Self-Aware Games and In-Jokes

[GrinningManiac]

There are some moments in more light-hearted games where the plot, or a character, steps back and says "Yeah, this is a game", or some little remark or feature subtly nudges your ribs and says "Hey, look, we broke the fourth wall a little!"

What are your favourite moments like there?

I'll give mine

There are two in Crash Twinsanity. The first is where Crash and Dr. Cortex encounter a farmer, who cries "Oh Crash, the Farmer's Market is tommorrow, and my crops are riddled with greedy worms. If you get rid of them, I'll give you this power crystal!"
Cortex guns him down with his raygun, looks at the camera directly and says "What!? I'm an Evil Scienctist!, what did you expect? This isn't a video game!"

Another is where Cortex encounters the disgruntled minions of his evil lab, who are penguins. they gabber nonsensically, and the good Doctor says:
"What!? The check bounced!? Well, things have been kinda slow, Wrath of Cortex didn't do as well as we'd hoped..." (WoC was the previous title, and it sucked)

Also, on the Sims 3, if you have "Evil" Sims, you can troll forums and check responses later

 

[Amnestic]

Metal Gear Solid 4, especially during the Mantis fight.


And MGS1 during their Mantis fight as well, obviously.

So, I see you like to play Castlevania!

 

[JenXXXJen]

Phoenix Wright games, which only makes them all that more hilarious.

 

[ctrl-alt-postal]

In fallout 2, there was a place, I think it was called "teh cafe of broken dreams", where there are about 30 or so variations of the lead character from fallout 1. They are all chatting about their experience, things such as "my player made me a female character and tried to finish the game wearing next to nothing" and "I had one of those dumb as a rock violent types running me, let me tell you..." (paraphrased from memory)

That whole game was full of in-jokes and amusing dialogue turns. Made me laugh a lot more than fallout 3 could.

 

[Creator1234]

The one i can think of which stands iut in my head is EAT LEAD: The Return of Matt Hazard(the first game involoving matt hazard) as at the end of the game when you beat the game on the ps3 he says "time to get the beat the snot out of wesley trophy" wesley is the games end boss and also during the game u fight moderators with their player ids above the enemy.

Its a terrible, TERRIBLE game.

 

[sirdanrhodes]

The Simpsons Game.

 

[KAPTAINmORGANnWo4life]

The Create-a-Wrestler story mode from this year's Smackdown! Vs Raw game had a funny one of those.

Does Matt Hazard count? How about the "Bugs" in Serious Sam 2?

Banjo Nuts and Bolts also had many of these.

OFF-TOPIC:

The one i can think of which stands iut in my head is EAT LEAD: The Return of Matt Hazard(the first game involoving matt hazard) as at the end of the game when you beat the game on the ps3 he says "time to get the beat the snot out of wesley trophy" wesley is the games end boss and also during the game u fight moderators with their player ids above the enemy.

Its a terrible, TERRIBLE game.

I actually liked it, and it wasn't a poorly put together game. Remember: there's a difference between not liking something and that thing being bad.

I personally don't like Gears of War, but by no means is it bad.

 

[Ultress]

Cranky Kong's rants on old school games color and Lloyd's comments about not getting a quick jump option for a few dungeon's in Tales of Symphonia. Everyone gives a what? look and it's awesome.

 

[Ryuk2]

In Gothic there were moment where you could really tell that characters are saying ''Blah blah blah, do you really need dialogue here?'' or when peoples dialogue repeats itself and some character says something funny about that or whatever. I can't really remember the jokes, but they were funny.

 

[Distorted Stu]

Escape from monkey island is full of them. Especally the ending of the orginal!
Most notable line >Jump off cliff - "Good bye cruel world! Maybe later, would kind of be a short game if i jumped to my death"

 

[Kuchinawa212]

Umm, a few GBA games go 'Hit the A button to jump' and then you blurt out "Huh? The what?" none are coming to mind right now though.
and my friend played a game called a Bard's Tale, which is a parody of all those Chosen One RPGs

 

[OniSuika]

Monkey Island 4.

Telling the dart player to hit things around the bar, then betting he can't hit "That jerk with the camera", and a dart smashes the screen.

 

[Awexsome]

Paper Mario games anyone? I love the breaking of the 4th wall in those games.

 

[esperandote]

metal gear solid 1

when mantis tells you what games you play and when you have to change the controller to the second port

and also "the code is on the back of the CD case!"

metal gear solid 2

when the general is going crazy and you suddenly get the game over screen but you really continue playing

metal gear solid 3

when you have to eat the pill on the game over screen

thinking about it, every "game over" screen

 

[NoMoreBurninashun]

splinter cell chaos theory sam asks "let me guess three alarms and the mission is over" and lambert replies "no fisher this isnt a video game" or something like that ^^ also runecape i seem to remeber has a guy that says "this is all a game played on a thing called a computer" and your guy is like wtf? ure crazy?

 

[Truly-A-Lie]

I can only think of examples from the MGS series, but my favourites are the codec call in MGS3 where Naked Snake feels like his destiny is related to cardboard boxes (it's on YouTube as "Metal Gear Solid 3 - I'm in a box!" or something similar), in MGS2 where the AI tells you to turn off your console, and this from MGS4:

"Hold on Snake, time to change the disc. I know, I know, it's a pain, but you're going to have to change Disc One for Disc Two. You see the Disc marked "Two"?"
"Uh, no."
"You don't have a Disc Two? That's right! We're on PlayStation 3, no need to change disc, we're on Blu-Ray now. Dual-Layered too. What a world we live in, eh Snake?"
"Otacon! Get a hold of yourself!"

 

[SomeBritishDude]

There was actually a more serious use of breaking the forth recently in Batman: Arkham Asylum

In one section I was walking down the corridor the game suddenly stopped and made a really weird noise at me. I was so pissed...then the scene changed and I thought for a moment the game had bugged out and started over...Until I saw it was Joker driving the...well, I suppose Joker mobile.

It then plays like before, except your controlling the Joker walking down the corridor and it's Batman being taken into the Asylum. You then jump back to Batman in first person and the Joker then pulls out a Rolver and shoots you. It then jumps to the game over screen, where it says "Use the middle stick to dodge the bullet". You then click retry and Batman pulls himself out of a grave.

Just one of the many awesome sections with the Scarecrow's gas.

 

[Captain Pancake]

I think there was one in L4D, during the death toll campaign, just after you went through the trainyard, there was a lone house. Zoey would more often than not say,

"A lonely cabin in the middle of nowhere? I know how this movie ends..."

or something to that effect.