From the Brow of Zeus

Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard is the latest video game spoof to be critically panned for including very types of cliches that it parodies. Or as Gamespy put it, Eat Lead "points out some of the worst parts of gaming by example."

But if Bart Simpson whines about jumping puzzles during a jumping puzzle is that an automatic failure?

Ironic imitation is central to parodies. Without it, you'd only be left with word-play, slap-stick, and other hyphenated forms of humor. And yet time and time again, titles which spoof cliche game mechanics are hit with the same complaint:

The Simpsons (360/PS3) review by Game Informer:
"The biggest problem is illustrated through one of the game’s funniest features: the cliché. As you jump and punch your way through each mission, you will encounter hackneyed video game traditions like giant saw blades and pressure pads. Then the Comic Book Guy pops up and calls attention to the blatant unoriginality of these devices (“Ah, the crate. As seen in everything.”). While this almost always gets a laugh, pointing out clichés doesn’t make them any more fun to play." [Link]

My World My Way (DS) review by Game Informer:
"Tongue-in-cheek attempts to lampoon the RPG genre are littered about, but they fizzle out in the face of the game’s design; just because a game pokes fun at its own generic quests and characters doesn’t change the fact that players have to deal with them. A chuckle here and there doesn’t make up for hours of tedium." [Link]

Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard comments by Robert Ashley on the Gamers With Jobs podcast:
"...they take you into a tutorial, and the guy makes all these snide comments like, 'oh god, another tutorial.' It's like, yeah, but you're doing a tutorial. Making all kinds of snarkey remarks about your own game is kind of ridiculous." [Link]

When Spaceballs mocked Star Wars' scrolling yellow title sequence, they kind of had to have one of their own. It was exaggerated, sure, but it's there. The whole first scene is a classic example of comedic excess. They ridiculed Star Wars' long, quasi-pornographic shots of ships flying through space by giving you the longest, most exaggerated flyby in sci-fi history. And it worked, not because they were making fun of something their movie didn't have, but because they were making fun of something they had in excess.



How is this any different than Bart Simpson cracking wise about his own extended jump sequences? Hey, if the joke flops, it flops. Say you didn't find it funny. But poking fun at cliches by including them is a staple of parodies.

Here's another example: This clip from UHF, with Weird Al Yankovic spoofing Rambo.



Weird Al spoofed Sylvester Stalone's one-man army by exaggerating Rambo's every ridiculous aspect. Another option would have been for Rambo to settle his differences peacefully, challenging the enemy to a quiet game of chess. That'd have worked too, but instead Yankovic had Rambo blowing up a bajillion bad guys -- imitating, including, pointing out how ridiculous Rambo gets by example.

Now, I don't think high challenge and comedy go hand in hand. If you're going to throw a lot of jumping puzzles or endless waves of enemies at the player in the spirit of parody, don't make things too hard, or they'll be too busy chucking the controller in frustration to laugh about it. Keep things breezy, keep it fun. Imitate, but never frustrate.

Gaming has yet to have its own Princess Bride or Shaun of the Dead, satires that transcend the genre they're poking fun at. Give it time; the medium is young. But in the meantime, don't cripple the genre by panning hilarious games for daring to parody cliche gameplay.

One of my favorite takes on video game spoofs comes from Gamespy's review of Eat Lead:
No one is going to mistake Airplane! for a fine disaster movie, or Spaceballs for a science fiction classic, but they sure were funny. Gamespy makes no excuses for Matt Hazard's cliched gameplay but concedes that, yeah, maybe the cliches were there for a reason.

Labels: videogames