Class Clowns

Class clowns are those who try so hard to be funny, that provided you can stand to be around them, there's no danger you'll actually laugh. While this is certainly an expansive category when it comes to games, a few stand out as fantastically poor attempts at humor.

The Leisure Suit Larry Series

It is with little protest that the original Leisure Suit Larry games appear in this section. Matt Soell says that the game "never worked" him, while Holly Geithman says, "It was too juvenile, but I guess they weren't targeting chicks."

The newest Leisure Suit Larry is arguably funnier than its predecessors.

The first Leisure Suit Larry game came out in 1987, although, technically, SoftPorn Adventure had spawned the idea that would become Leisure Suit Larry six years earlier. In the games, players guide Larry Laffer through a world of sexual high jinks and hookups. The bawdy humor, critics say, fell flat compared with what Hollywood was churning out in the '80s.

The series resurfaced recently with Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude, thanks to High Voltage Software. (No, really. Thanks.) And while the gameplay itself is questionable (you assume the role of the original Larry's college-bound nephew, Larry Loveage), High Voltage kicked up the humor a bit, making it raunchier and funnier than its predecessors, and in turn making the original Larry games kind of that older uncle who just isn't funny anymore.

BMX XXX

BMX XXX might go down in history as one of the worst ideas ever presented to the gaming public. Jeff Gerstmann says, "BMX XXX was a game that tried to be funny and failed. The inclusion of 'Hollywood scriptwriting talent' resulted in a whole lot of really weak attempts at humor. It was a game that, to your face, they'd claim was squarely aimed at adults. But the garbage in there was clearly aimed at teens--and most of them would even find it stupid as hell."

This game was just flat-out dumb.

The combination of BMX bikes, strippers, and mission-based play here never really goes anywhere, but what's on trial now is the game's attempt at humor. Fart jokes (literally, construction workers with flatulence), monkey humor, and homeless people dot the comedic terrain, leaving it (and you) parched for something more fluid in the end.

ToeJam & Earl III: Mission to Earth

Because of the earlier ToeJam successes on the Genesis, you might find it difficult to recall whether or not this third game was any good. Well, it wasn't--it failed to capture the magic of the first two games. The premise sounds funny enough: otherworldly rappers ToeJam and Earl head to Earth to recover Funkopotumus' record collection. But making something sound amusing and properly executing those ideas are two vastly different things.

Forced humor was the undoing of ToeJam & Earl III.

In his review of the game, Gerstmann writes, "It's always tough to build a game around humor. Historically, very few games have managed to be genuinely humorous on purpose. If the humor works, then it can actually make up for a lot of a game's deficiencies or make a good game even better. But if the funny parts aren't, well, funny, then these games can get downright painful to watch or play. ToeJam & Earl III, a tale of three funky hip-hop-loving aliens, unfortunately falls into the latter category. It certainly tries to be funny, but the humor almost always falls flat. With the surprisingly clever exception of a reference to the album artwork for the classic Run-DMC album King of Rock, the rap music tie-ins feel fake and forced. It's as if three men who had never heard of hip-hop sat in a room for three hours while watching tapes of Yo! MTV Raps from around 1988, retained maybe 15 percent of what they saw, and filled in the rest of the blanks with tired '70s funk references. During play, each time you see an earthling become "funkified" and watch as Bootsy Collins star-shades appear on his or her eyes and Afros pop out of his or her head, all you can do is groan."