Ludicrous Gibs: Difference between revisions

{{quote|''"Ooh, they're goin' ta' have ta' glue you back together... '''IN HELL!'''"''|'''The Demoman''', ''[[Team Fortress 2 (Video Game)|Team Fortress 2]]'', "Meet the Demoman"}}

 

 

[[Refuge in Audacity]] is the key to this trope: Seeing a man realistically take a bullet to the jaw is terrifying and could quickly turn a fun game into [[Serious Business]] and [[Nausea Fuel]]. But if that man's head instead explodes into a cornucopia of viscera and grey matter, we have a harder time taking it seriously and can relax some.

 

[[I Thought It Meant|Has nothing to do with]] a certain NCIS agent behaving in an amusing manner. [[Dope Slap|As if he'd ever behave ludicrously.]]

 

== [[Action Adventure]] ==

*** Additionally, playing as Maria in Rondo of Blood spares her from Richter's overly bloody death, falling to the ground and disintegrating to nothing instead. She gains the overly bloody death in ''[[Castlevania Portrait of Ruin (Video Game)|Portrait of Ruin]]'', however.

*** An exception is ''Order of Ecclesia'', where you only die in a cloud of blood if Shanoa is killed in the air. Landbound, she just groans and keels over

** The most gratuitously violent ''Castlevania'' to date is probably ''[[Castlevania Harmony of Dissonance (Video Game)|Harmony of Dissonance]]''. There's one particular instance where you're just exploring some caves, you flick a switch... {{spoiler|a scream is heard, blood starts pouring down like a waterfall, all this blood makes a platform rise, and you must ride it to the top. Once there, you get a glimpse at the source of all that blood.}}

** ''[[Castlevania Lords of Shadow (Video Game)|Lords of Shadow]]'': Being [[Darker and Edgier]] than most of the series up until this point, any flesh enemy killed with the subweapon they're weak to (Silver daggers for werewolves, holy water for undead, ect. ect.) or a heavy attack will explode into a shower of gore on contact.

 

== [[Action Game]] ==

* In ''[[God of War (Video Game)|God of War]]'', pretty much everything results in ridiculous amounts of gore. Even an arrow to the cranium will cause total disintegration of the head in a massive shower of blood.

* The ''[[Onechanbara]]'' games are so gory that your character and their sword getting covered in blood are actually part of the ''game mechanics'' -- once your character is sufficiently covered in blood, they go into a [[Super Mode]] that has the disadvantage of increasing the damage they take and constantly draining health, while you need to periodically clean the blood off your sword to keep it from getting stuck in enemies and to keep the combo timing regular.

 

 

* [[The Dishwasher]] has a whole ''slew'' of ways to turn enemies into assorted bloodstains and organs, including, but not limited to: [[Short Range Shotgun|shotguns]], [[Shock and Awe|overloading them with lightning attacks,]] pile-driving them into the ground, bashing their skulls into the ground/wall/''ceiling'', ''tearing their necks out with your teeth'', and tried and true method of cutting them down the middle.

* Online [[Adult Swim]] flash game ''Viva Caligula'' does this when the titular character enters "berserk mode" or when a weapon is levelled up in the sequel.

 

 

* The trope name comes from ''[[Rise of the Triad]]'', which positively revelled in ludicrous weapons and gibbing effects. The message ''Ludicrous Gibs!'' would appear on-screen whenever the player gibbed enemies in the most spectacular fashion allowed. This would usually involve chunks of flesh and splashes of blood being spread in a wide radius and a torn-out eye sliding down the screen. The Flamewall launcher would burn the flesh off enemies in a couple of seconds, leaving the charred (and smiling!) skeletons standing for a moment before collapsing (still smiling!) to the ground. The ''God Mode'' powerup enabled the player to launch enemy-seeking balls of lighting that would disintegrate, albeit bloodlessly, any enemy they touched. And, Apogee never being the types to pass up the opportunity for a cheap joke, ''Dog Mode'' allowed the player to charge up a sonic dog bark, spontaneously popping every Mook within range like a pressed grape.

