Toots. Air biscuits. Trouser trumpets. Whatever you want to call them, farts are a natural and often hilarious part of our everyday lives, so it’s only fair that they’ve shown up in video games like a gently wafting fog.
From a cheeky poot to a blaring foghorn, the entire spectrum of bowel bombing joy has been represented in gaming’s young life. We at PUG decided to put together this list of out top ten gaming farts to ensure that you only get the finest flatulations for your listening pleasure. No need to thank us. Just sit back, enjoy, and be grateful they never invented Smellevision.
10. Grand Theft Auto: Vice City
Oh that was my, uh, exhaust.
One of Vice City’s later missions involves jumping from building to building on a sports bike. However, to get up there you have to ride into an office building and take the lift up, along with two other office workers. Cue an awkward moment as neither Tommy nor the man and woman say anything, though someone certainly voices their opinion in a more high-pitched, trumpeting sort of way. The brilliant part is that if you mess up your jumps, you have to ride back to the building and take the lift up again, where the exact same moment plays out again, fart and all.
After about half a dozen falls on my first mission attempt, the whole affair took on a kind of mystery thriller feeling to me. Who was it that could flatulate with such clockwork regularity? Was it the man in the suit, suffering the after effects of a beans-and-spinach banquet? Was it the woman, gaseous plumes billowing out from under her pencil skirt? Or maybe it was Tommy Vercetti himself, declaring his disdain for such law-abiding employment. Regardless, by the time I finally passed the mission, those two office workers would have been unconscious.
9. Conker’s Bad Fur Day
Beware the silent-but-deadly, Conker!
This game is solely responsible for bridging the gap between childhood humour and the adolescent laugh-out loud moments that still plague our lives today. After one session of Conker’s Bad Fur Day, players walked away a slightly more immature version of their former selves.
The decision to release Conker’s Bad Fur Day came out of left-field from Nintendo – a chance to reel-in older gamers who’d defected to PlayStation’s growing list of adult titles. It worked; it doesn’t take long to realise Conker has a penchant for booze, as well as a crude sense of humour.
What seals Conker’s place in this farticle is the way he lets rip after remaining stationary for a certain time, and his infamous encounter with The Great Mighty Poo. It was as if this game was made with a whoopie-cushion gun with the intent of having every player imitating the sound, unable to match the Poo’s mighty boom.
8. Saints Row: The Third
Frankly, I’m even more impressed that it dented the bodywork.
While flatulence has been a crucial gameplay and storytelling device for decades, few games have attempted to weaponise our sulfuric emissions quite like Saints Row: The Third’s Fart in a Jar. As the final upgrade to stun grenades, the Fart in a Jar deals much more damage and keeps enemies busy with fits of coughing and vomiting. So permeable is its waft that it will even force enemies to exit moving vehicles, helicopters included. Though more of a novelty than a proper weapon, the Fart in a Jar still proves to be a handy addition to any arsenal.
7. Terraria
I wonder how they get it in there in the first place.
Another one to bottle bowel breath, Terraria took its own Fart in a Jar in a less aggressive direction. By combining the Cloud in a Bottle accessory–which allows you to double jump–with a Whoopie Cusion, it gains some extra propulsion after the second jump, allowing you to stay airborne just that little bit longer. So great is Terraria’s obsession with flatulence that it also offers the Fart in a Balloon item, which behaves in exactly the same way. Sadly, the effects don’t stack, crushing any dreams you might have of becoming some sort of fart-propelled superhero (or villain, more likely).
6. Banjo Kazooie
Imagine laying one of THESE first thing in the morning.
I think we can all agree that Banjo wasn’t much chop without Kazooie. Without her nimble legs, stabbing beak and bulletproof yet aerodynamic wings, Banjo would have been left swatting beehives with his soft, furry paws. And yet, the blood-red breegull’s greatest talent was the ability to fire eggs from her mouth… and her bum.
