Take That/Video Games

"A ploddingly-written romantic comedy about a girl on her first day of school in a new town. Vampires are involved. The content of this book was almost physically painful for you to read."
 * Sega's American marketing campaign is an example of "Take That" taken to extremes that have rarely been seen since. Aside from the classic marketing slogan "Genesis Does What Nintendon't", there's this commercial taking a jab at the Game Boy's monochrome screen. Later Sega commercials had random people throwing Playstation Ones off skyscrapers, among other things.
 * An early advertisement for Shinobi Kid, the game Sega later released as Alex Kidd in Shinobi World, showed that the first boss of the game was named "Mari-Oh". The final release changed his name and redrew his face to look less like Mario's, but he still would shoot fireballs and shrink when weakened.
 * At one point in Double Switch for the Sega CD, four Italian mobsters appear. Two of them are named Mario and Luigi. They confront this one guy Brutus, who owes them money. Once you save Brutus's life, and most of the mobsters get subdued, Brutus yells at the one fleeing mobster "Tell Mario and Luigi their days are numbered!"
 * Shortly the Turbo Duo system for the Turbo Grafx 16 was released, its American distributor TTI saw it fit to release an incredibly anti-Sega advertising campaign featuring Johnny Turbo, a rotund superhero of sorts who defended the honor of the first CD-based gaming system by fighting off the evil Feka corporation and its cronies for making the same claim with their own CD gaming system. The comic was bad enough that it would have qualified as So Bad It's Good at best on its own, what with its weak counterpoints of the Sega CD's capabilities, implications that Sega employees are Not Even Human (to the point of naming that trope) and even blatant Ho Yay-laden surreal imagery toward the end. But some investigation revealed that it was much more a Take That toward video game executive producer John C. Brandstetter, who the main character was modeled and named after, than Sega. The entire sad story has to be seen to be believed.
 * Poking around gravestones in the original Japanese release of the original Final Fantasy would reveal Link's grave. In the North American release, this was changed to Erdrick's grave, which was also used for the PSX European release. Erdrick was the ancestor of the hero in the first Dragon Quest, which was much more similar to Final Fantasy than The Legend of Zelda was. Later rereleases of Final Fantasy I would restore the name Link, to the confusion of many Western gamers. Also, the original English translation's text for the gravestone was made Hilarious in Hindsight when the publishers of Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest merged.
 * The Nameless Mod allows you to find the Daikatana weapons that does little damage to enemies, but harms you as you use it.
 * 2027 has a subtle one to Deus Ex Human Revolution. Reading a newspaper in Paris may have a small mention that there are other media outlets besides Picus. Picus was the only media company seen in Human Revolution.
 * In Jill Of The Jungle, produced by Epic, the action would be interrupted from time to time for a newspaper headline about some more famous video game character admitting that he just wasn't as cool as Jill.
 * Apogee software swung a punch of their own in Monster Bash. In the backstory, Johnny Dash, the ten-year-old hero of the game is dragged under his bed and informed that his puppy had been kidnapped, along with numerous other dogs and cats. Upon being informed that his puppy had been kidnapped, Johnny's response is: "Who did this! If it was that Jungle Jill girl down the street, I'll kick her butt again!"
 * At the end of Donkey Kong Country 2, you find yourself in the Video Game Hero Hall of Fame, alongside Mario, Yoshi, and Link. There's also a sign that says "No Hopers", under which one can see Sonic's shoes and Earthworm Jim's gun.
 * Many Nintendo and Sega video games from the 16-bit era would tease you for trying to input a player name associated with the rival company. For example, Uniracers would tell you the names Sonic and Sega "are not cool enough." The final boss of the game could also pull a number of Interface Screws on you, one of them being "Hedgehog Speed" which was actually super-slow motion.
 * The obscure Bullet Hell NES Shoot'Em Up Recca has something like this as a intro that was edited out. See it here.
 * Yoshi's Island included a fast blue hedgehog enemy that was pretty easy to trounce.
 * So did Secret of Mana.
 * True Crime: Streets of LA features random background billboards for "Jockstrap", featuring an anonymous man's midsection, with a logo almost exactly like that of Grand Theft Auto publisher Rockstar. Furthermore, if the lead character received a call to attend a car jacking, he would often reply with "Grand Theft Auto? That sucks!"
 * GTA fired back in San Andreas, with billboards for the True Grime street cleaners. Prior to that, one of the assassination missions in Vice City had you killing five men with names suspiciously reminiscent of the main characters from GTA clones.
 * True Crime: New York City fired back at GTA in one of the side missions for cab driver Freddie-upon receiving the mission Marcus remarks "Man, now I gotta be a cab driver for this fool? Next thing you know i'll be flying remote-controlled toys and shit!" refering to the widely hated Zero missions in San Andreas.
 * Oh yeah, Grand Theft Auto III took a jab at the Driver series by sending the player on a mission to kill a Camp Gay named Tanner.
 * Driv3r hit back with the "Timmy Vermicellies", some dudes in ridiculously bright-colored clothes with floaters on their arms. Coincidentally, Tommy Vercetti from Grand Theft Auto: Vice City couldn't swim, and had a bright turquoise shirt.
 * Calita is a Take That to Catalina from GTA III.
 * And a well-deserved one, too.
 * GTA San Andreas then fired back in the mission where you must find and steal Snoop... uh, ahem... Madd Dogg's rhymebook. Shortly before you reach it, one of Madd Dogg's bodyguards is sitting on a couch, playing some unseen videogame, and suddenly says "Man, how did Refractions mess up so bad? TANNER. YOU SUCK ASS". Coincidentally, too, Driv3r was developed by Reflections.