** Enabling "Engine Killing Gibs" mode in ''Rise of the Triad'' forcibly set all baddie-fragging animations to the "Ludicrous Gibs!" splatter, thereby increasing the amount of gore several times and creating massive clouds of body parts when enemies were blown up. If you watched closely you could see enemies' severed hands ''wiggling their middle fingers'' while flying through the air along with the eyeball splattering into the screen and sliding down. Also, it's worth noting that while modern processors would (and do - look up GLRott) eat the game's code for lunch without missing a beat, in the 386/486 era during which the game was initially released, the amount of gore being rendered (with no GPU assistance as this predated true 3D games) may very well have been literally ''engine-killing'', posing too great a challenge for the CPUs of the day to draw and either slowing the game to a crawl or crashing it completely.

*** Punching a civilian can result in ''his head instantly evaporating'' and ''his brain flying out''.

* ''[[Bulletstorm (Video Game)|Bulletstorm]]'' is all about this.

* Fighting medium sized groups of flood in ''[[Halo (Video Game)|Halo]]'' usually leaves behind a room almost fully covered in body parts of different size.

** In ''[[Halo Reach (Video Game)|Halo Reach]]'', getting headshots on the Drones (the bugs) turns them into this.

* ''[[Blood]]''; Mostly through the use of the amusingly overpowered napalm launcher, or any of three different varieties of dynamite. The gibs in Blood had the wonderfully gruesome property of being slippery under your character's feet, and for some reason the game developers saw the potential of including the ability to use zombies' heads (usually the largest surviving pieces of them after a close encounter with a barrel of high explosive) as soccer balls.

* The original ''[[Soldier of Fortune]]'' featured a ridiculously overpowered shotgun that could blow limbs clean off at an [[Reality Is Unrealistic|unrealistic]] range, a look-alike Desert Eagle pistol that could remove a head from the neck up and a microwave pulse gun that would cause enemies to cook from within and burst like overcooked hot dogs.

** The second game advertised "16 points of dismemberment".

* Explosive weapons would gib enemies in ''[[Duke Nukem 3D (Video Game)|Duke Nukem 3D]]'', but the game also had a shrink gun that would miniaturize a foe and allow you to squish him under your foot, and a freeze ray that would allow you to freeze them solid and then smash them like ice statues.

** The ''HD'' [[Updated Rerelease]] not only is [[Bloodier and Gorier]], you can do this too. Plus carve up corpses with your knife should you feel inclined to.

* ''[[Deus Ex (Video Game)|Deus Ex]]'' and its mod, ''[[The Nameless Mod]]''. While rocket launchers and explosives are generally expected to blow people apart, poke at a body long enough, and it will explode in a mess of guts and gore, even if you do it with a weak weapon. Some of the new weapons in [[The Nameless Mod]] continue to follow this trope to a T.

* While the original ''[[Left 4 Dead (Video Game)|Left 4 Dead]]'' is quite mild about this by today's standards, ''[[Left 4 Dead 2 (Video Game)|Left 4 Dead 2]]'' turned the gibs up a couple notches.

** To clarify, look at how the zombies are killed with the Pipe Bomb. In ''[[Left 4 Dead (Video Game)|Left 4 Dead]]'', they explode into a cloud of red mist. In the sequel, their body parts are blown apart and their intestines fly out as the bodies are ragdolled into the air. The guns themselves can gib zombies like there's no tomorrow. Depending on the gun used and what area of a zombie you shoot, you can expose their bones, make their intestines fall out, or even expose their spinal column. Oddly, the special infected do not present these properties.

