current crop of games on the market are a tad po-faced. The last game I forked out good money for was the latest instalment in the Championship Manager series and before that, System Shock 2. A quick scan round my cluttered collection of computer game boxes reveals that the only titles I own with a decent amount of amusement chucked in are the aforementioned Sam & Max and possibly Worms Armageddon. This would either back up my latest rant or provide further evidence to the fact that I am indeed a sad sod.
Fear is universal. Comedy is not. What might make you and I laugh, may seem obscure or just plain silly to someone else. Therefore, ‘scary games’ can reach and affect a much wider audience than their comic counterparts. Most comic moments in games come either from multiplayer interaction (i.e. holding the Half-life crossbow to your best mates noggin and pressing the left mouse button) or from ‘dumbed –down’ style humour, a-la Duke-Nukem, where the laughs are tacked on as an afterthought rather than going for all out hysteria.
The truth is that games publishers are too scared to take chances. Long gone are the days of bedroom-programmed, cassette-tape games with £2.99 price tags. Nowadays, what with gargantuan profits and global penetration to consider, game developers literally can’t afford to make mistakes. The fact that the games industry’s fear of taking chances, which in turn produces scary games that leave you and I scared witless, is somewhat tinged in irony. If anyone is left rolling in the aisles over the current trend toward fear, then it certainly isn’t the average gamesplayer. Unless you’re a sadist. Or ‘quite enjoy’ Saturday Night TV…
Even better, when was the last time a game made you laugh? No, ‘really’ laugh. Most of us would hark back to when Sam & Max Hit The Road in ‘93, to find the last source of mirth from a computer game. Before this there was How To Be A Complete And Utter B*stard on the humble speccy and Cannon Fodder, where continually shooting the enemy corpses became de rigeur. Oh, how I laughed! And there was of course the time when my mate Billy told a rather rude joke concerning a banana and a slimy weasel during a particularly heated bout of Daley Thompson’s Supertest...
Admittedly, the current crop of games on the market are a tad po-faced. The last game I forked out good money for was the latest instalment in the Championship Manager series and before that, System Shock 2. A quick scan round my cluttered collection of computer game boxes reveals that the only titles I own with a decent amount of amusement chucked in are the aforementioned Sam & Max and possibly Worms Armageddon. This would either back up my latest rant or provide further evidence to the fact that I am indeed a sad sod.
Fear is universal. Comedy is not. What might make you and I laugh, may seem obscure or just plain silly to someone else. Therefore, ‘scary games’ can reach and affect a much wider audience than their comic counterparts. Most comic moments in games come either from multiplayer interaction (i.e. holding the Half-life crossbow to your best mates noggin and pressing the left mouse button) or from ‘dumbed –down’ style humour, a-la Duke-Nukem, where the laughs are tacked on as an afterthought rather than going for all out hysteria.
The truth is that games publishers are too scared to take chances. Long gone are the days of bedroom-programmed, cassette-tape games with £2.99 price tags. Nowadays, what with gargantuan profits and global penetration to consider, game developers literally can’t afford to make mistakes. The fact that the games industry’s fear of taking chances, which in turn produces scary games that leave you and I scared witless, is somewhat tinged in irony. If anyone is left rolling in the aisles over the current trend toward fear, then it certainly isn’t the average gamesplayer. Unless you’re a sadist. Or ‘quite enjoy’ Saturday Night TV…
Page: