Video Game / Emo Game

Emo kids demand equality!

Emogame is a series of free Flash games made by Jason Oda between 2002 and 2004. While the original homepage is down, the Wayback Machine still has them archived. There are four games in the series:

• Emogame 1: A Get-Up Kidnapping! — The original, released in 2002. The emo band The Get Up Kids gets kidnapped by Steven Tyler to be sodomized in his dungeon, and a group of emo rockers set out to save them, going on an adventure through suburbia, MTV Studios, and Steven Tyler's dimension of evil that reveals the true origin of emo kids.
• Alkaline Trio vs. Hell — The three members of Alkaline Trio get run over while taking Rose McGowan home from a bar, and show up at the Pearly Gates. There, God tells then that, if they want a second chance at life, they have to go down into Hell and kill the Prince of Darkness himself, Skeletor. No, really — Skeletor, not Satan. In addition to serving as a standalone game, Alkaline Trio vs. Hell served as a preview of sorts for the upcoming second game in the series, released later in 2003.
• Emogame 2: The Epic Quest Continues — A year after the events of the original game, the cast of Friends have formed a band so that they could use the combined power of MTV and Subliminal Seduction to force a soulless, corporate materialism onto the world, and it's up to our band of plucky emo heroes to save the world from yuppie brainwashing.
• The Anti-Bush Game — Jason Oda created this game in the run-up to the 2004 election in response to what he saw as the corporate greed, warmongering, and religious fanaticism of the George W. Bush administration. It features Hulk Hogan, Mr. T, and He-Man going on a righteous rampage to claim the five keys that control Voltron, which is currently being used by Dubya and his cronies to enforce their will on the world, ending with an endorsement of Bush's 2004 election rival John Kerry. Sadly, it looks to have been taken down (perhaps as a result of Bush no longer being in office), as the link to it from the website is dead; fortunately, it is available elsewhere on the web.

The games are 16-bit-style, action-adventure side scrollers that parody both popular culture and the Emo Music scene. Most of the humor is derived from its over-the-top portrayal of media figures and TV shows, as well as in-jokes for emo fans, shout outs to '80s and '90s kids shows, and its willingness to cross every line of decency to make the player laugh. And on that note: all of these games are very, very NSFW, so play at your own risk.

A third game in the series, titled Super Emogame III, was announced in early 2005, and was originally planned for a 2006 release. Updates were released on occasion (including a demo), and it was planned to be on a music CD that would be available through the website. It has since entered the status of vaporware, with Jason Oda putting a notice on his website saying that, with the game an incomplete mess with mostly outdated humor, it will probably never see the light of day. The game's site used to be accessible here for a look at What Could Have Been, but sadly, it's down (and the Wayback Machine doesn't work with its Flash-heavy page).

Jason Oda is still making games, which can be viewed through his website.

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Tropes found in the series:

• A Love to Dismember: Chris Carrabba does this to Steven Tyler's severed head at the end of the first game.
• Abnormal Ammo:
  • All of the characters throw seven-inch EPs at enemies.
  • In The Anti-Bush Game, the protagonists throw American flag stars and the Tom Ridge Robeast has a gun that shoots duct tape.
• Action Girl: Jenny Lewis (of Rilo Kiley) and Greta Cohn (formerly of Cursive).
• All-American Face: Hulk Hogan himself, who's a secret character in one game and the lead protagonist of the anti-Bush game.
• Anti-Villain: Jimmy Eat World in the first game. The reason they had for removing their ovaries (just go with it) actually makes sense — they wanted to keep making good music without breaking up, even if it meant making emo mainstream. The player characters' criticism of them basically boils down to "It's Popular, Now It Sucks!" more than anything — he even grudgingly acknowledges that the music is still good, and that the only reason he doesn't like it is because of the airplay it gets. Of course, knowing this game, this was most likely intended as a parody of elitist music fans who think that music can't be both popular and good at the same time.
• Asian Store-Owner: The owner of the Cell Phone Pagoda at the Mall of America in the second game.
• Bait-and-Switch: The second game looks like it's going to recycle the plot of the first game, with Enrique Iglesias hacking into the TV set to announce that he has kidnapped the band Saves the Day to rape them. A few seconds later, the people watching reply:
  Geoff: Dude, this is boring. Change it.
  Matt: Yeah. I can't believe they canceled the Dawson's Creek marathon for this lame-ass show.
• Bestiality Is Depraved: The first game features Fred Durst raping a donkey, while the second has him doing so with Puddle of Mudd to form a man-train.
• Big "SHUT UP!": A Running Gag in the first two games.
• Black Comedy Rape: Inflicted on The Get Up Kids by Steven Tyler in the first game, and on Saves the Day by Enrique Iglesias and on Ian MacKaye by the cast of Friends in the second. The Anti-Bush Game also has the Corrupt Corporate Executives running Enron getting subjected to Prison Rape after you defeat them.
• Bowdlerize: After The Anti-Bush Game got media attention, a scene with Voltron having sex with the Statue of Liberty was changed to Voltron knocking the statue off its pedestal and taking its place, a scene with Ronald Reagan mocking his Alzheimers was altered to remove Reagan, and the Mandy Moore fingerbang minigame was removed. (The version linked above is a copy of the original, pre-Bowdlerization.)
• Brown Note: Jeremy Egnik plays music from The Promise Ring's godawful Very Emergency album in order to prove his claim about emo guys having ovaries that eventually kill their careers.
• Butt-Monkey: Chris Carrabba in the first game, being the useless one of the seven man group. Brett Detar in the sequel as the tagalong attention-seeking guy nobody wants in the group.
• The Cameo: Many, including the characters from G.I. Joe, Enid and Rebecca from Ghost World, Pete Wrigley from Pete and Pete, and a truly colossal number of emo musicians (most of whom are playable characters).
• Christian Rock: Creed's tenuous relationship with the genre is parodied in the first game. Before fighting them, Scott Stapp asks you if you think it's cool to be a Christian. If you reply yes, then he goes on about how Creed is totally a Christian band. If you reply no, then he denies that Creed is Christian, claiming that "With Arms Wide Open" is about a stripper.
• Cross Attack: Almighty Ashcroft Robeast's weapon is a cross on a chain.
• Cut His Heart Out with a Spoon: At the start of the first game, Chris threatens to "skull-fuck [Steven Tyler] with [his] huge cock". And then he actually does it. And then he marries Steven Tyler's severed head, which is still stuck to his 62-pixel-long dick.
• Do Not Adjust Your Set: In the first game, Steven Tyler announces his kidnapping and rape of The Get Up Kids to the heroes by hacking their TV set. In the second game, Enrique Iglesias tries the same thing, only for them to change the channel.
• Do Not Do This Cool Thing: invoked Mocked when you go onto the set of The Jenny Jones Show, where today's episode revolves around "12-year-old hoochies" in a way that seems to be backhandedly promoting the Troubling Unchildlike Behavior of the adolescent girls featured while ostensibly condemning it.
• Double Standard: Rape, Male on Male: A gag that is used multiple times throughout the series.
• Emo: Of course. Parodied throughout, with the "emo quiz" in the first game and The Reveal as to what makes guys emo.
• Ephebophile:
  • In the first game, you catch the members of New Found Glory trying to hit on and quintuple-team a high school student. They don't seem fazed when she tells them she's a freshman.
  • The player characters themselves can also hit on an underage Mandy Moore and fingerbang her. In the first game, they get sent to jail (i.e. killed) as punishment. The second game also has a segment where you wander onto The Jenny Jones Show and meet the "12-year-old hoochies", who will give the player character a handjob (and unlock a new character, Adam Lazzara of Taking Back Sunday) if they prevent the drill instructors from carting them off to reform school.
• Evil Diva: The Friends Theory in the second game is an entire band of them.
• Fratbro:
  • The Dave Matthews Band fans who serve as the first boss in the first game, trying to run you down in a jeep while hurling gay epithets at you.
  • In the second game, the music of the Friends Theory also turns guys into this, with Tim brainwashed into becoming a Gap-wearing, 90210-watching douchebag who works at Clear Channel.
• Genre Throwback: The final levels of the two main games (especially the second one) were throwbacks to old-school Metroidvania games. Most of the third game was going to follow the Metroidvania format, along with a few segments that homaged Contra and The Legend of Zelda.
• God: Appears in the form of Bob Sagat in Alkaline Trio vs. Hell.
• Hospital Hottie: At the beginning of the first game, one of the nurses asks Atom when the two of them can make sweet love.
• Hot Coffee Minigame: It involves Mandy Moore.
• Hummer Dinger: The second game featured a boss fight against Tim Allen driving one of these, complete with a mounted machine gun and rockets and an Eagleland Type 2 rant from Allen about how upholding his lifestyle is worth screwing over the environment and people in Third World countries.
• Hypocritical Humor: The series' anti-corporate stance can come off as this now that Jason Oda is spending most of his time making advergames.