* ''[[Dungeon Siege]] 2'' does this, despite being medieval fantasy. Gibbing seems to occur if enough damage is done to push an enemy over a certain point of negative health, most likely a percentage, they will explode violently into pieces, flying every which way. While it might make sense for some of the power attacks, which deal huge damage and have effects that would warrant a violent mess, seeing an enemy explode into fragments from a single quarrel to the chest is rather absurd. The fact that every party member is usually capable of making enemies into such a mess at the same point, this can lead to some very interesting times when leading a powerful team up against a small army of inferior enemies.

* ''[[The Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion (Video Game)|The Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion]]'' features a spell called Enemies Explode. It wasn't until a combat mod (Deadly Reflexes if memory serves) was released that featured a revamped system of combat complete with dismemberments and various other fatal effects where a spell was included that achieves just such an effect.

* ''[[Jade Empire (Video Game)|Jade Empire]]'' has a couple- some of the Harmonic Combinations result in an enormous cloud of red, and it's extremely gratifying to see the ridiculous blood-fountain that occasionally results from slaying an enemy with basic sword attacks.

** In an (in-engine) cutscene, the use of the rifle Mirabelle causes someone to ''explode'' into bloody chunks if gore is turned on. It's a good weapons, but not ''that'' good!

 

 

* The original ''NARC'' arcade game. Blast an enemy with explosives, and watch the graphically detailed gibs fly.

** Even the NES version [[Getting Crap Past the Radar|got this past the radar]]. Then again, with all the other filth in the game, it's a wonder Nintendo approved it at all.

 

 

* The ''[[Crusader (Video Game)|Crusader]]'' games had, in addition to relatively [[Standard FPS Guns]], also some outlandish weapons with gruesome effects.

** The plasma rifle launched a ball of blue plasma about the size of a fist that enveloped and instantaneously vaporized the victim (rather than just burning a hole the size of the projectile).

 

== [[Turn Based Tactics]] ==

** Oddly enough, though, said grenades or mortar rounds didn't cause ludicrous gibs, ''when they ever actually killed anyone''.

* Every kill in ''[[Vandal Hearts]]'' results in a high-powered geyser of blood erupting from the victim. Even ''skeletons''. The only exceptions are mechanical enemies and living statues, who die with a high-powered geyser of...gravel?

** Seen in the [[Tron (Film)|first film]] as well, when Tron gets a [[Boom Headshot]] on Sark.

** In ''Centurion'', a Pict is thrown head first into a tree. His head explodes.

** Not quite "gibs," but there's also the OCP executive chosen to demonstrate ED-209's capabilities. He gets riddled with ''hundreds'' of bullets before someone finally pulls the plug.

 

 

== [[Live Action TV]] ==

** [[Special Effects Failure]]? [[Conspicuous CGI]]?

** [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|But apparently, it just takes the one.]]

* [[Inverted Trope]], to no small extent, in ''[[Dexter]]'' - the main plot kicks off with a neatly-dissected corpse with ''no blood whatsoever.'' The protagonist is utterly shocked... and impressed.

* In ''[[Farscape (TV)|Farscape]]'', early attempts by Scorpius at manned wormhole travel leave the unlucky pilots oozing out of their cockpits in the form of red sludge.

* ''[[True Blood]]'' [[Our Vampires Are Different|vampires]] explode into blood and guts with no skeleton or anything that looks like an actual vital organ, when they are staked or decapitated. They look like bloody water balloons.

 

* Belkar Bitterleaf turned his [[Evil Counterpart]] (well, [[Sociopathic Hero|Good Counterpart]]) into a salsa dip after getting a large number of adventurers to [[Zerg Rush|gank him]]. Or at least, cut off his tail and stuck it into a jar of salsa. He also used said kobold's head as a chip bowl.

** The kobold in question is attempting to avenge his father, whose head ended up as Belkar's hat.

* {{spoiler|Rustallica}}'s decapitation-by-pineapple in ''[[Sarah Zero (Webcomic)|Sarah Zero]]''.

* The Sacrifice comic on L4D.com features some incredibly over-the-top gibs.