Dropping from Kazooie’s feathery posterior with a delightfully wet “pthth!”, these eggs would bounce a few times before breaking apart. Though not a particularly useful attack, it nonetheless certainly chewed up a lot of eggs for the novelty alone. Banjo Tooie expanded the ARSEnal even further with the addition of flaming, freezing and exploding eggs, leading one to wonder what exactly Banjo had been feeding her.
5. The Sims
The Sims: proving to young men everywhere that girls do, in fact, fart.
For fifteen years The Sims has allowed us to live out our more mundane fantasies, from cooking a perfect meal to having seven children (NOTE: Not advised). But once The Sims 2 gave us the ability to blame a fart on someone else–and get away with it–it was like stepping into the land of chocolate.
As much fun as the Ventrillo-Fart is, the Sims 2’s bog-standard fart proves even more memorable for one practically solid reason: visibility. That’s right, anytime a Sim lets one rip, a putrid cloud of green vapour appears from his/her behind, allowing the offending emission to be immortalised in a screenshot for all eternity.
4. Super Smash Bros. Brawl/ Super Smash Bros. for the Wii U/3DS
Up, up and AWAYYYYYYYY!
When Wario isn’t passing the time by snacking on onions or riding his super sweet motorcycle, he’s most likely passing gas. But this guy takes his backdoor emissions to the next level with his special attack, Wario Waft, a deadly move that grows in strength as fights progress. The internal process of fart conjuring can be quickened when Wario consumes items or munches on opponents during battle, and glows yellow when he’s ready to let it rip harder than an episode of Beyblades.
Not only can this move be used to add insult to an already stinky injury, but it can be employed to recover to the stage making this fart the most multi-purpose poot out there. Regardless of its usefulness, this flatulence is a force to be reckoned with, and one that is not only teeth-gritting or toe-curling, but moustache zigzagging as well. Just look at Wario. You don’t think that stache does that naturally, do you?
3. Oddworld
I bet there’s a funny story behind those pants.
Oh Abe, if anyone puts the art into fart, it is you my little alien friend. Nobody who played Oddworld back in the day was ever quite as interested in rescuing your mates as making you toot. Abe is such a connoisseur of flatulence, that he has developed the ability to possess his own emissions and weaponise them. If that’s not a talent I don’t know what is. Hearing his buddies giggle anytime he let one rip always helped to keep the tone light, which is what you want when fleeing from a cruel and ruthless corporation.
2. Monster Hunter
Don’t strut near this butt.
The Monster Hunter franchise has created some of the most terrifying beasts gaming has come to behold. The Congalala, however, is not one of those creations. A pink Gorilla having a bad hair day, it lazes around, holding mushrooms with its tail and scratches its butt constantly. So it’s not surprising that its deadliest weapon is gas.
The overgrown primate clinches its body and blows out a noxious cloud from its behind. If you’re near the Congalala when this attack goes off, you’ll be covered in a small toot cloud that disables your ability to use most of the items in your inventory, including health potions. While the initial damage isn’t all that overwhelming, terror soon sets in on unsuspecting hunters when they take another hit after desperately trying to heal their initial wounds. Novice hunters should definitely beware this monkey’s buns.
1. Fable
“Pull my finger” seems positively quaint now.
One of the Fable series’ greatest strengths its storybook look and feel, which is equally satisfying to play straight or subvert with all kinds of not-for-kiddies mischief. Expressions–social actions the Hero can perform–are often the source of such tomfoolery, allowing you to dance, swear, belch, fart or flip someone off at the press of a button, with amusing reactions.
Fable II takes expressions to the next level, allowing most of them to be extended by holding down the button and releasing at just the right time. In the case of the fart expression, pulling it off results in a triumphant bell-curve blast that fills passers-by with a mix of amusement and disgust. Failure, however, brings an unwelcome visitor in one’s pantaloons, and the kind of public humiliation normally reserved for childhood nightmares.
Fable III crosses the final flatulent frontier, letting us grab a villager by the head and blast one right in their face. If that’s not good clean family fun, I don’t know what is.
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