• Improbable Weapon User: In The Anti-Bush Game, the Almighty Ashcroft Robeast uses a cross on a chain as a flail.
• Jumping the Shark: invoked According to Jeremy Enigk, all emo bands are doomed to either do this by the time of their third or fourth album or break up before then (due to the ovaries of emo guys kicking in and rendering them either insufferable or tone-deaf). This is meant to keep emo in the twilight zone between underground and mainstream, alive but not massive and corporate. The fact that Jimmy Eat World is actually entering their prime with their fourth album Bleed American is a sign that something is very, very wrong.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall
  • At the start of the first game, Atom says that they should drive to the Salvation Army store to meet Jeremy Egnik, as it will be quicker that way. Chris Simpson remarks that they should instead walk vicariously through a yuppie town, a High School, and a Hot Topic to get there, as that would make a much better game.
  • When Geoff, Travis, and Matt are flipping through channels in the second game and are confronted by two Evil Plans, they ask if somebody is trying to force some kind of epic quest on them.
• Malignant Plot Tumor: In the second game, Enrique Iglesias desperately wants the heroes to focus on rescuing Saves the Day from his clutches, intruding on the plot more than once. They're having none of it, though.
• The Mall: The second level in the second game takes place at the Mall of America, and involves blowing up its central core in order to destroy every mall in the country and liberate America from yuppie consumerism. The entrance to the mall overtly resembles a cathedral, with stained-glass windows and messages that treat shopping as a holy sacrament.
• Metroidvania: The final levels of the two main series games, and judging by what was made, most of the third game.
• Mind-Control Eyes: Tim has these after watching the Friends Theory music video in the second game.
• Monumental Damage: The Mall of America in the second game.
• Money, Dear Boy: invoked
  • In the first game, Conor Oberst and Tim Kasher only joined in the quest because they were promised alcohol. They were disappointed in the lack of such when they got there, but it was too late to turn back.
  • Many bands and musicians are portrayed as being only in it for the money, such as The Anniversary, late-period Weezer, Jimmy Eat World, and KISS.
• New-Age Retro Hippie: Given a Take That! in the second game. The player character gives a speech to a pair of these, slamming them for using the imagery of the '60s counterculture as an excuse to smoke weed, sell stuff, and not shower without engaging in any real activism. They summon the ghost of Jerry Garcia to fight you in response.
• Non-Standard Game Over: At the end of the second game, you get the opportunity to rename emo. If you choose a word that would insult the genre (e.g. "shit", "gay", "stupid"), you get a black screen with "game over" in small text.
• One-Hit Kill: It's fairly common for late-game bosses, like That One Ex-Girlfriend in EmoGame II or Almighty Ashcroft Robeast in The Anti-Bush Game, to have an attack that instantly kills you if it connects. To compensate it usually has a long wind-up time - for example, Ashcroft raises his arms to summon a globe of holy energy, taking a good five seconds, before throwing it at you.
• One-Winged Angel: In The Anti-Bush Game, Bush, Cheney, and all of his Cabinet members transform into giant monsters when you confront them.
• Outrun the Fireball: The end of the second game's second level, where the Mall of America is being blown up.
• The Reveal: Why are emo guys emo? Because they have ovaries. These ovaries work to prevent emo from becoming mainstream by causing good emo bands to either break up or start releasing crappy albums (usually around the time of their third album). Jimmy Eat World threw off this balance by having their ovaries removed, allowing them to stay good and successful long enough to become mainstream.
  • And emo girls? They have penises.
• Running Gag:
  • Everybody constantly tells Chris Carrabba (in the first game) and Brett Detar (in the sequel) to "SHUT UP!"
  • The Mandy Moore fingerbang minigame, which gets progressively more complex^note a simple push of a button in the first game, moving the mouse up and down in Alkaline Trio vs. Hell, and alternating, and shifting, button presses in the second main game as the series goes on. Concept art for the third game featured Mandy as a succubus, meaning that the gag likely would have continued.
• Small Name, Big Ego: In the second game, Brett Detar is one of these, tagging along with the group until they can admit that they wish they were as cool as he is.
• Stop Being Stereotypical: At the Mall of America in the second game, the player character finds a pair of rednecks being harassed by rich yuppies and is compelled to stand up for them in the face of the insults they receive. He promptly regrets it once one of the rednecks starts spewing epithets about black people, Jews, and gay people, bemoaning how everybody around him is either an elitist scumbag or a bigoted scumbag.
• Take That!: The games sling tons of them at every target in late-'90s / early-2000s popular culture, including American Idol, MTV, Hot Topic, point-and-laugh talk shows, SUVs, pop music, reality TV and, of course, emo. The Anti-Bush Game is also a pair of giant middle fingers raised at the right wing of American politics.
  • The demo for the third game included jabs at iPods and friending networks.
• Take That Me: In Emogame II, if you complete the The Adventures of Pete & Pete quiz, Jason Oda himself makes an appearance and offers you a blowjob. He states he deserves it for putting so many gay jokes in the game. Then gives you Hulk Hogan as a secret character.
• Villain: Exit, Stage Left: Dave Matthews pulls this in both games.
• What the Hell, Player?: In the first game, if you engage in the Hot Coffee Minigame with an underage Mandy Moore, you get arrested for statutory rape (represented by your currently-selected character dying).
• Who Writes This Crap?!: Shortly before facing Creed in their shit helicopter, the player character remarks:
  God, this plot is getting worse and worse.
• Womb Level: The second game has one of these, which literally takes place inside Anna Nicole Smith's womb.
• Writing Around Trademarks / No Celebrities Were Harmed: Gloriously averted, with TV shows, brand names and celebrities being called out and skewered by name. It's a wonder that Jason Oda not only hasn't been sued, but is now being hired to make advergames for many of these companies.

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