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The Castlevania Dungeon Forums => Hardcore Gaming 101 => Topic started by: theANdROId on October 17, 2014, 10:23:44 PM

Title: Goofiness in games
Post by: theANdROId on October 17, 2014, 10:23:44 PM
So, I'd recently gotten on a "retro" kick and gone back to play some older games from the NES era...and then I got to thinking how there are some pretty silly things in games that we just accept.  Sometimes these are things that just have to be so the game works -- somewhere on here, someone mentioned how Drac's castle isn't really laid out for "normal" people to traverse.  I know, it's just a game...
MST3K Mantra (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Ugebzq3juE#)

...but if you think about it, certain things in the stories or gameplay are just silly!  For example:

-- In Star Tropics, your main weapon is a yo-yo
(click to show/hide)
  A  YO-YO!  Sure it was supposedly, originally created to be a weapon, but it's still silly!

-- In the intro to Blaster Master, the main character, Jason, chases his recently escaped, pet frog down into the sewer.  There, he finds a tank...because there are tanks in the sewers under our houses...and just gets in and drives off!
(click to show/hide)
  How did some kid even know how to operate that thing!?

-- Wall meat!  Why is there meat in walls?!  Why do we eat it!?

There's gotta be tons more!  Know of any?  Admittedly, I'm not as familiar with as many "new" games as I am "old" games...I'd expect some of this goofiness has been removed in modern games.  What weird, nonsense stuff do you know of or remember from any era game?
Title: Re: Goofiness in games
Post by: Lelygax on October 17, 2014, 11:45:05 PM
Thats why old games and cartoons are better, they were open to total creativity. The truth is that a lot of people played games to have fun and dont bother with reality, but nowadays they try to do a cinematic game that turns out to be boring or generic (not all of them).

Pac-Man doesnt make sense, Mario doesnt make sense, even Zelda doesnt make sense, but the truth is that we dont care and instead we nitpick real life problems xD

That is my vision.
Title: Re: Goofiness in games
Post by: theplottwist on October 18, 2014, 10:55:54 AM
Well I guess you're using games that are supposed to happen in a "realistic" setting, because if you're not, there's Super Mario.

Middle aged dude is able to jump 3 to 5 meters high and store a seemingly infinite number of giant, flying coins that must weight 100 kg each, while fighting living mushrooms, anthropomorphic turtles and sentient cannon bullets.

In Castlevania, we have some guys that can store more equipment than said equipment's seller, on their pockets. Seriously, every time I used "Spaghetti" with Soma, I kept wondering why is someone walking around with a spaghetti dish on his pocket. Seems even more absurd than someone walking with an entire turkey, interestingly.
Title: Re: Goofiness in games
Post by: theANdROId on October 18, 2014, 08:15:16 PM
I wasn't intending to think "realistic" so much, even though my examples seemed that way.  Sometimes, a general "theme" can justify a game, but I was thinking more the little oddities or sometimes even "tropes".  Though I'm sure it has it's tropes, Zelda could make sense in general (I think), if you consider it from the perspective of a medieval themed fantasy where odd creatures exist and might have the ability to talk.  However, I never thought about how little sense Mario actually makes, and I don't know a theme (other than itself, or "video game logic") where it makes sense.
 
Of course, as you say, we didn't care then -- looking back, I don't mind it now either (I kinda miss it), and it's just amusing to think about!
Title: Re: Goofiness in games
Post by: X on October 18, 2014, 11:42:59 PM
I don't think we care about the silliness of those games as we grew up with them. They were our generations' games. The younger generation will think otherwise, but to those who grew up throughout the late 70's and early 80's these games made sense to us as we were kids having fun. Even now those games still make sense but I guess it's cause they are what I knew then and still know now. I guess that's why I like playing the Saints Row games over GTA. SR has that silliness that harks back to older games and I find it fun in that it doesn't take itself too seriously.
Title: Re: Goofiness in games
Post by: theANdROId on October 19, 2014, 04:48:47 PM
I don't think I'd mind it in today's games either...honestly sometimes I get tired of everything trying to be so real and dramatic -- video games or otherwise.  I don't watch TV or play games because I want it to be just like reality, but exactly the opposite -- because it's not reality.  Not to say I don't enjoy some of the realism, but to me it feels like it's focused on too much.

I wish more stuff would consider that, like SR (haven't played any of those, but maybe I'll check one out!) or Earthbound.  I LOVED Earthbound!  The fact that, well, basically everything was mocked and nothing was sacred was awesome!
Title: Re: Goofiness in games
Post by: Super Waffle on October 19, 2014, 06:30:48 PM
(https://31.media.tumblr.com/cfb44a5e8be5863436774e7eea2254e7/tumblr_inline_nanadwVzDI1qdyoe2.gif)
Title: Re: Goofiness in games
Post by: Inccubus on October 19, 2014, 07:01:58 PM
I just beat Ittle Dew.
You wanna see silly game stuff being used for modern comedy, try that game out.
Fun and amusing.
Title: Re: Goofiness in games
Post by: theANdROId on October 19, 2014, 08:49:28 PM
I remember seeing that one and thinking I'd like it.
Title: Re: Goofiness in games
Post by: crisis on October 19, 2014, 09:21:59 PM
in little nemo: the dream master for nes, you have to feed candy to the animals until they fall asleep, then you can jump on or inside them & ride them around

ducktales, the entire game is silly & fun

ghosts n goblins, get hit once and arthur is reduced to nothing but his hanes underwear

altered beast for genesis, upon beating the game you find out the entire thing was a movie being filmed & all the characters are just actors & props, even the monsters

shaq-fu

michael jacksons moonwalker, you can make the dogs dance
Title: Re: Goofiness in games
Post by: theANdROId on October 21, 2014, 12:55:34 PM
Dream Master -- at least there was some sense to the idea of riding them around...but the "wearing" them part...that's almost nightmarish!  I feel like I either saw an AVGN or Irate Gamer mocking that...but I can't find it now.

Wasn't there a 64 game that was similar to Ghosts 'n' Goblins in the fighting naked thing?  Speaking of that, I wonder if G'n'G is in any way related to the "naked challenges" that are kinda popular nowadays.

The ending to Altered Beast reminds me of the ending to SMB2, though I don't think people liked the SMB ending much.

Shaq Fu...HA!  That game was ridiulous!  I may have seen it here for all I remember, but there was a kickstarter for a new Shaq Fu that did well.


Shaq Fu was one of those games that just kinda made me wonder how it came to be...like how someone came up with what seemed like such an odd idea.  Not that it was a bad game in the end, but I wonder how that pitch went.  NES had a number of titles like that too...like "Snake Rattle 'n' Roll"...it's a fun game, but the idea of playing as a snake that attacks things (like giant feet) with it's tongue, and eats...umm...these uh...ball, things...yeah...quite weird now that I think about it.  :-[