Here's an article I've posted, about humour in games, from a 1998 issue of PC Gamer...
http://homepage.eircom.net/~limpingfish/page2.html
(Right Click on "Funny Games Article" link, and Save Target to download. It's a 2mb PDF document.Ã, :))
...It mostly talks about adventure games, and has contributions from Al Lowe and Terry Pratchett...
Enjoy :P
Al Lowe? Humor?
Was it PC Gamer or Just 17 you got the article from?
Al Lowe...He's a fat, bald, american dude. With a beard. What could possibly be funnier than that? :P
Certainly not his games...
Oh, come on :P Al Lowe's humour is adorable.
The article says Roger Wilco is one of the funniest game characters ever, even though the authors have got him confused with Dexter from Space Ace in the picture. So much for being a memorable character.
And they couldn't even use a picture from the original Larry game in the not-funny list.
In fact, what's up with that? They ask Al Lowe for his comedy advice, then negate all that by calling LSL one of the most unfunny games ever.
Any game that has a dog taking a wizz on a man's leg is funny in my book.
Maybe Al Lowes' comedy advice came for free. ;)
And Sam and Max barely got a mention...And the Curse Of Monkey Island actually wasn't that funny ::)
Either was that Christopher Lloyd game...
And the Roger Wilco mis-identification...
And Dave Perry, whose name you'll find in the dictionary under "Overrated"...
But other than that...Ã, :'(
Heh. What's the point of referencing a comedy article if we can't accept that comedy is highly subjective? The guy who wrote the article thought Toonstruck and Curse of MOnkey Island were very funny. As a matter of fact, so did I, but that's beside the point. Comedy is subjective - the writer just wrote what he thought in the best way he could. There's no use in saying "such and such isn't funny, wink wink nudge nudge" and "pity he left out the hilarious this and that". Everyone has a certain brainwave, and that's that. To me, the best examples of that is JustAdventure, which rated MOnkey Island a C (but the review was expecionally well written, because it gave the game's highs and lows and explained that the C was mostly a matter of personal preference of the reviewer) and Myst an A++, Myst being a game shunned by many adnevturers (can't think why, though). Different brainwaves, 's all.