10 Games That Are Exercises in Absurdity

Man, I do love me a weird game. I don't mean "weird" like the Metal Gear Solid or Yakuza franchises, where they sprinkle in absurdity amongst all the drama and angst. I mean games that are just straight up weird, usually for the sake of being weird. They don't get made much these days because, well, let's face it: I'm kind of in the minority. They still get made though, and have been for decades.

So, I decided — probably because I'm concernedly unwell — to look at ten games from over the years that are just strange. The kicker, though, is that they're also all games worth playing. Or, at the very least, worth taking a look at. So, put on one of those arrow-through-the-head headbands Steve Martin used to wear, open a bottle of Yoo-Hoo, and enjoy these 10 games that are pretty much exercises in absurdity.

10 LSD: Dream Emulator

Yes, You Read That Right

If you've never seen, or even heard of, LSD: Dream Emulator, and you're trying to picture it in your head, don't worry. I can assure you it's most likely exactly what you're imagining. Or it's significantly weirder than you're imagining, which is even better. There really has never been a game like it, before or since.

Part of the reason for that is that the game's designer, Osamu Sato, wasn't a game designer. He was (and still is) an artist and musician, who used the original PlayStation as an artistic canvas. He created the gameplay while trying his hand at a racing game. He found himself wishing he could just drive into a wall and be transported somewhere else. So, that's the game he created. It never made its way to the US (I'm sure to the surprise of nobody) but it's got a huge cult following here and is totally worth checking out.

9 Jazzpunk

A Game Where You Spy on the Russians. I Think

Let's hold up for just a moment and acknowledge that Jazzpunk is probably the best title for anything ever. But, what it is the title for is one of the craziest, funniest games ever. Everything, from the graphics to the sound design to the story to the dang controls, is designed to make people stare for a minute, silently mouthing "what in the name of...?" at the screen.

Fortunately, the actual game part of the game is really fun, and not difficult to figure out. Once you've wrapped your head around what's going on — or, at the very least, gotten as close to that as you're going to — Jazzpunk focuses more on exploring this crazy world and telling its insane story within it.

8 Seaman

What? What Are You Giggling At? Oh, Grow Up

When people discuss how "weird" and "experimental" Sega was with the Dreamcast, you need to realize something. They're not kidding, nor are they understating. The Typing of the Dead combines killing zombies with a typing tutor. Space Channel 5 has you murdering aliens by dancing. But even those don't compare with the insanity that was Seaman.

Virtual pets were nothing new by 1999 — in fact, they were one of the most popular things around. But Seaman was more than just a high-resolution Tamagotchi. It was a fish. With a human face. That talked to you. And you talked back. Yes, the game came with a microphone attachment similar to the one included with Hey You, Pikachu! Your.... *sigh*.... Seaman would ask you questions and then, most likely, would insult you based on the answers. Then it would eventually either grow legs and escape or, you know, die.

All of this fun was narrated by legendary Star Trek actor and director Leonard Nimoy. Because of course it was.

7 Hylics

This RPG Runs on Wacked-out Moon Juice

If you're looking to make a really weird game, making it a turn-based RPG is a pretty economical way to go. For proof, look no further than Mason Lindroth's Hylics. Under this game's surrealist coat of paint is a pretty standard — but excellent, mind you — RPG. It's that coat of paint, however, that takes everything else in this game to crazy town.

All of the game's graphical assets are made out of the least "video game" stuff you can think of. Claymation. MS-Paint drawings. Paper cut-outs. Every NPC speaks in complete nonsense. Your healing and stat-boosting items are things you'd find at a 7-11 at 2 in the morning. And that's just scratching the surface. The game was popular enough to spawn a sequel, and Hylics 2 certainly keeps the circus going, but it just doesn't measure up on the weirdness scale like the original.

6 Taboo: The Sixth Sense

How Did This Get the Nintendo Seal of Quality?

During the run of the NES/Family Computer, many companies (including Nintendo themselves) attempted to make use of the hardware for more than just games. There were plenty of educational programs for it, including Donkey Kong Junior Math, which, according to my daughter when she was six years old, "sucks." There was a modem attachment released in Japan that allowed users to do stock market-y stuff (and I think bet on horse races, too.) Stuff like that.