 * Obscure Amiga video game Quik the Thunder Rabbit, involving a fast-running anthopomorphic white rabbit, had a joke at the expense of Sonic the Hedgehog. In the intro of the game, a tiny blue hedgehog is slowly making his way over a road before Quik zooms around the corner, causing the rodent to scurry away and leap off a cliff. Nothing like attacking what clearly inspired you...
 * The Splinter Cell series has a number of subtle jokes at the expense of rival stealth games, most notably Metal Gear Solid. For instance, in Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, interrogating one of the guards causes Sam to demand he hands over some ammo, to which the guard says something like "What, you think if you shake me enough a bunch of bullets will fall out of my pockets?" Also in the second game, the characters comment on the ridiculous codename of "Mortified Penguin", which seems to be a reference to FOXHOUND's "Adjective Animal" naming convention.
 * Metal Gear retaliated in Snake Eater's Snake vs. Monkey game, where Snake suggests letting "Sam or Gabe" take care of the monkeys. The latter is a reference to Gabe Logan, from the Syphon Filter series. His CO responds with "this is the genre we turned over every leaf in."
 * Splinter Cell also took a jab at Gordon Freeman in Chaos Theory: "Crowbars are for geeky video game characters."
 * Splinter Cell also took jabs at itself. The third game's missions generally got rid of the three-alarm-game-over limit that several missions in the first two games had, and Sam and Lambert referred to this in a conversation early on, even as Lambert asked Sam to be careful.
 * One of the trailers for Metal Gear Solid 3 has a Russian guard on a motorbike say to Snake upon being held up, "What is this? A Grand Theft Auto? We're not in a Vice City...this is a jungle!"
 * While we're talking about Metal Gear Solid...the fourth installment seems to be peppered with Take thats aimed at video gamers and internet culture as a whole.
 * The original jokey trailer for MGS4 featured Raiden fighting against what appeared to be Sam Fisher over a director's seat which held the coveted "main character" designation. As it turns out, after Sam throws Raiden off a cliff, he takes off his mask to reveal Solid Snake dressed up as ol' Sam complete with Sam's gun.
 * The first MGS4 trailer showed what looked like a First-Person Shooter. Phrases like "Finally a Policy Switch?" and "Forget Pre-rendered Stuff - Format: Playstation Scenes!" flashed on screen. Then, the camera swept out of the point of view of the "player", and it turned out to be a random guard whom Snake swiftly disarmed. Then up came the writing : "No! This is no FPS! This is MGS! MGS for TGS on PS 3!"
 * The Paper Mario series repeatedly makes jokes about Sony and Microsoft's games. Super Paper Mario had a minor character complaining about how he hates bright colors, and everything should be a uniform shade of brown -- that's the next generation.
 * Similarly, Uncharted: Drake's Fortune has an unlockable Easter Egg called the "Next Gen Filter", which turns all of the game's bright and vivid colors to shades of brown and adds more bloom.
 * Chapter 3 of Super Paper Mario is a massive Take that against video game Fan Dumb; the villain of the chapter is Francis, a nerdy chameleon who, amongst other things, likes to go on video game forums and complain about games that he hasn't played.
 * The rivalry between Capcom and SNK resulted in numerous swipes. After Art of Fighting was released, Capcom created Dan Hibiki for Street Fighter Alpha as a mockery of AOF protagonists Ryo Sakazaki and Robert Garcia. Not to be outdone, SNK gave Yuri Sakazaki new moves that were explicit parodies of Ryu, Ken, and Sakura's. Eventually, both companies decided to profit from the rivalry with the Capcom vs. SNK games.
 * Not to mention that Dan's new ultra in Super Street Fighter 4, "Haoh Gadoken", which is a spoof of A commonly used desperation move from Ryo/Robert's moveset.
 * In Street Fighter Alpha 2, if you enter "SNK" as your initials after getting a high score, the game will change it to "CAP".
 * Additionally a few Street Fighter characters appeared at the end of KOF '94 as victims of Rugal who were turned to statues.
 * Mention the word "PlayStation" in voice-controlled Pokémon Spin-Off Hey You Pikachu and Pikachu gets angry and starts electrifying things.
 * When the "Enter Your Name" screen in Pokémon Red and Blue is skipped by hacking or using a cheating device, the player and the rival have somewhat meaningful names. The player's name becomes NINTEN, and the rival's... SONY.
 * Ninten may also be a Shout-Out to Mother/Earthbound Zero: That was the lead character's name.
 * No questioning the logic behind "SONY," however.
 * In Duke Nukem 3D, in one level the ground is briefly shaken by an earthquake, prompting the hero to comment "I ain't afraid of no Quake!"
 * When Duke encounters a dead Space Marine in a secret room, he wryly comments "that's one doomed space marine". In turn, the protagonist of the somewhat lesser-known FPS Blood would come across a mangled, nearly dead Duke-lookalike hanging upside down, exclaiming "I've got time to play with you!" (a reference to a self-referential Easter Egg found in DN3D's first level).
 * Duke Nukem 3D actually has a number of references to various visual productions. There's a mock-up of Itchy and Scratchy from The Simpsons on some screens in one level, a recreation of the Star Trek: The Next Generation bridge that's been damaged hidden in another, several dead movie characters in various levels, various decorative items that mention something from a movie or TV series, and large portions of a number of levels are based on sections of movies.
 * Not mentioning how many lines are taken verbatim from Army of Darkness. Or that obvious They Live! quote.
 * The Evil Dead and They Live quotes are more like a Shout-Out than a Take that.
 * In a level of Duke Nukem Forever, a soldier offers duke a suit of Power Armor that looks suspiciously like Master Chief's from Halo. Duke's reply? "Power armor is for pussies."
 * One of Duke's quotes from Duke Nukem Forever: "I hate valve puzzles!"
