Video games are a young medium, but they are completely connected to current pop culture. Geeks and gamers are often the same people, and therefore, the memes and references are often interchangeable. The line becomes especially blurry when we have so many intellectual properties that originated from video games eventually becoming movies, series, board games, card games, and cartoons.
Many of the most memorable stories that we remember nowadays come from this medium. Video games have also presented to us many larger-than-life, iconic characters and moments that outgrew their medium, became memes, and provided us some of the most memorable catchphrases of our time.
10 Objection!
Eternalized by Phoenix Wright, it is said that anyone who has played a game of the Ace Attorney franchise has yelled this out loud at least once to know how it feels. The Ace Attorney games are investigation adventure games in which the players control an attorney trying to get the not-guilty verdict to his clients.
Presenting evidence in the game is often accompanied by an animation and the iconic "Objection" line, which gave birth to several memes that are still recognized by the gaming community.
9 The Cake Is A Lie
This became a meme as well but is often smartly referenced in video game culture. In Portal, the test subject is promised cake if they finish all the trials imposed by a mad, and funny, Artificial Intelligence named GlaDOS. Turns out that at some point, this same entity tries to murder the test subject. With time, players find out that it has always been killing its rat labs.
At some point, it is possible to see that others have survived for long enough to figure out the same thing. Whoever lived enough to understand what was going on decided to leave a message behind: "the cake is a lie."
8 Do A Barrel Roll!
Star Fox has marked many 90s kids — or at the very least, all of those who were excited about interplanetary dogfights. An iconic franchise, with memorable characters, is also the source of one of the most famous video game catchphrases ever.
At some point in the original Star Fox, Peppy tells Fox to do a barrel roll in order to dodge and deflect enemy attacks. This only became especially iconic after it was voiced for Star Fox 64, becoming a meme known worldwide.
7 It's High Noon
McCree's voice has been made iconic by the great Matthew Mercer. Overwatch was Blizzard's first-person shooter and, like most games that Blizzard makes, it was a complete success, taking the Hero Shooter genre to a whole new level.
Characters in Overwatch have an ultimate ability. Once used correctly, an Ultimate can completely turn the table. McCree can do that with his DeadEye ultimate, which instantly kills everybody on sight right after saying "It's High Noon."
6 F
This is one of the most widely repeated, used, and referenced memes to this date. "Press F To Pay Respects" was born due to a quicktime design, something that is already considered archaic videogame design by many, in which players had to, literally, press F during a funeral in order to pay their respects to a deceased soldier.
It became part of the geeky lingo, even for those who have never played Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, the game that originated it. It is not unusual to see players just leaving an F behind to people who lost a game, or even to those who have gone through a very embarrassing social situation.
5 Finish Him
Mortal Kombat was extremely controversial when it debuted. It was comically gory and had realistic graphics in comparison to the other fighting games of its time. The game did not have a stun status like Street Fighter when someone would be getting constantly hit. However, characters would get stunned once they lost a second round.
That was an iconic moment since a voice would shout "Finish Him," and you could hit your opponent one last time, or use a Fatality on them. Nowadays, this is one of the most famous lines in video game history.
4 It's Super Effective!
Pokemon is one of the most famous RPG genres ever. It is so famous and so popular that it has turned into anime series, mangas, fighting games, and it is one of the few franchises out there that managed to make a successful card game. In their journey to become a Pokemon master, players have to understand the many different types of Pocket Monsters and attacks they can perform.
An important thing about this franchise is that certain attacks are much stronger against specific types of Pokemon. For instance, if you hit a Grass-type Pokémon with a Fire-type attack, the game will let you know that "It's Super Effective!"
3 What Are Ya Buying?
Resident Evil 4 is a fantastic game. It deviates from the original in many ways, and one of them is the merchant. This game presents you with a shady merchant who does not care about what is going on, nor who will come out on top. It's all good as long as he can make a buck out of it.
The phrase was made famous due to how many times players heard the merchant saying it over and over again throughout the game. That, combined with the game's popularity, is the origin of many memes.
2 Hadouken
Synonym of any projectile attack to ever exist after itself, the Hadouken has far outgrown the game it originated from. The Hadouken is an energy attack performed by Ryu from Street Fighter when a player does a quarter circle motion forward that is followed by a punch button. Ryu yells the name of his special attack before performing it. Add this to the popularity of Street Fighter 2 and you have one of the most yelled words by kids from the 70s and 80s.
Nowadays, the word Hadouken is also used as a synonym to any projectile attack. There are people nowadays who do not really know what Street Fighter is but know the word Hadouken.
1 It's Me, Mario
There is no way someone who has ever played or heard about video games has never heard of the Italian Plumber. Mario is arguably the most iconic video game character of all time. One cannot talk about Nintendo, or even video games in general, without bringing this character up at some point. He became so much bigger than his original games that he has starred in all types of games in many different genres.
Eternalized by Charles Martinet, the catchphrase is just as iconic as the character itself. He has been the voice of Mario since Mario's Game Gallery, and he has delivered the delightful lines we all love in Mario 64 and all other Mario games ever since.