Eight Wisecracks RPG Fans Never Want to Hear Again
The Jackie Masons of the gaming world are not as clever as they think
7/29/2009 9:10 AM | 12 Comments | Page 1 of 2
On the videogame playground, RPG players are the ones who get hit in the face with a dodgeball while everyone points and laughs. You've got your jocks gunning through their FPSes, the theater nerds showing off on platformers, and the goth kids firing up the latest indies while they cop a cigarette under the bleachers. They all have one thing in common: They make fun of the RPG crowd.
We RPG fans have heard all the jokes -- too many times, in fact. Cool kids of the gaming world, your jibes have gone flat. We're enormous nerds, so you shouldn't have trouble coming up with new material. Yet I've listened to the limp wisecracks below (or variations on them) on more occasions than I can count. Trust me, it is time to retire these chestnuts:
"ANOTHER Final Fantasy? I guess it wasn't so 'final' after all!"
I heard this one, for the trillionth time, mere seconds after
Final Fantasy XIV was
announced at E3 this year. Dear morons: Yes. The name of the series is Final Fantasy. It is indeed very long-lived, such that our children and grandchildren will probably still be hearing this withering rejoinder every single time a new Final Fantasy comes out.
The saddest part about this line is that it wasn't even clever the first time. It's just a freaking name, people. Nobody complains that the Rainbow Six games have fewer than six rainbows, or that
LittleBigPlanet is a nonsensical contradiction in terms. (OK, I have heard people complain about that last one. But they're dorks, too.)
"That guy with the big sword is the most beautiful woman I've ever seen."
This is typically heard from a heterosexual gamer when he observes a male RPG character who doesn't cut the traditional square-jawed Johnny Unitas figure. The strange image causes him to panic. A little voice in his head chirps, "If you don't say something, people may assume you want to have SEX with that man!" In a desperate move, our insecure friend points out to everyone within earshot that yo, dude looks like a lady. Thus the jokester sends an implicit message: "I want to have sex with that man, but it's OK because of his delicate features."
"Strange how the girl only wears a bikini to fight the giant crab instead of, y'know, armor."
After knocking the gender-role-defying male characters, Insecure Heterosexual Guy typically turns his attention to the women, where he is shocked to discover that they wear revealing outfits, because he doesn't understand the concept of boobs. (Insecure Heterosexual Guy has some issues to work out in therapy.)
For me, once I accept the premise that the characters on screen are fighting giant crabs with golden daggers and ice magic, it's not that much more of a leap to imagine that one or two of them might do so in their underwear. I mean, I'm sure it's magical underwear. See? Suspension of disbelief: restored.
"If I wanted to read this much, I would buy a book." The genre is notorious for pages and pages of text and subtitles. Even the most dogged fan will concede that it gets tedious at times. But jeez, gamers, could you flaunt your illiteracy just a little less proudly? You're embarrassing the rest of us. We're not all content to communicate in a pastiche of grunts and profanity, you know. Besides, the alternative to text is more cut scenes. Which brings me to…