 * Serious Sam takes some potshots at Duke Nukem in almost every title thus far. For example, the Sirian council in Serious Sam II requested Sam's help because some "blondie guy" was "taking forever". In that level was a secret area called Duke's skeleton, which was a skeleton hung from a tree with still a very particular haircut. Sam's comment on finding it. "Dude, you've been hanging there, like, FOREVER."
 * The fan-made Serious Sam Forever trailer doesn't help matters.
 * In Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney: Trials and Tribulations, Wright mentally comments to himself during a trial that the testimony has more plot holes than The Grid: Revelations, a rather obvious The Matrix: Revolutions reference.
 * Also, in the sequel Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth, Miles critiques the name of an airline called "iFly", saying that "nobody knows how to properly capitalize and space nouns anymore".
 * Given the Apple reference, it could additionally be a potshot at Virgin, a major player in both aviation and telecommunications.
 * The entire series is a big Take That spoof of the unbalanced and frequently abusive Japanese court system.
 * April May while staying in the "Gatewater Hotel" is a obvious Take That at the Watergate Tapping Scandal.
 * The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind has a Khajit named "M'aiq the Liar", who has some funny responses to different topics. In the sequel, Oblivion, he returns with a few snarky comments -- one of them being "People always enjoy a good fable. M'aiq has yet to find one, though. Maybe some day." This seems to be a Take that to the similar game Fable.
 * Daggerfall's manual includes this little take at the Unpleasable Fanbase: "People who play role-playing games need more than some pretty graphics and nonstop action to whet their claymores; they want depth and character and wit and drama. They want the thickest, most involving novel that they've ever read translated to their 15" screen, with themselves as the hero. That's what I love about people who play role-playing games. They're so reasonable."
 * Apogee had a bit of a joke at the expense of Commander Keen in Bio Menace, where Keen is one of the hostages in the second episode. In the backstory for episode 4 of Commander Keen, a character gets Keen's name wrong. Apogee repeated the incorrect version of Keen's name in the dialogue when you rescue him in Bio Menace.
 * Right in the middle of the GameCube vs. Xbox vs. PlayStation2 feud, one volume of Nintendo Power published a letter from a fan complimenting the writers on managing not to resort to this. The writers jokingly responded by claiming that the Xbox would cause brain damage if you dropped it on your head, and that the PlayStation2 ate small children. The latter joke became a Running Gag.
 * When a fan commented on how creepy the concept of the Kid Hero often was, Nintendo Power simply said: "The next time a child with a sword attacks you, simply feed it to the nearest PlayStation2.
 * IRL example: Microsoft's various Take that moments against the Playstation 3, such as crashing a PS 3 launch party by bringing a boat with a gigantic Xbox 360 banner into the background as cameras were rolling, or offering chairs for the patient people in lines outside stores waiting for their PS 3 -- the backs of the chairs contained a seemingly innocent URL which lead to a site where Microsoft pretty much took the piss out of 360 having been on the markets for ages before PS 3 and how all that waiting must have been tiresome.
 * Bio Shock in general can easily be interpreted as a Take that to Ayn Rand's Objectivism philosophy. Especially when one considers Andrew Ryan's name is almost an anagram of Ayn Rand. The Big Bad is alternately referred to as  and , and two of Ayn Rand's bestselling books were The Fountainhead and  .
 * And then Bio Shock 2 comes along and issues a Take That to Collectivism.
 * In a similar vain, Bioshock: Infinite (from what we know) could be seen as Take That to blind Nationalism.
 * And generally, the series as a whole is simply just a big ole' Take That at extremism in any form, which Word of God supports.
 * Also, it seems just for the hell of it, Francis from Left 4 Dead hates Ayn Rand, amongst MANY other things.
 * Someone made a rather infamous mod for Doom called Doom: Rampage Edition. The reaction was bad of course, and the author defended his work by claims of autism. Anyways, a prominent member of the Doomworld community said he could pull a better wad out of his ass. A week later, "A Better Wad Pulled Out of My Ass" was released on idgames.
 * The upbeat, optimistic, and very much non-angsty Zidane, male lead of Final Fantasy IX, delivers an affectionate barb to his predecessors. "No cloud nor squall shall stop us!". Likewise, the encyclopedia in Star Ocean 3 does something similar with the entry for "Squall".
 * When stepping into a dark room in Prey, the protagonist comments that he's "Doomed," a jab at the frustrating flashlight/weapon swapping in Doom 3.
 * In The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons, in order to open a gate to another area, Link must find a Triangular Jewel, a Square Jewel, a Circular Jewel, and an X Jewel. The item description of each jewel reads: 'A treasure from a by-gone age'.
 * Helter Skelter is the first assassin that Travis kills prior to the events of No More Heroes. He happens to be a cigar-smoking albino with more than a pasing resemblace to Dante from Devil May Cry. He gets unceremonously decapitated in the game intro with Travis commenting that he "couldn't tell if he was the shit...or just plain ol' shit!". This has led some people to believe that Mr. Suda51 isn't too fond of Dante or his series.
 * Then there was the rank five match against Letz Shake, whose weapon was a gigantic earthquake machine that had Cell processors and Tri-Core engines, and which was controlled with what appeared to be a Power Glove and a set of Virtual Boy-esque goggles. After powering up for what seemed like forever,
 * Right before the rank one match, Travis has a conversation with  during which she takes a stab at Duke Nukem Forever: "What if the game gets delayed? You don't want this to become No More Heroes Forever, do you?"
 * Suda gives us some Fan Service of the non sexual kind when we get to fight Helkter Skelter's brother. Who is a not so subtle jab at Cloud Strife from Final Fantasy VII, the man has a vendetta against Dante and his stylish swordsman ilk.
 * The Dark Sun universe game Wake of the Ravager has a large Take that to Ultima VIII in a journal you can find in the game, mostly mocking the plot holes and lack of resemblance to earlier Ultima games.
