Comedy in Games Should Be More Than Just Quips | Extra Punctuation



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38 thoughts on “Comedy in Games Should Be More Than Just Quips | Extra Punctuation

  1. One of the few "smirk" characters that i find good is dante from dmc i feel like it makes sense for him and that the writers actually tought of what he is saying in the dialogues and how he act
    and they made him care when an actual big thing is happening that can be a thret to him and that shows in his cutscenes with vergil

  2. I haven’t even heard any dialogue from Forspoken, but what in the world is up with those cutscenes? It looks like Mass Effect: Andromeda. The main protagonist looks like she’s got Bell’s Palsy. Also, why do the environments looks super bland? Is the actual gameplay fun though?

  3. Constructive feedback: Make the ad at the start of the video three times longer. Now there's a slight chance I might accidentally get to the actual content at some point, and that's clearly not something you want, is it?

  4. Yeah but the Guardians aren't super competent badasses are they? SPOILERS

    The game even plays it all a bit for laughs in the end – after finally beating the bad, the crew do their smug music-backed heroic walk to a public whose memories have all been wiped and don't remember any of it. You then have to defeat the final final boss by talking to him, your allies assuring you your natural grating personality will be enough to provoke him.

    They did talk a bit too much. I would've said that was more evident of the game not having much gameplay. Combat pretty much all melded together and it had a lot of 'puzzles' that were just "what shape goes in this hole?" And I think they tried to mask that by never having a quiet moment.

    I didn't recognize the other game and since you didn't provide any actual examples of that idk how true it is there.

  5. It basically boils down to character development. Well established and intresting characters are always going to be more funny and given more leeway from the audience.
    That's why sarcastic characters like Church from red vs blue works. A sarcastic character isn't funny without the straight man

  6. Borderlands 3 has some of the worst "jokes" and dialogue in general with characters who never shut up, it got to the point where about an hour in I just stopped playing. Not once did I even chuckle or smile. Borderlands 2, however, made me laugh more then a few times because the game knows it's ridiculous, and gives you time to drink in the insanity and while yes the dialog is "quipy" it's also got moments that aren't just "haha funny joke" where as from what I've been told and have seen, the third game entirely lacks.

  7. High on life also had two other very key things that propped up if the humor didnt make it through your filter.
    1: It was a competent shooter that was fun if a bit easy.
    2: it had very well done atmosphere that had room for the jokes.
    Theres an Applebees in space, its part of the game, its a whole area, and you have multiple quests there, Its just there. Thats genuinely funny, but also sets your expectations and allows goofy jokes to land better.
    Best relation I could think of was classic Ratchet and Clank.

  8. Another thing: if your game isn't focused on comedy… less is more.
    World of Referencecra–sorry, World of Warcraft is nonstop puns and pop culture reference. You are BOMBARDED by them. It is endless. I just roll my eyes and hate on the devs when I see another "joke". Final Fantasy XIV rarely makes puns or references, but it happens on occasion. And when they do, I laugh (well, not at the puns – puns are always bad), because I wasn't expecting them and jokes land much better when you aren't expecting them. If both games made the same joke, FFXIV would get a chuckle out of me and WoW would get a disgusted grunt. LESS. IS. MORE.

  9. I don't dislike quippiness. In fact, I really like it. However, it is grossly overused and it is typically not good. The quips in Firefly I think, for example, are generally appropriate smart ass responses to scenarios, and a there's plenty of heart in there too. However, when Captain America chides his teammates for language on a battlefield where lives are in fact on the line, we've got a problem.

  10. I think the constant quips comes, not from a desire to be funny, but a fear of being earnest. It is very embarrassing when you try to take a ridiculous situation seriously and someone laughs at you for it. However, it is impossible to be laughed at if you are the first one laughing. This is why quips are inserted, so that the author can make sure the audience knows that they are not taking the situation seriously. The problem is when the audience wants to take the situation seriously and they are told by the author they are silly for doing so.

  11. The Borderlands example is interesting cause imo 1 and 2 were actually funny (with some quips here and there, but still funny at core) but then BL3 became just quips and for me it destroyed the game. Better gunplay but worse history and comedy, not worth for me personally.

  12. The last game that genuinely made me laugh out loud was Lego Ninjago the Movie the Game where the Ultimate Weapon was a laser pointer, but that was a beacon for the actual ultimate weapon: a real cat. And because they’re Lego the cat is the size of Godzilla

  13. "Insouciant" is the word, and it is so annoying. It's a lazy way to show how badass a character is supposed to be by having them be unconcerned about how badly shit's getting fucked all around them. It also means that the playable character doesn't have to have different reactions to various levels of shit-fuckery — they deliver the same eye-roll and "ho-hum" dialogue no matter what is trying to hack which of their bits off. It also means there's no arc, like maybe all this fucked-up shit is taking a psychological toll and maybe there's some character growth that needs to happen if the protagonist is going to stay sane enough to beat the final boss. Nope, they are just as awesomely disaffected at the end as at the beginning, just with a bigger gun or whatever.

  14. Well Hi-Fi Rush plays this card well. The main character doesn't generally give a shit, but he does constantly mess up. Plus, one thing Yahtzee missed is that this kind of quippy (btw I hate this word) dialogue can work if there is character development happening and the "quippiness" is being reduced as it does. In that case it works quite well, showing how the characters mature. Guardians of the Galaxy game actually does that to a certain degree, which I at least appreciated. But point still stands that it's not funny.

  15. ……… that moment when you realize a lot of your humor is quips. And it makes sense why there was a game or you had to finish off quotes in a way that was funny, and you either had people hysterical or scratching their heads in confusion.

    Granted, I just find comedy in the absurd, so I often times act in a way that you would not expect

  16. Apple cinnamon was my fave flavor of oatmeal as a kid. I actually don’t know if I knew that they were other flavors at the time 😂😂 but I loved it!!

  17. I will stand by the first avengers being a funny film. Tony quips sure, but characters like cap and Thor act as straight man to bounce off of and there’s a ton of actual jokes like the police officer questions cap, seeing him kill two guys and then repeating his orders. Lumping it in with the rest of the later marvel movies feels disingenuous