The Top 7... Most embarrassing live-action game scenes
Oh 1992, you were too pure for this world
If you make a bad game, it can only haunt you for so long. All that ties you to failure is a name in the credits – that’s not so bad. But star in a game’s horrific live-action cut scenes and your image is tarnished forever. Your horrible accent, ridiculous costume, and unmitigated willingness to make an ass of yourself for money are all digitized and archived forever - ripe to be picked out of the interdepths years later just to be mocked. And that’s exactly what we’ve done, because we like to laugh at the expense of others. They probably had it coming.
In 1992, Night Trap wasn’t laughed at for its cheesy nonsense - it was actually taken seriously. This is what was offensive in 1992 - a game about girls in nightgowns being attacked by vampire ninja things. They said it encouraged the trapping and killing of women, despite it actually being about trapping and killing vampire ninja things who were trying to trap and kill women. Can’t these idiot politicians get anything right?
Since we’re not completely brain dead, we can see Night Trap for what it really is… you know, a game about girls in nightgowns being attacked by vampire ninja things, and this scene:
Breakdown of embarrassment
0:00 – Party time is declared with gusto.
0:04 – The music is switched on, and, as with the party, is noted verbally.
0:06 - Commencement of the highly popular ‘90s dance, “Pretend You’re Skiing Only Make your Arms Look Stupid.”
0:16 – The ‘90s version of Rock Band.
0:55 – The moment you realize that the song you’ve been idly listening to is about the game.
1:44 – Enter Tony, the mute cousin with totally rad sunglasses, an oversized shirt, and white pants.
1:54 – Did she just take her shirt off back there? WTF? Why?
So there’s this mask that grants its wearer powers beyond imagination. You have half of it, and the evil Fang Tu has the other half. Take that and add some “actors” who are capable of punching a camera, and you have yourself another Digital Pictures game.
If you really want to know more about the story, skip to 2:33 of this clip and check out Fang Tu and his black and white afro.
Breakdown of embarrassment
0:28 – “A great fireball that…” [unnecessary pause] “…collided with the earth.”
0:48 – She says “no” like she’s trying to get one of those speech-recognizing phone-bots to understand her.
1:00 – “HUH HUH HYAA HWAAH!”
4:10 – Torch man laughs uncontrollably at his own joke
4:14 – Torch man’s laughter is so irrepressible that he is forced to slowly morph it into grunts to keep from being defeated by a case of the giggles.
4:27 – Someone mumbles something about “draining.”
5:00 – Torch man runs out of ideas for phonetically different grunts, and begins to sound like a deranged Santa.
6:35 – Everything turns disco, for some reason.
7:28 – Unnecessary scream.
Sometime in the ‘90s a meteorite crashed into Earth and deposited an immensely poisonous, but equally valuable substance which became known as Tiberium. The Brotherhood of Nod, a secret cult lead by the insane megalomaniac, Kane, began harvesting the material and building its ranks. As the Nod army grew, the UN became aware if its plans for global domination and deployed its Global Defense Initiative, beginning World War III. And there you have the basis for one of the most prolific RTS series ever.
If you hadn’t guessed from the synopsis, the C&C series has never taken its cut scenes or characters overly seriously. But just because it’s aware of its absurdity doesn’t make it any less absurd. In this scene, Kane shows his displeasure with Seth, his right-hand man. It is, in my opinion, both one of the best and worst game scenes ever.
Breakdown of embarrassment
0:06 – The reason I watched this video about 10 times in a row.
Four low-resolution fights on just two CDs! Prize Fighter was actually a decent idea for an FMV game, though as with many of the others, winning was mostly about memorization. Regardless of its merits as a game, this has to have been ridiculous to shoot. Imagine bobbing, weaving, punching, and bear-hugging a camera for half-an-hour. How could you not feel like a complete ass afterword – especially since the day before you told all your friends how you were going to star in a movie. What other roles could that possibly lead to?
Oh wait, Ben Bray, who played Honeyboy in the game, actually went on to have a fairly prolific career in Hollywood stunts. And the referee was played by Gene LaBell, another big-time stuntman. Who else was in this thing? Billy D. Lucas… Arnold Schwarzenegger’s stunt double… Dick Miller… a real boxer and successful actor… Jimmy Nickerson and Manny Perry, both also successful stuntmen. Well, color me stupid.