 * This was in response to a surprisingly nasty Take that in Ultima VIII itself. It contained an in-game book called "The Eye of the Boulder", which mocked the competing game series Eye of the Beholder for requiring a large number of floppies, having inferior graphics and sound, using a restrictive movement system and having bad storytelling. Both the Eye of the Beholder and Dark Sun series of games were published by Strategic Simulations, Inc.
 * In a leaked gameplay trailer for the MMO Jumpgate Evolution, the fighter squadron in the video indicates that they have been ordered to attack "Battlestation CCP" who have been edging into their territory with "Operation Trinity". CCP being the name of the company which designed and runs the MMORPG Eve Online, and "Trinity" being the name of one of the recent large expansions to the EVE universe, primarily the graphics content of the game. Some call it coincidence, but others are certain that the footage of "Battlestation CCP" exploding in a ball of fire nicely explains the competing developers' outlook on their rivals.
 * Which is hilarious in hindsight as it's been nearly two years since the intended release of Jumpgate Evolution without a single news update on their main website since late 2009, making the game a solid contender for being Vaporware. Eve players would've enjoyed the last laugh if they had cared.
 * Pretty much the entire plot of Ultima VII: The Black Gate was an extended, thinly veiled attack on Electronic Arts. Not too much of a surprise, considering the purchase of Origin by EA not long afterwards...
 * Sony's legendary "$299" press conference, which pretty thoroughly took the wind out of Sega's press conference.
 * And the "$599" press conference one generation later--legendary for the opposite reason, and the subject of many more Take thats in years to come.
 * There's also Kenji Eno's Take that to Sony. At a press conference were Eno was going to announce platform exclusivity to the Play Station, he abruptly announced that his games would be exclusive to the Sega Saturn, with the overhead display first showing a PSX logo which changed to a Saturn logo, and stomped on a plush of one of Sony's mascots.
 * Kessen 3 contains several Take that elements towards the general treatment of Oda Nobunaga. So he's always a villain, eh? How about we make him The Hero? Take that, those who always make Nobunaga an evil S.O.B! And even moreso to Capcom in which Kessen features Akechi Hidemitsu, the identity of the Onimusha hero Samanosuke as a rather special Mook. And then if you beat him with Nobunaga, you're treated with a special cutscene where Nobunaga commended Samanosuke's strength but still defeated him like two pragmatic warriors in war, not as a hellish demon beating a holy warrior. Take that, attempt of overglorifying Samanosuke into The Messiah while equaling Nobunaga like Satan!
 * Which began a series of Take That-ing inbetween Capcom and Koei afterwards. When Sengoku Basara 2 is announced, Capcom takes in one of Samurai Warriors' poster boy's friend Naoe Kanetsugu and turn him into a Joke Character who constantly claims to be INVINCIBLE, but goes down in a few hits. Koei then retorted in Warriors Orochi by making two of SB 2's poster boys, Date Masamune and Maeda Keiji, into villains and worshipping the titular Orochi.
 * Turok: Dinosaur Hunter for Nintendo 64 featured one Easter egg called "Quack Mode" which lowered the game's frame rate and caused the graphics to become more blocky. As the name hints, this was a Take that aimed towards the then-popular first-person shooter Quake.
 * Quake fired back with the N64 version of Quake II, where the instruction manual tells you "What are you waiting for, Dinosaurs in fog?".
 * Gabe and Tycho of Penny Arcade took a stab at attorney Jack Thompson over his crusade against video games. They donated $10,000 in his name to the charity Thompson would have donated to, had he not been lying. "For Jack Thompson, Because Jack Thompson Won't". To explain: Thompson was a (crooked like a twig) Florida lawyer who made video games his Moby Dick, using tactics that amounted to harassment to try to get these 'murder simulators' essentially banned forever. He offered a challenge to game makers: produce a video game to his very exacting demands and he would donate ten grand to charity. The hook, here, is that Thompson felt game makers were forging murderers out of children, and so his challenge was for the makers to put themselves into the game as targets, specifically as targets of unspeakably vile and grotesque murders. The challenge was phrased as a "You don't dare do this because you know I'm right", and Thompson very obviously never expected he challenge to be met. Which it was. An indie developer produced Thompson's demanded game exactly, effectively calling Thompson's bluff, which, lo and behold, was in fact a bluff. Thompson tried to weasel out of it and THEN Penny Arcade stepped in and donated in Thompson's name, basically to grind the salt into the wound. It was an excellent moment for schadenfreude, as Thompson, obviously, came out looking like a gigantic tool right away. Thankfully For the Lulz, Thompson was not quite finished looking like a gigantic tool:
 * And Then Jack Thompson tried to sue them for donating in his stead. The judge got in on the Take that! by throwing Mr Thompson's case out and threatening his license.
 * Not just sued, he tried to have them arrested for "harassment". You gotta give it to Jackie, it takes a lot of courage to try to get two guys arrested for giving money to charity (money he himself promised to donate but didn't).
 * Child's Play is a charity that those two also set up to try to counteract the "gamers are evil" stereotype in media.
 * Tomonobu Itagaki, of the Dead or Alive series, cannot give an interview without taking a dig against the Tekken ANY competing fighting series.
 * According to Itagaki, Namco once dissed the Dead or Alive series in a Japanese ad for Tekken 4. Whether it was a genuine diss or good-natured ribbing by their part is unknown, as the company also had a friendly rivalry with Sega, in which the two companies cross-promoted Virtua Fighter 4 and Tekken 4 in a series of ads.
