I think the first game I remember playing that contained blue, adult themed humor was probably Conker’s Bad Fur Day. A game released in 2001 for N64 by Rare. If you’re familiar with it, there’s no doubt in my mind that the memories you have of such a game are fond ones. My memories of it certainly are.
When I had first gotten my hands on it, I was probably in 6th grade, and my mom had brought it home one night after stopping by the Circuit City that used to exist on her route home from work. It was often that she’d come home with a game every once in a while, usually something that wasn’t selling very well anymore, and was therefore on sale. And as such most of the games me and my brother owned were utter crap. Stuff like Extreme-G, Beetle Adventure Racing, and Bomberman 64. Basically anything that Focus On The Family would recommend. Again, utter crap. But, while it was mostly utter crap, it was at least to some extent a diverse and interesting collection of utter crap.
But somehow, among all that garbage, CBFD sneaked its way into my household. When my mom bought it, it was because she saw the “cute and furry squirrel on the cover.” The perfect pretense to the game’s actual content. So much so, I almost didn’t even bother playing it. But when I did, and met Birdy, used the frying pan to remove the golem thing on that bridge, and heard him almost finish the sentence, “you stupid bitch” (it might have been some other expletive) as he fell. My poop-humor seeking mind was settled on exploring its magical maturity.
Either way, what ended up happening was my dad discovered it, and took it away. We stupidly were playing it on a weekend when our parents were home, and he caught a glimpse of the scene where you help that bumblebee king, or whatever, pollinate an anthropomorphic sunflower; its most anthropomorphic feature being its enormous breasts. Thinking about it still makes me laugh. Ha! But yeah, he took it and hid it from us to eventually throw away, or something.
But then we found it, removed the label so no-one would know what the game actually was, and my brother, my friends, and I would continue to play it for the next couple of years until we were eventually bored of it; referring to it only in code as “Condor” when we spoke about it so we wouldn’t get in trouble.
That first experience with humor in games propelled me later on into enjoying even more games over the years. And would push me to discover other games with irreverent, scatological humor. And has lead me today to wonder, why aren’t these games more common? There’s no doubt that games like that are popular, and have a market. But why do big companies shy away from them so often?
Inherently games with a lot of scatological humor also attract a lot of controversy over political correctness. But what made CBFD different -and explains why I used it as an initial example- from the average Leisure Suit Larry game was the critical acclaim that it also attracted. I’ll refrain from pouring over why CBFD was such a good game and all the awards and what-not because you can just go look all that up if you really want. But the question I’d like to pose here is, why is it so bad that people play these games? In an age where things like gamer-gate and Anita Sarkeesian are big topics, is there room for games like CBFD still? Was there ever really room for games like CBFD?
You can point to South Park: The Stick of Truth as a good, recent example of edgy humor in gaming, which it certainly is. But considering that it’s exactly what people have come to expect from Trey Parker and Matt Stone, is it really all that great. I feel as though South Park stopped being controversial years ago, and has only really come into the limelight here and there in the past five or so years. The last episode I remember anyone complaining about was the one about R. Kelly in the closet, or maybe the one with Muhammad depicted. Either way, other than that, there really aren’t all that many examples that come to mind. There are certainly games mired in controversy still, but usually it’s in regard to sexism or something other than poop-humor…
At this point I’m beginning to realize that this article is getting a little long, and maybe a little too ambitious. So I think I’ll stop here.
Discuss. What are your thoughts… if you have any, that is! Ha!
#rekt
I agree with Dylan. Humor is sometimes very necessary in games, and as far as South Park is concerned the game itself is based on a humorous show. The humor in the game serves it very well. However, it does not contain more explicit things as one would come to expect from the franchise but I guess that’s a downside to make it more accessible to a larger number of age group. Since there are more people and children playing the game the game earns more which is basically the end goal for every game maker.
Games with this sort of humor help break the stigma of gaming being a medium purely for children. It took moral guardians a few years to wrap their head around South Park, with its bright and colorful visuals and cartoonish premises, not being a show for kids, but it was eventually accomplished, and nowadays it’s very rare to see someone seriously raise a fuss about South Park or its adult-cartoon brethren – everyone knows its in good fun and parents understand its intended audience far better. These games can do the same thing, and I think they are already in the process of alleviating this misconception – every day, games become more and more mainstream and socially acceptable to enjoy no matter your age. I absolutely support scatological humor in gaming.
Keep in mind that The Binding of Issac actually was controversial enough that Nintendo decided to block it from being published on the 3DS. They have since seemingly reversed this stance, but the game’s content does reference a lot of topics that game’s normally do not touch; sexuality and poop jokes are certainly among them. This past April Fools Day, the game’s creator, Ed McMillen, made a joke post pointing out many of the true (and not as true) references that needed changed in order to get the game on consoles. See these articles:
http://www.engadget.com/2012/02/29/binding-of-isaac-not-coming-to-3ds-eshop/
http://bindingofisaac.com/post/115192982234/rebirth-coming-to-3ds-wiiu-and-xbox1
http://www.engadget.com/2015/04/02/binding-of-isaac-rebirth-3ds-wii-u-xbox-one/
As for poop jokes in mainstream games, they usually aren’t there because they usually aren’t funny for people beyond a young age. It only worked for Conker since it may have actually been the first 3D game to make such a joke. I played it for the first time a few years ago, and parts of the game (especially the poop part) are just cringe-inducing.
@bdk, Ah yeah. I forgot binding of isaac. Mainly my premise that I really forgot to mention was more along the lines that big publishers were afraid to take chances on games like that anymore. I think if binding of isaac went to a publisher straight up, without any history of success or acclaim that it already has, it would be turned down immediately. There’s no way a big publisher would take on something so edgy…
I think that scatological humor and comedy in general is a good thing in most games. A game that comes to mind that did satirical and scatological humor well is the recently released Grand Theft Auto 5. I felt that the humor in the game was well done. The combination of over the top satirical stereotypes and a plot that shifted between absurdity and actual serious scenes was one of the best parts of the game.
I think there are a few games that use scatological humor these days. However, most of them don’t contain any extremely explicit, offensive humor. I think that lots of these games are toned-down quite a bit to prevent parents from taking the games away from their children. By creating less offensive games, the number of people willing to play those games likely goes up. Thus, profits also rise as well.
If you want to see scatological humor in games anymore, you need to play games like The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth. This game has a lot of poop references, and even some of the bosses and obstacles are literally just piles of poop. I watch a lot of YouTubers play this game, and I find it extremely funny when the YouTubers say things like “this room is literally filled with poop” or “a poop killed me!” However, unlike Conker’s Bad Fur Day, the Binding of Isaac: Rebirth doesn’t contain any explicit language or sexuality, which makes the game more appealing to a larger audience.