I remember when I first played the new Super Mario 64 when it came out on the Nintendo 64. I must have dedicated most of my life playing that game and trying to get through it.
Well, one day I grew hungry whilest playing and decided to keep the game on and fix me a nice, quick, microwavable dinner. Upon returning, I find that Mario was asleep and not only that, but talking in it as well, saying various things like naming foods he, no doubt, was dreaming of eating. For some reason I found this highly amusing.
It reminded me of the old Nintendo game Fire n’ Ice, in which the person you play falls asleep and you can see little bubbles rising from under his hat if you leave him standing still for too long.
I have no doubt there are other games where the lead character that you command does something amusing or funny if you leave them be for a bit. What are any others you know of?
N64 Link will yawn and shift his feet. I think Windwaker Link does something similar, but I’ve haven’t played Windwaker in a while.
The various characters of of Chrono Trigger will do different things if you leave them alone on the world map. Crono will stand up and wave his arms, for instance, while Marle will sit cross legged. I particularly like Lucca’s- she pulls out a book and starts reading it.
In Bubsy: Close Encounters of the Furred Kind, if you left him idle, he’d go up close to the “camera”, knock on the screen (it even made a sound like when you’d knock on a television screen), and ask if anybody was in there.
In Legacy of Kain: Defiance, Raziel draws on the ground.
In Monkey Island, In a scene where they’re about to die if you don’t do something, so if you don’t do anything (and well, kill them);
IIRC, one of the characters farts and saves the day.
I once read a review for an Amiga game called “Rainbow Island” where they claimed if you left it long enough, the very cute, big-eyed cartoon character who hopped from raindow to rainbow took out a large handgun and played russian roulette. I don’t know if this was Amiga urban legend or the invention of a mischevious reviewer - the was no screenshot, but it made a good story!
You might be thinking of the bit where Guybrush is thrown over the pier tied to an idol and is stuck on the sea floor, surrounded by cutting tools just out of reach. Of course, he can hold his breath for 10 minutes so he’s fine while you work out how to save him.
Of course, if you don’t figure it out in 10 minutes…
He goes green and starts floating, dead. As in seriously dead, not rubber tree dead. The verb bar turns from walk, open, etc, to float, decompose, rot, etc. It’s pretty funny and the only time you can properly die in a Monkey Island game.
In Fatal Frame 2 (One of the greatest video games of all time, IMHO), if you leave the game idle for 5 minutes, very eerie ghosts will come and haunt the screen around the main character. Very cool.
In one of the Spiderman games, Spiderman will start snoring and in at least one of the Harry Potter games, Harry will fidget and look around and appear generally impatient.
I only know about these because my son plays them and leaves the games idle. I see them when I happen to be walking by. I don’t know which games they are- he has two Spiderman and three Harry Potters.
The first games I noticed doing this were the Sonic the Hedgehog games. In Sonic 3, Sonic would tap his foot impatiently and then make a pointing gesture in the direction he was facing, Tails would stand around and yawn, and Knuckles would start shadow boxing.
In Earthworm Jim, if you stood around long enough, Jim would randomly do one of a few different animations. I remember in one of them, he’s trying to spin his gun around on his finger and accidentally shoots himself in the face. I don’t recall any of the other ones, though.
But I think the best one has got to be Commander Keen 4 (a.k.a. Goodbye Galaxy / Secret of the Oracle). Normally, if you let the game idle for a minute, Keen would pull a book out of his pocket (which suddenly grew to full size) and start reading it. But there’s one level, the pyramid of the moons, that has a cool little easter egg. If you stand on one of the moon designs on the floor and wait, Keen actually pulls his pants down and moons you! I had to see this one myself to believe it. It’s one of the funnier video game easter eggs that I know of.