 * La-Mulana is a Take that to the current generation of video games; the game's MSX-like graphics and gameplay are in response to newer games being extremely flashy and having less challenge than their older, tougher ancestors. And then there's a couple quotes from Elder Xelpud targeted at Nintendo and the NES. One Game Within a Game is a Take that at Dating Sims and their players: "Real women don't operate by game systems!" A more subtle Take that concerns F1 Spirit 3D: its ROM is the cheapest of all the MSX ROMs that have to be bought, and the only thing it ever does (when used in combination with the Contra ROM, which is also ludicrously easy to obtain -- its MSX2 version was a Porting Disaster) is make the player more vulnerable.
 * In the third game in the original Spyro the Dragon trilogy, refusing to pay Moneybags to open the bridge in the level Crystal Islands results in him threatening to turn you into a blue hedgehog.
 * In The Curse of Monkey Island, Guybrush Threepwood meets the Flying Welshman, a ghostly character who has been stuck in the misty ocean for years. He complains to Guybrush about the mist, to which Guybrush responds, "I like mist. I think it's pretty." Welshman: "Well sure, misty is pretty. But egad, is it DULL." An allusion to the game Myst, apparently.
 * Adventure Quest and its spin-offs, Mechquest and Dragon Fable, have spoofs and references coming out of their ears. There are even a few places in each game where it would be easier to list what ISN'T in this category.
 * It got even better in Mechquest. They recently released a vampire-based planet. The main character is Han Velsing, who retired because vampires stopped being threatening and started complaining about immortality, sparkling in the sun, and being all around pathetic.
 * Another Twilight slam occurs in Adventure Quest Worlds, in the boss fight of the Werewolf/Vampire War against a sparkly vampire by the name of Edvard, whose girlfriend Beulah dumped him for a werewolf (Ouch). For the first few days after the war ended, he was the weakest war boss in the entire game, with only 900 hit points and rather weak damage.
 * Another such ad for Adventure Quest Worlds makes fun of the ever-pervasive Evony banner adverts (namely the ones with the Ren-Faire-dressed Gaussian Girl that say "Play now, m'lord") by having a player character pose heroically in front of the text "Slay free, play indiscreetly" while wearing nothing but boxer shorts.
 * A trailer for Saints Row 2 features not-so-subtle jabs at Grand Theft Auto 4 by asking the viewer if they'd prefer "taking bored friends to go bowling" or "watching TV in the game" to spreading raw sewage on houses, doing crazy stunts or running around naked, all of which you can do in SR2.
 * All courtesy of Boss, Veteran Child, Maero, Tobias and Johnny Gat
 * Probably a coincidence -- the 117th NPC in Tales of the Abyss's NPC database is a kid named John. He dies.
 * Shortly after Diablo III was announced, a number of fans took umbrage at the "colourful" outdoor scenes, which included realistically rendered rainbows in waterfalls. The response of Lead World Designer Leonard Boyarsky was this.
 * In Spider-Man: Web of Shadows, when asked by Peter whether he likes "the new duds", Wolverine tells him that it makes him look like one of those emo kids who like to complain about how hard their life is when they don't know true pain. A bit of a dig at the third movie and emo kids. Peter replies to that with "Oh my god, you dork! You have a MyFace page, don't you!", an obvious jab at the "Social Networking" sites of MySpace and Facebook.
 * Back in 1993, Myst and The Seventh Guest were launched, displaying novel, but similar, production methods. The Eleventh Hour, sequel to Guest, has a Take that to its competitor -- a copy of a game called Missed, with similar cover art, can be seen lying in a font full of filth in the chapel.
 * The PETA made this Darker and Edgier Cooking Mama. Majesco immediately responded with this.
 * When another developer released educational knockoff "Science Papa," "Mama" issued a scathing press release about the sordid past between her and Papa. They dated, apparently. It went badly.
 * In Bootfighter Windom XP, the mechas are all named after Windows OSes and Linux. Among the three weakest, two of them are named "Millenium" after the notoriously buggy Windows ME. Hmmmm...
 * "Wasn't he the guy from Star Wars?" -- from an out-take from Wing Commander III
 * One commercial for Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3 had a central character complain about how people shouldn't worry about wars in distant galaxies when they've got one going on Earth.
 * And who can forget GEORGE TAKEI saying this? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egUDYu_qmL0&feature=related
 * Oh Snap!
 * Battlefield Bad Company takes several light-hearted jabs at several famous series including Gears of War, Rainbow Six and Metal Gear Solid to name a few. It is also contrast itself amongst shooters by giving a satisfying ending for players:.
 * Another Take that happens in the sequel, the highlight being  .
 * A NSFW ad for Battlefield 3 declared that it went "above and beyond the call".
 * Activision responded to EA's trash talk nicely, and EA's retort was less than diplomatic.
 * The freeware Tetris clone Lockjaw was originally gonna have some modes that poked fun at Tetris DS and "guideline" Tetris games in general, such as "Ridin' Spinners" and Dual Marathon.
 * The "Vs." mode, included in the final cut, is explicitly labeled as a Take that to Tetris DS in the game's manual.
 * The same author of Lockjaw also developed Luminesweeper, a Take that to not only the PSP's high price and Lumines not taking full advantage of the PSP's hardware capabilities, but also as one to people who mispronounce "Lumines" as "loo-mines" instead of "luminous".
 * The bad guy organization in the game Neo Geo Battle Coliseum is called WAREZ. SNK blames piracy for it's bankruptcy in 2001.
 * In Persona 4, you can buy a book. When you read the book, the game shows something like this:

"Kaidan: So you can say "I support our troops," and get into office because of our sacrifices, huh?"
 * The Japanese version just outright does a take that on guys who read Light Novels not for the story but for the girls.
 * In Warhammer 40000: Dawn of War 2, during one of the between-mission Space Marine dialogues reference is made to a former campaign in Kaurava (location of the Soulstorm expansion), during which the Space Marine captain is described as being an idiot.
