Yesterday I played the demo of the new game Dispatch and it is all beautifully written, but at some point, while presenting the team in-game, there was a casual funny line, pronounced by a voice off-screen, so without graphical support and I just burst out laughing (I was alone at home, so not pressed by social influence of any kind).
When I stopped, I realized how uncommon this has become lately. As a kid, I found LucasArts games extremely funny and I laughed more than occasionally, but this aspect of video game entertainment has been dying out.
When was the last time you actually laughed out loud while playing a game for something that was actually designed as funny (no Fortnite or CoD shenanigans stories please)?
Expedition 33, Verso talks Monoco into coming with them to Old Lumiere.
Expedition 33 got me to laugh pretty hard a few times.
Cyberpunk 2077, overheard two NPCs sharing a joke:
What does a corpo say before he offs himself?
spoiler
Guys, please don’t shoot.
Every once in a while, I get matched with competent players in Rocket League, and something magical happens that makes me grind. Feels rarer and rarer these days, but it still happens, which is why I still play.
Tactical Breach Wizards
A couple of minutes ago.
I played Helldivers 2 with some noobs.
We finished all objectives and were going for extraction.
One guy was walking past me with a portable hellbmomb backpack. You don’t even have to play the game to guess what that is. The name nails it perfectly.
You can arm the hellbmomb backpack yourself - but it can be activated by your teammates as well.
It’s kind of a dick move, but I couldn’t resist. Poor guy got blown up into a bazillion pieces.
Outer Worlds 2, baby! It takes itself more seriously than the first one, which I think adds to the comedy.
What got a chuckle out of me was this statue in the first town you visit. It’s a beautifully-designed, marble statue of some hero. The Auntie’s Choice corporation that’s colonized the area used an advertisement drone to project an image of the CEO’s face over the statue’s head.
There’s also the Protectorate members that have tried to integrate into corporate society saying things like, “I only recently learned that artificial means good!”
I love dry humor, and this game is much more dry than the first.
I didn’t know this was already out! Hell yeah
san andreas
skyrim
undertale
Damn, CJ, why you always gotta be a busta?
The Paper Mario games have several laugh-worthy jokes and scenarios
Spiritfarer has a couple
Animal Crossing New Horizons has a couple
Disco Elysium. The dialog options are so cracked
My partner always levels half light and physical instrument to get the most unhinged dialogue and it’s great.
VtM Bloodlines 2 just got me yesterday because it changed up the dialogue my character speaks when I put on a catholic priest outfit. He provokes people to rage by saying vampy things depending on his clothes but in the priest suit it’s just simple "Damn you!"s and calling people demon or quoting the exorcist. The NPC’s have the best replies to this though.
Before that it was probably the music video scene from The Alters
Holy shit The Alters has a music video scene? Is it like in American Dad when he’s in Francine’s mind and has the other versions of him sing a song?
Kind of. They play it straight though. It’s corny but also really epic
Just started playing Wolfenstein: New Colossus for the first time, and everything is just so over the top, it’s funny. The game starts you out in a wheel chair, where you roll through a u-boat, shooting Nazis with an automatic pistol.
Those Wolfenstein games kinda rule because they’re so over the top.
And then you become Terror Billy.
Um… Slay the Princess, like, last night. Sure it’s marketed as a psychological horror game but it’s actually pretty funny.
That said, I’m also often streaming things with friends and we riff the whole time so even the least funny games ever will get a laugh at some point. Lol
Ironically, Dispatch was the one that I immediately thought of. There’s a few other games that have made me laugh recently, but the only one where I felt that the humor was there to stay is Tactical Breach Wizards.
Jen: What the hell just happened?
Zan: I think you just met Liv Kennedy.
Jen: …
Jen: …
Jen: I didn’t love it.
Probably Portal 2, but I plan to try Dispatch as soon as it has completed.
