Gaming In-Jokes

[Garple]

Basically jokes in games that reference other games. They're usually real groaners, but it's still an interesting topic nonetheless and I thought it'd be fun to compile some of the ones we've noticed. I was playing Castlevania: LoS (which is not nearly as bad a game as you probably think it is), and I stumbled across a really awful one that needed to be shared. I found a scroll on the corpse of a fallen adventurer in which he'd written what amounted to a diary entry about an encounter he had with a fairy. He marveled at her beauty and said "I have seen something few men can ever lay claim to...I can truly say the cake is not a lie."

Also: the were one or two injokes in Enslaved, but I can't remember them. Can anybody help me out?

[Squid Division]

It doesn't seem to happen as overtly in games as it does in other media (especially books and film). However, Hot Scoops' portions of Bioshock 2 was full of System Shock references if I recall his blog correctly.

[Sully907]

YOu mentioning enslaved reminded me of a reference in Heavenly Sword where the sister threatens to hit a bad guy in the groin for "Massive damage", a reference to the genji sony E3 demo.

[elmuerte]

Eat Lead: The return of max hazard has a few

and so does

Astérix & Obélix XXL 2: Mission: Las Vegum

[Nappi]

Discworld 2 had a shitload of adventure game related jokes, mostly variants of "I bet I have to go on another fetch quest for this?" and "Don't you just love this sort of adventure game crap?". I guess they would have worked a bit better if you hadn't been on a constant fetch quest and solving typical non-intuitive adventure game puzzles all the time.

[elmuerte]

  Nappi said:

Discworld 2 had a shitload of adventure game related jokes, mostly variants of "I bet I have to go on another fetch quest for this?" and "Don't you just love this sort of adventure game crap?". I guess they would have worked a bit better if you hadn't been on a constant fetch quest and solving typical non-intuitive adventure game puzzles all the time.

Discworld 1 also had a couple of jokes like that. And so did the Simon the Sorcerer games.

[Roderick]

  GrouchoClub said:

"I have seen something few men can ever lay claim to...I can truly say the cake is not a lie."

Douche chiiiiiill

[thorn]

  Raz said:

Hmm, looks like a test. There's probably a secret, more advanced route.

This.

[DanJW]

I nearly cried at the "it's-a me, Mario!" in Assassin's Creed 2.

[brkl]

Oh, Jesus, that's horrible.

[Garple]

  DanJW said:

I nearly cried at the "it's-a me, Mario!" in Assassin's Creed 2.

Oh yeah...that's probably the most egregious one ever. Can't believe I forgot about that.

[Squid Division]

Comic Jumper is full of genre references and refereces to other Twisted Pixel games. I haven't played enough of it to see any specific game references though.

[Garple]

  Squid Division said:

Comic Jumper is full of genre references and refereces to other Twisted Pixel games. I haven't played enough of it to see any specific game references though.

Yeah...I feel like these references are more notable in games that are not focused on humor, though. When they come out of nowhere, they're more jarring and insane-seeming. In Comic Jumper they're just par for the course (do you get that Comic Jumper in-joke, guys? DO YOU????).

[Orv]

  DanJW said:

I nearly cried at the "it's-a me, Mario!" in Assassin's Creed 2.

I couldn't stop laughing through the entire cutscene. Then I turned the game off and didn't go back for three days.

[Forbin]

I knew it was there become some mouth-breathing game journo couldn't keep it to himself.

It wasn't terrible in Italian though.

[miffy495]

I swear to god there was a hydralisk head in a trophy room when I was playing The Force Unleashed (original. Working through my backlog) this afternoon.

[Tanukitsune]

A tons of adventure game have a reference to Monkey Island or Day of the Tentacle, I can't remember which, but an adventure game had a toy monkey called Guybrush and A Vampyre's Story makes either a Monkey Island or Day of the Tentacle joke every 5 minutes....

One of the Serious Sam made a ton of jokes on other FPS: "I'm shaking, not QUAKE-ING!", "This weapon is UNREAL"...

[Nappi]

  Tanukitsune said:

an adventure game had a toy monkey called Guybrush

That would be The Longest Journey.

[Tanukitsune]

  Nappi said:

That would be The Longest Journey.

Oh, yeah! Now I remember! Didn't it tout it had a ton of references to "our favorite adventures"?

[ThunderPeel2001]

Jeez, this probably before all your time, but one that leaps to mind was in DarkSeed (the HR Giger inspired adventure game). In the graveyard there's tombstones and, as we all know, tombstones in games = injokes.

Guess who's buried there? Why, Guybrush Threepwood, of course, because CyberDreams were about to overtake LucasArts... (Note to self: If you're making your first ever game, don't get too cocky about how you think it'll be received.)

[LOPcagney]

  miffy495 said:

I swear to god there was a hydralisk head in a trophy room when I was playing The Force Unleashed (original. Working through my backlog) this afternoon.

This, I think. It does look suspiciously like a hydralisk, though.

[Roderick]

Speaking of tombstones, Fable (3) has some fantastic tombstone jokes. I swear, the Fable series are some of the funniest games I've ever played, as effortlessly good as the best Lucasarts offered.

Strange that they're not known for this specifically. Or maybe it's exactly because they're not treated as 'comedy' games that the comedy manages to sparkle so brightly? Fable never obligates itself to be hilarious at all times, it has its moments of earnest gravity, of real terror. So whenever it's funny, it does so because it has something pretty hilarious to say.

[Garple]

  Rodi said:

Strange that they're not known for this specifically. Or maybe it's exactly because they're not treated as 'comedy' games that the comedy manages to sparkle so brightly? Fable never obligates itself to be hilarious at all times, it has its moments of earnest gravity, of real terror. So whenever it's funny, it does so because it has something pretty hilarious to say.

I was a big fan of the drunk women in Fable 2. I married one of them just because they stood out from all the others. They always had funny things to say.

[SometingStupid]

Black Ops had the trophy/achievment entitled "Eaten by a Grue" which was sorta funny in a way.

What was more funny was my sudden envisionment of some Treyarch employees sitting around a desk after having completed the Multiplayer and Solo Campaign and just saying,"You know, this game sorta feels empty."

"Hey, I have an idea! Let's put that old computer game, Labrynth in it!"

"Shut up Steve, we can't put more graphics into our game, the PC's and PS3's would surely explode."

"How about we put Zork in there?"

"Tom, what the hell is Zork?"

"Google it."

And so, the Zork minigame esque style thing came into Black Ops.

[I_smell]

Games aren't allowed to make jokes. The last time a Video game made a joke was in 2007 in a game named "Portal" which the internet has still not shut the fuck up about 3 years later.

Anyway a funny thing is in the last Banjo Kazooie game. Your first mission is to COLLECT A HUNDRED JIGGIES!

The level starts and there's a hundred jiggies laid out in a straight line infront of you, so you just run forward, then it's like ALLRIGHT THIS IS BULLSHIT, LET'S DO SOMETHING ACTUALLY FUN.