 * Space Quest IV let the player search through a clearance box of video games while looking for the Space Quest IV Hintbook. The games were parodies of other publishers' releases at the time, such as Sim Sim. The harshest parody was Boom!, a Shallow Parody of Loom which was advertised as having "No other characters, no conflict, no puzzles, no chance of dying, and no interface" -- a blatant Take that to Lucasarts' philosophy of avoiding Unwinnable games and gratuitous player deaths.
 * This could be a mistaken reading of the dialogue, or it could be a very subtle take that, but keep a bunch of marines alive enough in Halo: Combat Evolved, especially in a Warthog, and they will start to comment: 'Man, this never gets old!' When you've been doing nothing but driving or shooting for about fifteen to twenty minutes this begins to look like a Take that.
 * The score ranking system in the Civilization series compares your exploits to famous leaders throughout history. The lowest ranking? Dan Quayle.
 * To top that, one of the corporations you can start is Creative Constructions: The Ending sentence: "Perhaps if a construction executive had been present during the designing of Gaudi's Sagrada Familia, it would already be complete and accepting donations for renovations."
 * Fairly Oddparents Breaking Da Rules: When you fight Vicky in the video game-themed level, she occasionally threatens to turn you into a hedgehog.
 * Descent aimed a massive Take that at Doom, its primary competition at the time, in the form of this commercial: Descent not equal to Doom. Greater than.
 * "They don't really want you to play 'Free Bird': They're just heckling you."
 * Turned into a Continuity Nod in Guitar Hero II when the last song you have to play to beat the game was, indeed, "Free Bird". "FINE. So they aren't heckling you. Sigh."
 * In Postal 2's Apocalypse Weekend expansion, the final mission on Saturday is to recover the Postal 2 gold master disk from Running With Scissors' underhanded former publisher, Bullfish Interactive, leading to a boss fight with the company CEO Phraud Hogslop . Incidentally, in the real world, Running With Scissors terminated their deal with publisher Whiptail Interactive over breaches of contract on the latter's part...
 * STALKER had a shot at Half-Life, where Gordon Freeman winds up in the zone, making a log of his short lived experience in the Zone, how he traded his crowbar for food and died shortly after.
 * It's not much of a take that when, in his log, he's disappointed he couldn't FIGHT BEARS in the zone - his very first log just complains about the lack of killing anything.
 * Which is also a take that against the developers themselves... mutated bears were originally supposed to be in the game, but removed before release. One of the only ones that wasn't still in the game's code.
 * Left 4 Dead had a few of these.
 * This was the first game to put one over on the Zombie Genocider achievement Dead Rising; Left 4 Dead's Zombie Genocidest achievement requires you to kill 53,595 zombies -- one more than in Dead Rising.
 * Prototype gets in on the joke as well, having an achievement for killing 53,596 zombies -- one more than in Left 4 Dead.
 * Rock Band 3 has you "kill" 53,596 HOP Os for an achievement.
 * Valve then parodies themselves of the achievement with another achievement called "The Littlest Genocide", requiring players to kill only 10% of the original amount of zombies for the Zombie Genocidest achievement.
 * Zoey and Francis's comments on the statue of Atlas in the airport, another Take that at Ayn Rand and arguably a Bioshock Shout-Out.
 * A more obvious Take That for Dead Rising is a graffiti on the wall that says "Otis, Out of film, no helicopter, Zombies are too fast. Not going to make it, Frank West"
 * This was more likely a friendly poke, since the Left 4 Dead included friendlier references to DR, like a message congratulating the dev team on the release of Dead Rising 2 hidden in The Sacrifice comic. For what it's worth, the DR team returned the favor in DR2 by having wall graffiti saying "DON'T STARTLE THE WITC-".
 * Bill in The Sacrifice sometimes says anyone who runs around filling up things with gas is an idiot. He says this due to how gasoline will become very rare in an zombie outbreak. This is a jab at the Left 4 Dead 2 survivors, where they are required to get gas for a car, a generator, and a boat.
 * At one point in Return to Zork, you are shrunk and placed inside a water-filled ship-in-a-bottle to find a Plot Coupon. If you search around, you can find a skeleton dressed in the same outfit as Guybrush Threepwood, with similar music in the background. The text reads "Guess his 15 minutes are up."
 * Not a direct take that, but for anyone whomever talked of Gears of War in Valkyria Chronicles and the notable lack of bloodthirsty male soldiers. You will be damned to find out that John Dimaggio voices Camp Gay Jann Walker. Yes, now picture Marcus Fenix putting out that same fruity voice.
 * Super Smash Bros. Brawl has a couple:
 * The Mushroomy Kingdom stage is a representation of the first two stages of Super Mario Bros as barren wastelands because they've gone unexplored for over twenty years. The reason they look so dead? Because Real Is Brown!
 * Snake's codec piece regarding Sonic is a Take that at Sonic's Fan Dumb: Snake just decides on sight that he doesn't like Sonic and can't explain why, while Otacon reminds him that Sonic is in the game because enough people requested it. The joke was lost in translation, as Snake's Japanese voice actor is the son of Dr. Eggman's actor, thus the dislike. Also, hedgehogs are a Snake's worst nightmare in nature. It shouldn't be too hard to figure out why.
 * Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard had a huge one on Final Fantasy VII. The sixth boss is named Alto Stratus, a type of cloud. This character can only talk in text boxes, which Matt needs to click. He goes on and on about how he was sent to kill Matt. When one of his text boxes is just "..." Matt throws a rant on how much time people waste reading those. Then you finally fight him, and Alto moves in a FF-like ATB bar system. Honestly, the fight is pretty much the games Crowning Moment of Awesome in an otherwise subpar game. Oh, and the description for the achievement/trophy for beating him? It's "Forecast: No clouds ahead"
 * Also, the game takes a shot at Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty. The opening plot twist was for Matt to be killed of in the first level and be replaced by Sting Sniperscope, a then unheard of character.