Breakdown of embarrassment
0:00 – “I’m going to play this role like Clint Eastwood, trust me, it’ll be great.”
0:14 – In order to capture the player’s hands, someone had to crouch in front of a camera and hold his arms in the air. Somehow this realization tarnishes the whole thing.
1:34 – The ref says “what?” like he can’t remember where he is, or if he’s in a real boxing match.
1:47 – “Ok, now press your chest against the camera. Good, good.”
2:50 – Extreme close-up!
Super Wing Commander is a super obscure 3DO/Mac remake of Wing Commander. The graphics were completely redone, and the game introduced proper recorded dialog, but probably shouldn’t have.
Its talking heads were static images with blinking eyes and moving mouths - akin to the talking faces that once appeared on Late Night with Conan O’Brien (Oh Conan, that’s not actually Arnold Schwarzenegger!). The only difference is that in Super Wing Commander, they weren’t a joke.
Breakdown of embarrassment
0:38 – Oh god, that cardboard stand-up is talking!
0:46 – “So, you can do a Scottish accent, right?” “AUCH! NO PRAHBLEM!”
1:30 – Did he just fall asleep in the middle of talking?
This is embarrassing on multiple fronts. Firstly, Scottie Pippen performs the opening song. Boy, that must have been exciting for him… bet he doesn’t regret that at all. Then there’s the cast of wacky characters who are introduced like Power Rangers. Oh I see, they all have different personalities, and thus different playing styles! I bet those actors went on to play lots of great roles that ended in numbers (Hey, “Assistant #1” is better than “Assistant #2!”). And finally, there’s the naïve “street” setting which looks like the set of a Broadway musical.
Breakdown of Embarrassment
0:21 – Welcome to Slam City, aka a warehouse that we hired classically trained artists to graffiti.
0:56 – EYAAARAA! I hate this basketball! I’m gonna squint at you!
1:20 – Basketball players are not necessarily actors. Shaq was though. Shaq was awesome.
Yes, yet another Digital Pictures game. Sewer Shark is an on-rails FMV shooter which takes place in a network of sewers beneath Solar City, the island paradise of everyone’s dreams. The game was originally meant to be released on Hasbro’s NEMO, a VHS-based game console. Yeah, that was cancelled (wonder why). Like the rest of these, the game found its way to the awesome power of CD-ROMs.
It really doesn’t get more “early ‘90s” than this. Everything about it – from the font on the box to the face-palm-inducing acting – screams at you as if subtlety is the one-and-only deadly sin. The plot has about the depth of a Fruity Pebbles commercial: You’re a rookie “sewer jockey” on your way to Solar City with Ghost, a veteran sewer… guy who holds conversations by walking away from you and sporadically turning around and jumping in your face. You’re assisted by Falco, a female jockey who is looking for a hidden route to Solar City, and is later captured by the evil Commissioner. There’s also a robot. Just watch the opening:
Breakdown of embarrassment
0:43 – New York accents are hard.
1:30 – You better believe everything he says is going to be punctuated with a guitar riff!
3:24 – Introducing Catfish, the spawn of Morgan Freeman in Driving Miss Daisy, Kenneth from 30 Rock, and a robot from Doctor Who.
Fun Fact! Wikipedia erroneously credits the part of evil commissioner Stenchler to Jerry Seinfeld. Good thing we at GamesRadar have a rigorous fact checking policy, which involves not believing bullshit we read on the internet.
The Horde – Kirk Cameron stars in this FMV game, which was written by someone who saw a Monty Python sketch once and thought, “Hey, I could do that.”
Mad Dog McCree – You can still buy this classic lightgun game from Digital Leisure for the low price of $29.95. We’re so lucky.
Warhawk – The opening scene was going to be longer, but the actors had to get back to their community college acting classes.
Ground Zero Texas – Damn, videogames were so much more exciting back in the day.
Tomcat Alley – What’s that thing he picks up while he’s walking down the path… is that a tomcat? What is a tomcat, really? Oh, a male cat. Why’d they name a jet after that?
Source: http://www.gamesradar.com/f/the-top-7-most-embarrassing-live-action-game-scenes/a-20090406101637740097
