8 Video Games That Mocked Themselves!

let's have some fun shall we hello all of you little demons jules here for whatculture.com back again with another episode of the awfully hosted and awesomely named choose your own adventure the weekly medieval theme format where i the crown jewels of whatculture.com tickle is chosen by you yes you the person who bought their cats an expensive water feeder and they haven't used it once good yes you get to decide what list i dole out to you each and every week and this week we have none other to thank them card nacn which i'm pretty sure is the chemical compound name for uh sodium chloride or sodium cyanide just off the top of my head i saw that and i was like that's weird thank you for your suggestion of video games that roast themselves and this is the thing when it comes to dating life or just trying to break the ice in general sometimes wheeling out a tiny bit of the self-deprecation can go a long way because even though it is putting yourself out there in the worst possible sense by making fun of yourself it can help to sort of like level the playing field it can help break the tension it can introduce things in a way that's calm and casual because who who doesn't love a person who can't laugh at themselves i mean look at me i'm a living meme i have to laugh at myself otherwise i'm pretty sure that i disappear into a singularity anyway sometimes video games have taken this concept and applied it to themselves allowing them to take on criticism that they got in the past and make jokes out of it the pleasures of gaming communities around the world so with this in mind i'm jules this is whatculture.com and these are eight video games that roasted themselves number eight banjo-kazooie nuts and bolts right so we begin this list admittedly with an example of how not to mock yourselves successfully because while banjo-kazooie nuts and bolts tried to take the piss out of itself for the benefit of everyone instead it basically just wet its trousers pointed at its own crotch and said lol this is funny right lads this is funny and we're all like no this is a weird funeral now why have you done that i'm speaking of course about the opening 10 minutes of this experience which so horrendously mocked the tropes that the franchise was known for at the time that it actually robbed the game of any good will the player had going into it now the idea was clearly to show the player that the devs were well aware of the collect-a-thon gimmick that fans had labeled rare's previous titles with thanks to the sheer amount of items that gamers were asked to hunt down but they did so in a way that was utterly obnoxious filling the screen with so much shiny gold that even smaug said that's a bit bloody gaudy for me the lord of games asked us how anyone found collecting these things fun at all seemingly forgetting that it's not the object collecting itself that was fun but the level design and emergent puzzle solving in order to get these items that was actually the enjoyment factor here and it became a moment so on the nose that it bloody breaks it hell he adds even more salt to my crack by then going on to state that he's going to revert all of the main cast of heroes and gruntilda the villain back to their original physical forms but not give them any of the moves that they learned during the sequels because in his own words they won't need them imagine that for the first time experiencing that that all of the cool moves that made the previous two games so utterly brilliant they're not going to be used because you won't need them because the level design is going to be that bloody bad seriously this lord of games he's an utter prick and it makes you realize that there's only one true lord in our lives and that is the slimiest of jesus's i'm sorry that i forgot to mention you in a previous episode last week i i don't know what came over from me my lord i apologize to repent i'll offer you my firstborn i'll give you my tea would you like some of my tea he doesn't drink tea okay this is just making situations what here take my glasses james anna make me throw these glasses onto his face he's now got my glasses i hope a pair of cheap png sunglasses he's gone he's gone he's taking my glasses they were prescription number seven the sims 3 university life expansion so no matter what you think of the sims whether or not you appreciated the global phenomenon that was managing somebody else's life when you could be using that time to better your own or the fact that you probably used it to become a sociopath and murder people in a swimming pool or just letting a house burn down whatever you think of the sims there is no denying it's utter heft it was an utter monster when it came to sales and because people apparently can't get enough of the digital good stuff slews of dlcs and expansions drop for the mainline titles across the years in fact there are so many of these expansions that it must have become something of a chore to think up new furniture designs for them all something that is clearly highlighted in the university life expansion for the sims 3. here if you chose to follow the video game developer career you'll sometimes get a line of dialogue that references the arduous process of designing similar items over and over again the line states you can only draw so many downloadable coffee tables before snapping and it's at this point that you remember how many coffee tables there are in the sims games and you suddenly start to feel very very sorry for that poor developer and also for the fact that they work for ea number six metal gear solid two right uh so the metal gear solid franchise is an odd one to say the least it's kind of like having that one friend who always shows up absolutely steaming to the pre-drinking session and then we'll just wow you with nonsensical tales that you really just have to sit and experience and then we'll start to get quieter and quieter and more somber as the night goes on before at the end of the night he's sitting there alone at a bar table just mumbling to himself about nuclear war theories that