 * The viral marketing campaign for the game blatantly attacked Activision's business "ethics" with this press release from the fictional company, Marathon-Megasoft.
 * The painting of Vigo the Carpathian in Ghostbusters the Video Game (canonically set in 1991) says that "you will have a ruler far worse than he was, and you will have him...twice." Now...the question is....Clinton or Bush? (Do not answer that question.)
 * A less polarizing and still funny example is when Vigo predicts that "It" turns out to just be a scooter.
 * The paper shredders in Glider 4.0 were labeled "Fed-O-Matic," and appeared in rooms named "The North Room" and "North by NorthWest", after Oliver North.
 * Uplink delivers a Take that against the FBI in an Easter Egg if you visit the Steve Jackson game's website, claiming to start tracking you as a hacker.
 * Guitar Hero V delivers a Take That against everyone who was upset by the changes in Judy Nails in Guitar Hero 3. The game almost totally reverts the changes... but notes that she now does music directed towards whiny, self-important teenagers.
 * In the opening cinematic for Brutal Legend, the band Eddie is working for is a painfully obvious jab at the entire genre of nu-metal who get hideously killed by Ormagoden, the 'avatar' of classic heavy metal.
 * Rock Band 2 has one towards a band AND towards one of its biggest sponsors. In Band World Tour mode, occasionally you'll get random events asking you to do a benefit show or to do an encore in addition to the songs you chose, etc. One of the challenges is to do a sponsor show with Hot Topic to play a song by Paramore. If you choose to do it, you'll get a decent amount of cash... And lose 25,000 fans in the process as well. This was later patched (the official reason is players got confused when they lost fans).
 * Mass Effect:
 * The game contains a Take That against chicken hawks if Kaidan is in the party for the "Our Own Worst Enemy" assignment, and a rather ironic take that against the video game industry itself if Ashley is in the party on Noveria. In the former case, Terra Firma representative Charles Saracino asks for Shepard's endorsement, as the opinion of the first human Spectre and a decorated marine carries a lot of weight. Eventually, Kaidan's patience wears thin:

"Clank: Are you coming?
 * Then there's the Take that against the Moral Guardians who complained about the sex scene, in "Bring Down the Sky" (PC version) - a computer file in a radio station talks about how they'd received complaints that they were encouraging people to sleep with aliens.
 * Mass Effect 2 has a person selling video games on the Citadel uttering a different take that about the industry and Fan Dumb every few seconds.
 * Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines delivers one to itself, for some reason. One of the adverts on the radio is for a clearly awful game by Trokia (VTM:Bloodlines developers) called "Frankinstein: Breadlust." Other radio adverts include shots at MacDonalds, action movie trailers, contrived taste tests and political attack ads. Some are sutble, some...not so much. But they're all kinda funny.
 * The Witcher has an expert on the Holy Grail claim that the theory of Bronze Dan that claims the Grail is a descendant of Lebioda "begins with a convoluted theory about the derivation of the word Grail. [...] The theory goes on to present the tempestuous and twisted fate of Sang-Real, but the author gets lost in his arguments, often contradicts himselfâ€¦ generally it turns into an unholy mess." The reference is even more blatant if you know that Polish uses the same word for "bronze" and "brown".
 * Ads for the 3DO referred to the SNES and Sega Genesis as baby toys. Because, as we all know, the 3DO went on to eclipse them both
 * In Final Fantasy VII, Sephiroth and Cloud are routinely voted as two of the best characters in the series. The in-game manuals for Dissidia Final Fantasy have Penelo just not getting the appeal behind either of them and decides neither of them is all that interesting. Which is doubly ironic when you consider Penelo was a generic "quirky" character that spent basically all of 12 in the background...
 * This and Author Tract sum up Super Chick Sisters. The cutscenes in the sequel go out of their way to reference Mario Teaches Typing and Mario Paint.
 * Double Dragon II's first boss, Burnov, in addition to wearing Neptuneman's mask, bears a resemblence to Karnov, who was the first boss in Bad Dudes, which in turn was a Take That at the first Double Dragon.
 * This commercial for Blur depicts a Shallow Parody of Mario Kart (possibly mixed with Kirby Air Ride) at the beginning. A broccoli creature (a Toad Expy?) decides that kart racing is lame and looks longingly at the Blur race on the other side of the fence. It didn't work for some!
 * During the Madden/NFL 2K war, both EA and Sega had one screenshot on the back cover depicting its cover player making a play at the expense of the other game's coverboy (ex. Marshall Faulk stiff-arming Brian Urlacher on the back cover of Madden NFL 2003, Terrell Owens doing the same to Ray Lewis on ESPN NFL 2K5).
 * In Soldier of Fortune: Payback which was made by a different developer than the first two games, your CO's name is Casandra Decker, whose surname is a Take That at Sergei Dekker, the Big Bad of the original game.
 * An ad for Ty the Tasmanian Tiger showed Crash Bandicoot, Sonic the Hedgehog (without his giant quills), and Spyro the Dragon bandaged up in hospital beds, all with samples of Ty's signature weapon stuck in various areas of their bodies. Ty then comes in and yells "Boo!" and causes them to die. The game got very poor sales because of this ad.
 * Silent Scope 2: "Now, let's play Metal Gear for real!" A Konami franchise fires a Take That at another Konami franchise.
 * The Rad Racer games on the NES were clones of Sega's Out Run series. Sega fired back with a game titled Rad Mobile.
 * The first boss of Turok 2 is a Giant Eye of Doom named... Goldeneye.
 * E3 2010 was full of Take That on all sides. A particularly memorable one was Nintendo talking about how glasses 3D was weak and showing off their glasses-free Nintendo 3DS immediately before Sony's glasses 3D-heavy announcements.
