If you make a bad game, it can only haunt you for so long. All that ties you to failure is a name in the credits – that’s not so bad. But star in a game’s horrific live-action cut scenes and your image is tarnished forever. Your horrible accent, ridiculous costume, and unmitigated willingness to make an ass of yourself for money are all digitized and archived forever - ripe to be picked out of the interdepths years later just to be mocked. And that’s exactly what we’ve done, because we like to laugh at the expense of others. They probably had it coming.

 
In 1992, Night Trap wasn’t laughed at for its cheesy  nonsense - it was actually taken seriously. This is what was offensive in 1992 - a game about girls in nightgowns being attacked by vampire ninja things. They said it encouraged the trapping and killing of women, despite it actually being about trapping and killing vampire ninja things who were trying to trap and kill women. Can’t these idiot politicians get anything right?

Since we’re not completely brain dead, we can see Night Trap for what it really is… you know, a game about girls in nightgowns being attacked by vampire ninja things, and this scene:

Breakdown of embarrassment
0:00 – Party time is declared with gusto.
0:04 – The music is switched on, and, as with the party, is noted verbally.
0:06 - Commencement of the highly popular ‘90s dance, “Pretend You’re Skiing Only Make your Arms Look Stupid.”
0:16 – The ‘90s version of Rock Band.
0:55 – The moment you realize that the song you’ve been idly listening to is about the game.
1:44 – Enter Tony, the mute cousin with totally rad sunglasses, an oversized shirt, and white pants.
1:54 – Did she just take her shirt off back there? WTF? Why?

 
So there’s this mask that grants its wearer powers beyond imagination. You have half of it, and the evil Fang Tu has the other half. Take that and add some “actors” who are capable of punching a camera, and you have yourself another Digital Pictures game.

If you really want to know more about the story, skip to 2:33 of this clip and check out Fang Tu and his black and white afro.

Breakdown of embarrassment
0:28 – “A great fireball that…” [unnecessary pause] “…collided with the earth.”
0:48 – She says “no” like she’s trying to get one of those speech-recognizing phone-bots to understand her.
1:00 – “HUH HUH HYAA HWAAH!”
4:10 – Torch man laughs uncontrollably at his own joke
4:14 – Torch man’s laughter is so irrepressible that he is forced to slowly morph it into grunts to keep from being defeated by a case of the giggles.
4:27 – Someone mumbles something about “draining.”
5:00 – Torch man runs out of ideas for phonetically different grunts, and begins to sound like a deranged Santa.
6:35 – Everything turns disco, for some reason.
7:28 – Unnecessary scream.

 
Sometime in the ‘90s a meteorite crashed into Earth and deposited an immensely poisonous, but equally valuable substance which became known as Tiberium. The Brotherhood of Nod, a secret cult lead by the insane megalomaniac, Kane, began harvesting the material and building its ranks. As the Nod army grew, the UN became aware if its plans for global domination and deployed its Global Defense Initiative, beginning World War III. And there you have the basis for one of the most prolific RTS series ever.

If you hadn’t guessed from the synopsis, the C&C series has never taken its cut scenes or characters overly seriously. But just because it’s aware of its absurdity doesn’t make it any less absurd. In this scene, Kane shows his displeasure with Seth, his right-hand man. It is, in my opinion, both one of the best and worst game scenes ever.
 

Breakdown of embarrassment
0:06 – The reason I watched this video about 10 times in a row.