1UP COVER STORY | WEEK OF FEBRUARY 4 | HUMOR IN GAMES
The Legend of the R-Rated Gaming Comedy
Cover Story: A look back at the few games that ever dared to go raunchy.
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umor has always been present in games, just like it has always been present in every form of media. The very idea of Super Mario Bros. -- two chubby plumbers jumping to unrealistic heights and stomping turtles -- is whimsical and silly. The LEGO games are wonderful bastions of humor, with silent (and more recently voiced) cut scenes that contain impeccable comic timing. But the one thing that is largely absent from the world of video games is the notion of the R-rated comedy, a vulgar adult-oriented work that has a bunch of a dick-and-fart jokes usually produced by Judd Apatow. That style of movie has had something of resurgence in films recently.
In 2009, The Hangover, a modest $35 million movie, shattered box office records for the niche genre by making more than $275 million domestically and close to $500 million worldwide. In the year it came out, The Hangover outgrossed Star Trek and kiddie schlock such as Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel. Two years later, the sequel launched to an equally impressive gross. Clearly, a market for raunchy, offensive humor exists, but for the most part, that market has been untapped in video games.
1UP COVER STORY | WEEK OF FEBRUARY 4 | HUMOR IN GAMES
The Misdirection of Portal
Cover Story: Everyone knows Portal is funny, but we examine just why that is.
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o understand what it is that makes Portal's writing so well done, it helps if we ask ourselves, what makes a steak taste good? Preparation and handling are important, certainly. The quality of the cut makes a difference, as does applied heating methods. On a molecular and biological level, many humans find steak to be flavorful because our evolution steered us (no pun intended) toward seeking out certain foods over others as a mechanism of survival. Meat, with its high protein and fat content, was a much sought-after source of nourishment for primitive man. As such, our bodies adapted to seek out and enjoy the flavor and scent of a good steak. (Obviously this is not true for all cultures, but we, as humans, generally find flavors like salt and sweet to be most desirable for similar evolutionary reasons). But all those objective values aside, what is it that makes a steak taste good?
It's difficult to pin down, because it's a subjective assessment. Ask a vegetarian what they think of steak and they'll likely turn up their nose. Cultural and personal choices factor in to enjoyment of a steak, concepts that can't be rigidly defined, or in some cases, cannot be broadly defined at all.
I believe in Brendon Chung. The designer of Thirty Flights of Loving, one of my favorite games of 2012, views our medium in a way that few do. He eschews the norm, tells stories in intriguing ways, and has no problem making short form games. Your first trip through Thirty Flights of Loving is likely to take you less than 15 minutes to complete, but damn if it isn't worth it.
So it's with great pleasure that I present you with the first trailer for Quadrilateral Cowboy, Chung's newest effort that's set to release sometime later on in the year. QC continues the story of Citizen Abel, the La Nouvelle Vague-inspired hero of Gravity Bone and Thirty Flights of Loving. Despite the fact that he may or may not die at the end of each prior installment, he certainly looks alive and kicking in this brief montage. The game is centered around the concept of hacking, going as far as to including mechanics that force the player to use programming languages in order to press on. Chung has also noted that QC has an open, sandbox design, which is a departure from the much narrower experiences of his previous games.
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