 * World of Tanks has a series of advertisements that poke fun at more "common" games, namely Eve Online, World of Warcraft, and your typical Tank Simulator and Racing game. The WoW one has your typical fantasy "tank" (as in the character archetype) curb stomp a group of players, only to get run over by - you guessed it - a tank. The other, non-gameplay trailers are roughly the same thing, only modified for each different subject matter.
 * In Ratchet and Clank Future A Crack In Time, there is one scene where Clank and The Plumber are standing in front of a large, mysterious green pipe coming out of the floor, which Clank is about to hop into. The following exchange ensues:

The Plumber: Plumbers don't just go diving down strange pipes all willy nilly! That'd be ridiculous."

"Sam: Is that George Romero or Caesar Romero?
 * After the release of Bulletstorm, Epic Games released a free downloadable-for-PC game entitled Duty Calls, which pokes fun at--you guessed it--Call of Duty.
 * In the original Age of Empires I, one of the campaigns is set in Ancient Japan. The games include wildlife as various opponents, including stronger, more powerful versions of each. So what is the first enemy encountered in the Yamato (Japanese) campaign? "Lion King".
 * This is more of a "British" thing than a strictly "video games" thing, but Ben There Dan That features one about beer in the alternate universe where the UK has become the 51st American state. The schlocky "authentic English pub" has two drinks on tap: a robust and delicious British lager, which the lily-livered American barman won't serve to anyone who can't provide more ID than is really advisable to carry in day-to-day life, and something watery and soulless, which would only qualify as "ale" (or, for that matter, "alcoholic") if you bribed the truth-in-advertising guys.
 * In Sam and Max season 2, investigating a picture of George Romero in Stinky's diner will lead to this:

Max: Well based on the putrefied flesh, I'd have to say John Romero."

"Ivan Ruce: It seems pretty obvious to me that no one wants to see a Flashpoint Rising in the Green Sea Region."
 * In Fallout New Vegas, there's also Yes Man's little reference to Liberty Prime.
 * In the original Killer Instinct, if the player wins the game as Eyedol, his ending is a clear Take That at Blanka and his ending in Street Fighter II.
 * The flash game Crush the Castle, possibly being the prime example of causing a case of Follow the Leader that soon turned into the mobile-based sensation known as Angry Birds, since it shares a similar premise and physics engine as the former, had a Take That against the latter with its installment Crush the Castle 2 Players Pack. Beating its Undead Mode where you fight off a Zombie Apocalypse unlocks a chicken as a projectile. It has practically zero mass, does meager damage on impact with castle walls, and disappears on contact, making it the least effective projectile in the game.
 * At some point in World of Warcraft, there was an outdoor raid boss that summoned a mob named "Demented Druid". Their tactics? Moonfire spam.
 * Portal 2 has one in the start of "The Itch" chapter. Wheatly has shamelessly stolen test chambers from GLaDOS while claiming them as his own work and has made test chambers that are incredibly easy to solve and have silly writings on the walls out of wall tiles and light fixtures, which spell TEST. Valve stated in their commentary they wanted the first few test chambers from Wheatley to feel like how a first time level designer would make a level, which is a not too subtitle jab at people who flood hosting web sites with poorly made or plagiarized levels.
 * There's a hack of Sonic the Hedgehog 2, titled Sonic 2 Dimps Edition, which is a large-scale Take That at recent Sonic games developed by Dimps, particularly the first episode of Sonic the Hedgehog 4. Notable features include random speed boosters everywhere, an altered soundtrack, physics tweaks and a heavy reliance on the homing attack.
 * Rayman 3: Hoodlum Havoc makes many jabs at the platforming genre, and Andre makes a jab at Zelda at one point.
 * Remember the death of the Tyrannosaurus Rex at the claws of the Spinosaurus in Jurassic Park III? Not so lucky this time around...
 * There's this one in-universe interview at "AA News Online" (for Arm A II: Operation Arrowhead):


 * Moreover, the v1.99 patch for Operation Flashpoint: Cold War Crisis actually both renames that game to ARMA: Cold War Assault and removes the Codemasters-created Red Hammer campaign. The former may have been legally necessary... the other, not so much.
 * In Freddy Pharkas Frontier Pharmacist, a "lost and out-of-place" Cedric the Owl is eaten by vultures. This Take That is more directed towards the character than the King's Quest series, which was also made by Sierra and is referenced several other times in Freddy Pharkas; Cedric was hated by many players for his screeching voice and general uselessness.
 * The remake of Syndicate mentions that Reactive Armour provides protection against "tunneling rounds", which are an upgrade choice in Deus Ex Human Revolution.
 * In December of 2006, the staff of Kingdom of Loathing released an item called the "Yuletide troll chrysalis" in Mr. Store, which hatched into a familiar that provided extra stats, occasional healing, and items (in the form of Christmas carol parodies) that could buff players. The reaction was extremely negative, as a number of players suggested increasing its healing effect and axing the carols - in other words, stripping away its only unique feature. Mr. Skullhead, one of the creative team, did not take this well, and launched into a rant at the "Stop Having Fun!" Guys, lambasting them for how they only wanted an "Optimal Ascension Familiar" that had no picture, description, or any other flavor, but merely did positive things and printed stats. On April Fool's Day of the following year, an Optimal Ascension Familiar became available... as one of the worst familiars ever put out, with negative effects rivaling the (intentionally) crippling Black Cat. There are many such instances in the history of KOL, but this is likely the most notorious.
 * Adventures to Go! takes a snipe at AIG - when Finn first joins the eponymous adventurer's guild, he refers to it as ATG. Severn, the man at the office next door, tells him that the abbreviation "makes it sound like some failed bank or insurance company".