was actually a pretty apt explanation that wasn't it the tonal shifts that this franchise has between world ending nuclear wars and nano machines to look at the silly monkey dancing in a nappy are enough to give you bloody whiplash but this in itself is part of the charm and it's clear the series is not afraid to have a laugh at itself take for example the hilarious moment in which ryden finally teams up with solid snake in order to take down their enemies and the new protagonist asks snake if he has enough equipment to last the ensuing firefight without missing a beat snake lifts his finger and points to his headband before stating infinite ammo i genuinely creased over with laughing when i saw this for the first time because the fact that it's so serious at this point you're about to go and take on the president of the united states who has turned out to be a bad guy and is trying to control the world now i'm not even going to try and explain the plot i realized what i was doing as i started that sentence trying to explain the plot of metal gear solid 2 is like trying to throw the deck chairs off the bloody titanic as it's sinking to try and save it it's not going to end well for me so instead well let's go back to my original point rewind a bit here james rewind us it's a hilarious moment because he points to his headband like that and you just think to yourself i love how this game has just not taken itself too seriously but it was also referencing an unlockable from the first video game in the series of the metal gear solid series and i was like this is utterly brilliant and mad it's mad brilliant it's medilliant and that is how hideo kojima was born number five borderlands 2 okay right so if there's one thing that borderlands 2 did so much better than the original borderlands it is everything seriously can you point out to an example of the original vanilla game that was better produced or polished over the sequel borderlands 2 had more comedy more charisma so many more guns and of course even more bosses to use them on big bosses little bosses bosses as big as your head all came into your crosshairs eventually and while many would fall quickly to your hurricane of bullets the raid bosses well they're gonna push you to your limits and beyond in fact some of these raid bosses were so difficult that you had to come up with ways to cheese these utter chodes and there was none greater than the borderlands one raid boss crawmorax the invincible who was defeated by a simple ledge that's right a little protrusion of rock was the thing that took down this massive monster because if you stood on it in just the right angle you could hit it but it couldn't hit you and it was utterly glorious to pie off this massive lad just going in fact this ledge became a meme in its own right becoming the one thing that crawmorax just could not kill and it turns out that it was lovingly referenced in borderlands 2 when taking on the son of kromarak's raid boss as the players approach the boss arena sometimes lilith will spark up a conversation in which she and the other vault hunters will reminisce about the ledge remarking that they miss it dearly and that it was the real hero of the piece and as you know i'm a big sucker for big ledges like this so of course i was so happy to see them pay homage to this wonderful rocky goodness in fact so good is it james that i think that we're going to be using it for today's musical interlude are you ready to once more enter the sweaty pit of the nightclub that we are dubbing bielsa blobs dance barn it's we'll change the name at some point i'm pretty sure but are you ready for another smash hit right jules this is all very very much beneath me like i am a proper musician and you're making me a bedroom dj for some reason don't be telling me that you're a real musician you're in a band with about 30 other members right not even the best bassist in that band no no no i'm not having any of that mate jazz has a better bassist than you in fact she's just replaced you as the new bassist it's not even plugged in do you see what i mean that was genuinely really impressive anyway let's get on with today's musical interlude ladies and gentlemen welcome to the stage is he just saying big ledge over and over on a royalty-free piece of music yeah it's not the most musically creative part of this uh episode is it oh i'm not complaining big ledge big ledge big large big latch number four crash bandicoot 4 it's about time the crash bandicoot franchise is no stranger to poking fun at itself across its tenure from tiny tiger mentioning in crash of the titans that the gang didn't invite him to be a boss in the previous titles to the existence of fake crash which was born from a discount toy line that got so much of the design of crash wrong that the devs fell in love with it instantly it's clear that if there's a finger to point and laugh that it will most likely be the series doing it to itself however i can honestly say that nobody around the world was expecting the series to reference the whoa meme that was going around at the time a few years before crash four stormed into our lives and our hearts taking the world by storm but it did and it was utterly brilliant after collecting all the whomper fruit in an on-rails section the screen will suddenly become flooded with low-res images of crash accompanied by only play's infamous sound bite something that was doing the rounds when it was repeated ad nauseum on chris o'neal's let's play of the original titles it was brilliant to see the series openly mock itself while also offering a nod to the fans who helped keep interesting crash alive in the years that he was in stasis number three guacamelee two now depending on your age memes are either going to be the highest of highbrow comedy that has ever been since the dawning of mankind or just a sort of gun slop affair of high volume low effort comedy that actually ends up killing the very concept of it now as i said before in the opening i am a living meme and i kind of really hope that nobody thinks of me as the latter and more of the former