The Funniest Game You’ve Never Played

If you haven’t noticed already, I like games with a sense of humor that don’t take themselves too seriously. Growing up I played a lot of the LucasArts and Sierra point and click adventure games; great titles like Day of the Tentacle, Sam & Max Hit The Road, Leisure Suit Larry, and plenty of others. Many of these have made it to some of the consoles and also Good Old Games, which I highly recommend you go to and buy a few.

There was one game in particular that made me laugh like an idiot when I played it, and that’s the topic of today’s From The Vault review: Armed & Dangerous on the original Xbox and on PC. Before I go any further, I want to point out that this is available as a backwards compatible title on Xbox One as well.

The game was released in 2003 – the same year that tons – and I mean tons – of other greats came out, including Knights Of The Old Republic, Viewtiful Joe, Max Payne 2, and Soulcalibur 2 to name just a few. And back then – there wasn’t a single remaster among them, which is really weird to say.

Anyways, I was immediately charmed by the game because while it’s a fun if not overly flashy or complex shooter, it’s also one of the funniest games I’ve ever played, between the slap-stick humor and site gags, and the very witty writing and excellent voice acting. The type of jokes remind me of movies like Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Top Secret!, or Space Balls. The gags are a little juvenile and there is some lighthearted ribbing of various nationalities of people, so some in 2020 may roll their eyes or possibly even get triggered and need their emotional support animals to nurse their fragile, fragile psyches as they complain about it on Twitter. But that never happens, right?

You play as a group of misfits called the Lionhearts. They’re headed up by Roman, a mercenary who is the only being in existence to make a face mask not look idiotic, Jonesy, a mole with a scottish accent and a temperament that rivals Francis Begby in Trainspotting, Q, an English robot with what looks like human teeth who’s almost constantly drinking tea or trying to, and Rexus, a very small, very old man with some sort of new england accent, bad BO, and a glass eye. So definitely not your most conventional group of heroes. These are characters that proudly just don’t give a crap, make dumb mistakes, and you’ll very quickly come to love them.

The Lionhearts are trying to prevent the evil King Forge and his army from unlocking the Book of Rule and its ultimate power. Along the way they’ll save villages of equally hilarious and creepy looking villagers and peasants, accidentally kill sheep and some penguin looking bird things, and take on Forge’s army itself.

Finishing each level rewards you with a cutscene where something insane happens and sets up the next level.

It’s a 3rd person action game and it plays well enough, though another big draw other than the writing, are the weapons and items you’ll have available. You’ll start the game with a rifle, and each level has a pub set partway through, where you can collect new weapons and items from there. The weapons get really crazy as well, as in addition to things like machine guns and mortar launchers, you’ll also get a shark gun which makes a shark swim along the ground and eat enemies, or a box that opens a black hole, or a topsy turvey bomb that turns the world upside down and makes the enemies fall into the sky. Really imaginative stuff. Even using the basic sticky bombs have really funny results when you toss one at an enemy and watch him run around screaming bloody murder, and while the other enemies avoid him as he’s about to explode. The violence is all very cartoony as well, so the most adult thing is really the dialogue.

Each level is basically set up with some mission objectives, things like blowing up houses that have bullseyes on them or rescuing peasants and dropping them off at their homes. They try to mix these up every level to keep the gameplay fresh, and then every so often you’ll man a large gun turret to take on an army of enemies, and the objective is to survive long enough that you don’t have too many break past your defenses.

Finishing each level rewards you with a cutscene where something insane happens and sets up the next level. That’s really the big draw here, is that while you’ll probably get a little bored saving peasants for the 4th or 5th time, you’ll want to make it through just to see what happens to the characters next. There’s also tokens hidden throughout the game that unlock things like big head mode, harder difficulties, and one of the earliest ones you’ll get is the ability to replay cutscenes and previous levels. This is a fun one to show your friends, even if you just show them the cutscenes for a good laugh. The cutscenes haven’t aged that great, though, so just be ready for that.

As I said earlier, Armed & Dangerous is backwards compatible on Xbox One if you don’t want to hunt down a physical copy and plunk down the 10 bucks instead, and it’s totally worth it even if you just play through it once to see everything. I had a great time with it back when it was new, and playing through it again recently was just as funny as the first time. This is an easy recommendation, and I’d stake my completely worthless reputation on it!