12 Great Video Games With Ridiculous Premises
Video gamers have consistently demanded one thing from their hobby: entertainment. Beyond that, we don't much care what inane task we're asked to complete. Give us a crystal banana, call it a power-up, and we'll gladly leap over a robot octopus to grab it, even if it means risking a slice of our life pie.
In many cases, it' plausible to assume the designers threw darts at a board covered in nouns and verbs, smoked crack until they forgot what nouns and verbs they picked, then made Warioware. Here are 12 more insane video game premises that prove you don't have to be Tolstoy, or even coherent, to design a hit game.
Super Mario Bros.
The Premise: An Italian plumber travels through a brightly-colored fantasy world collecting coins and mushrooms. He crushes turtles and goombas (essentially brown, waddling monstrosities) to death in order to rescue a princess from being raped by a dinosaur who pilots an airship.
What Made It Ridiculous: It was enough that mushrooms made you big and flowers made you shoot fireballs from your hands. By the time they added in a raccoon suit, a mechanical boot, and a dinosaur mount, it was pretty much anything goes. At that point, a mug power-up that gives you a rake that turns you invisible would have fit in fairly easily.
Why We Didn't Care: We were too busy cursing at the screen each time we found out the Princess was in a different goddamned castle.
Mega Man
The Premise: You are a robot built from the ground up for combat by the world' greatest living mind, and yet you are four feet tall and incapable of ducking or using any weapons other than a tiny, slow-moving pellet of energy. You have been tasked with killing other robots, whose powers have themes like "leaves" and "garbage."
What Made It Ridiculous: The fact that blasting an evil robot into oblivion somehow immediately granted you their powers. If that were really the case, I would have killed Tom Cruise long ago.
Why We Didn't Care: He had a robot dog, which is basically the secret dream of every 10-year-old boy in the world.
I thought Mario wasn't a carpenter, he was Donkey Kong's abusive animal trainer. Wasn't that in the manual or something?
ReplyHe was also a carpenter or some shit. I don't even remember anymore.
The only thing that disappoints is that no, Smash bros doesn't really include all the guys mentioned, it lacks Megaman, and I guess a Guitar Hero would be rather cool too as a character.
ReplyYou can kiss my ass in regards to Guitar Hero, that game has done more for my playing than anything else. When you realize it's nothing but a permutation program and use it for finger speed and independence in conjunction with actually playing guitar it was and still is a great idea in my opinion.
ReplyTYPO:
ReplyIf reality' going to break down anyway, you might as well humiliate your buddies by schooling them with Jigglypuff.
SHOULD BE:
If reality's going to break down anyway, you might as well humiliate your buddies by schooling them with Jigglypuff.
So?
Every shooter game ever..
ReplyThe premise: You are a gritty, hardened marine with infinite lives and an infinite amount of ammunition and a desire to see everything around you die. Now with more multiplayer than actual gameplay!
Why it's ridiculous: You are a soldier with infinite lives and infinite ammunition who will skip the tutorial and go straight to calling people faggot over the internet.
Why we don't care: You'll never have any friends anyway, and you have to do something until your inevitable heart attack when you welcome the sweet embrace of death.
This is beautiful. Thank you!
Six pages! No wonder I have RSI (chronic wanking couldn't help either).
ReplyEnchidna's aren't fantasy, they're spiny anteaters that live in Australia and are quite real...
ReplyMario was a capenter in Donkey Kong, and Pauline wasn't a princess.
ReplyHey now, Kirby's not ridiculous, it teaches kids a valuable lesson: consume your enemies to absorb their powers.
ReplyAny Sports Game Ever
ReplyThe Premise: Oh, hey, look. A football. And some football players. Or whatever.
What Made it Ridiculous:
A god-damn REAL football/soccerball/basketball costs far less than the copy of this game that you'll end up buying once every year. Just go down to the park, and toss it around with some friends.
Why We Didn't Care:
Who the f**k are you kidding? You don't have any friends. Plus, you're too full of Cheetos and Mountain Dew to chase a ball around. This is about as good as it gets, I guess.
Does this go for the NFL players that play Madden too?
Clearly a master of vidcons.
It's funny how so many of you people actually believe echidnas are real.
ReplyYou do known echidnas are real, right? Look it up on Google or Wikipedia, smartass.
I love how Pokemon never actually die in the game... They just "faint..."
ReplySeriously. Pokemon must have more concussions than a linebacker.
that is why the only words they can say is their own name they have massive brain damage
I know some other people said this and this list is like 4 years old buuuuuut but Echidnas are real. Dammit.
ReplyAlso, wasn't Mario a construction worker in Donkey Kong, where did you get Garbage Man?
Donkey Kong was an ape, not a monkey.
ReplyThe only difference is skeletal structure....jeeeeez.
Jigglypuff was the shit. Don't even try to lie about that.
ReplyI have an issue with the number of pages on this article. It could have easily been 12. Cracked, you've missed an opertunity.
ReplySwaim, first of all, this didn't need to be six pages. It could have easily fit on two or three.
Reply Hide All See All 3 RepliesSecond, echidnas are real. They don't look like Knuckles, but they're real.
Oh, and also? Mario was a carpenter in Donkey Kong.
dude i dont wanna be an ass, but are you trying to argue with swaim?
Go wikipedia "Echidna"
That's not a real picture of one or anything.
Echidnas are real...
ReplyAhh... StarFox, my favorite Nintendo game. Each time I play, I deliberately shot down everyone of my teammates. Why? Because they sucked, that's why StarFox was awesome, if they failed me, they die! Too bad you couldn't kill Krystal in StarFox Adventures(even though you never technically "kill" your teammates.) NONETHELESS! She deserves 12-guage buckshot to the face! Dinosaurs, magic, a f*****g stick, and a an annoying blue furry with an extremely large head. Thanks Nintendo.
ReplyHow nutty is the nintendoverse? So nutty that a bunch of people made it a real thing. No, seriously. Checkout There Will Be Brawl.
Reply