that's kind of what i want to be going for like i said before i don't think that i'll actually exist if people stop thinking of me as a meme yeah that's pretty depressing actually but yes even i have to acknowledge that things can hit maximum cringe at a moment's notice and you know who absolutely loves a good meme drink box studios the marvelous minds behind the almighty guacamelee series who absolutely slathered their original title in billboard memes providing simplistic jokes with their own unique spice however some players just really didn't like these peppered throughout the game and took to forums to complain on mass well drinkbox studios having a finger on the pulse actually recognized these complaints but dealt with it in such a brilliant manner that you'll have to give them credit for rising above the criticism because what they did was take all of their favorite complaints and stick them into a secret meme grotto where all the comic sans clashing colours and salty comments could live as one in the dankest part of their game to address such criticism in such a brilliant and hilarious way well it definitely won them a fair few new fans especially from those that criticized them in the first go-around because now they were like you know what this studio can take a laugh at itself and that is always a good thing number two uncharted 4. the sheer horror that must have passed through the naughty dog team at e3 when they tried to unveil uncharted 4 when they just had a catastrophic series of failures that meant that nathan drake was just left standing like a lemon for a couple of minutes must have been what it feels like to literally try and shut a brick however if there's one thing that naughty dog is famous for it's always going to be having the last laugh even if it is on themselves and when uncharted 4 finally rolled out for worldwide release the team was sure to put in a trophy that both rewarded the player and mocked themselves in the process if you're able to stand idle for 30 seconds in the opening sections of chapter 11 you'll get the stage fright trophy and the joke gets taken even further when you read the trophy's description which states stage demo fail at the end and it makes for a brilliant moment where naughty dog wasn't just referencing their own goof they wanted the world to know as after all if you were a 100 junkie then you are going to need this achievement to get that full completion they wanted you to know about their failure because at the end of the day they were kind of proud of it and number one silent hill 3. if there is one video game genre that is sure to elicit disgust outside of reading some of the romance novel video games that are on steam i mean those typos alone are just absolutely abysmal and make me shudder it's got to be the horror genre time and time again you'll feel your stomach lurch when you see your protagonist either lose their own thanks to being ripped apart or perform some horrible action that you wouldn't want to touch with a 10-foot barge pole in fact if there is one video game protagonist from the silent hill franchise that we would definitely not want to touch nor ever want to shake hands with it's james sunderland because um this guy here is an absolute fiend for plunging his hand down toilets i mean he doesn't even roll up his bloody sleeves in fact this became such a point of contention on silent hill forums that even the devs decided to address it when it came to the sequel silent hill 3 because if you had a save file for silent hill 2 present on your console then when faced with a similar looking crusty crap throne heather will turn to the camera and state who would even think about doing something so disgusting as a clear reference to the prior protagonist's human plunger approach it makes for a brilliantly meta moment and also one that highlights just how weird it was that james was so willing to get his hands dirty in some bum soup just for a few items what a weirdo james are all other james's like this do you love putting your hand down toilets actually hold on let's do another segment of let's ask james james do you like putting your hands down toilets yeah i thought as much have some respect and there we have it my friends those were eight video games that mocked themselves i hope that you enjoyed that and please let me know what you thought about it down in the comments section below as well as popping down your suggestions for next week's episode i hope you enjoyed that like i said if you want to chat to me further you can do so over on twitter at retroj with a0 or you can swing by live and let's dice that's dice with a c where i do all of my streaming outside of work usually on a wednesday and sundays and it'd be great to see you over there my friends but before i go i just want to say one thing i actually believe like deep down that it's very healthy to be able to laugh at yourself to not take mistakes that you made in the past too seriously because unfortunately they can come back in ways that will negatively affect you going forward so always be prepared to just not take life too seriously in that sense be able to laugh at yourself don't try and hold on to things that become too precious because at the end of the day it's a lot easier to get on with people if everyone is more open and comfortable with who they are everyone makes mistakes don't let them define your future by holding on to them so much that they aggravate you when people bring them up again and again all right it's just it just try and let go is what i'm saying here and remember to treat yourself with love and respect because that goes part way like i just said in going forward to do that and letting you live a healthy and happy life i want nothing but the best for you my friend now go out there and utterly smash it as always i've been jules you have been awesome never forget that i'll speak to you soon bye

Channel: WhatCulture Gaming

Views: 110,864

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Id: uEWr0WgUxqQ

Length: 17min 41sec (1061 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 03 2021