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20 years on, Worms remains a comedy classic

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  • 20 years on, Worms remains a comedy classic

    Gaming has long been fertile ground for comedy. Monkey Island, Portal, and Saints Row are all prime examples of virtual mirth. Through insult swordfighting, lying cakes, and vehicular singalongs, they fuel their puzzle or projectile based shenanigans with the carefully chosen witticisms of an unseen scribe. But gaming is also capable of another kind of humour, one which doesn't involve a single stroke of the pen. I suppose it's best referred to as emergent comedy; a mixture of physical comedy and improv where the human input is one step removed from the events that ultimately transpire.
    In some ways emergent comedy is far more common in games than the scripted kind. Any game with a physics engine has the potential to become an accidental Keystone Cops sketch. We've all witnessed at least one instance whereupon a game NPC has got its foot trapped in the world geometry and started thrashing about like a toddler having a tantrum.
    Deliberate emergent comedy, on the other hand, is incredibly rare, and you only need to look at examples like Goat Simulator to see why. Part of the pleasure of emergent humour is that it surprises us. When Michael gets laid out by a speeding lorry in GTA 5, it's funny because GTA 5 takes itself so seriously. But when a game sets up these scenarios on purpose, nodding and winking at its own glitches and pratfalls, the joke wears thin faster than a pair of Primark boxer shorts.
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