Then, there was Taboo: The Sixth Sense. This was a game... well, a "game"... that simulates a tarot card reading. Basically, you enter your name and then the "game" draws the cards and gives you your reading. At least, that's what I'm assuming it does, because even after all these years, I still can't make heads or tails of what the game tries to tell me. But, at least you can see someone's butt in it!

5 Katamari Damacy

Roll up the Sun!

The King of All Cosmos got drunk one night and destroyed all the stars in the sky. So, he gave his son, The Prince of All Cosmos, a sticky ball and told him to make new stars by rolling up everything he saw on Earth. Actually, we should remove this from the list. That's not absurd at all.

No, it is absurd and it is awesome. Katamari Damacy and its sequels are the kinds of games that are just so well-designed and fun to play that you simply have to shrug off just how ridiculous the concept is. In fact, the more you play, the easier it is to lean into the weirdness of the game. The world you roll around in is very Japanese — which is cool for people who are interested in immersing themselves in that culture (or are, you know, Japanese) — but Katamari Damacy is a game that could take place anywhere.

4 Viewfinder

Shape the World With Your Camera

When my daughter was three years old, I heard her crying from her room. When I ran in to check on her, I discovered she was upset because she couldn't "walk through the screen" and "play with [my] friends." I think she was watching one of those Martha Stewart/Snoop Dog cooking videos, so who could blame her?

But, that's kind of the motivation behind Viewfinder, a game that lets players change the world around them with a Polaroid camera. Need a way to get across to another area? Take a picture of a bridge, put that picture in front of you, and walk across. It's more than just a great system for puzzle solving, though. You can use it to explore, or to completely change everything around you. Take a picture of a postcard — then walk into the postcard. The opportunities for chaos feel almost limitless.

3 Takeshi's Challenge (Famicom)

The Anti-Game

To paraphrase the great Paul F. Tompkins, Takeshi's Challenge is a video game that is actively defying you to like it. Created by legendary Japanese actor and comedian Beat Takeshi for the Famicom, it was designed from the ground up to be a miserable experience. And that's a big part of its charm.

Unlike the other games on this list, Takeshi's Challenge's absurdity comes from its gameplay. Outwardly, it actually just looks like any other game on the Famicom (because, of course, this only came out in Japan). Once you get into the missions, however, and find yourself singing karaoke into the Controller 2 microphone, shooting birds and UFOs while hang gliding, or literally doing nothing for an entire hour, you'll start to understand.

And to top it all off, if you manage to crack this game's code and finish it, you'll be rewarded with Takeshi himself... making fun of you for having done just that.

2 PaRappa the Rapper

Kick! Punch! It's All in the Mind!

Here's the thing that makes PaRappa the Rapper such an oddball game. Think, for a moment, all the things that made the game stand out when it first released — stuff we see in games quite regularly now. Rhythm games were nowhere near as ubiquitous as they are now. Heck, games based on music weren't all that commonplace. Then, you have the paper cutout-style character models and backgrounds. You see that a lot more with the Paper Mario games now.

When you factor in all of that, however, and you still have one weird-ass game. You begin the game — as a dog, I should point out — learning the art of rapping from an onion. And that dude is just one of your goofy mentors you'll encounter in this fever dream of a game. That's not even taking into account the situations PaRappa finds himself in. Stage 5 involves food poisoning and a boss rush that's blocking you from getting relief at a toilet. Yeah, I think that last part just made our case.

1 Incredible Crisis

An (Absurd) Day in the Life

Incredible Crisis — which is not a DC Comics crossover event and yes, I checked. Twice — is the story of your average Japanese family simply trying to get home for dinner. Of course, this is a video game, and you know the title of this list by now, so you probably can already tell how this is going to go. The world throws everything and the kitchen sink at these individual family members to impede their progress. Someone or something does not want the Tanamatsuri family to celebrate Grandma's birthday!

Each of those obstacles plays out in a mini-game — and it's these mini-games where things get, well, absurd. Players can find themselves giving a woman a massage (yeah, that's what's going on) on a train, running from a giant rolling boulder like Indiana Jones, or disarming an explosive in the middle of a bank robbery. And all of this takes place behind an amazing soundtrack by the Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra. Which is a real thing.