There was a time, centuries ago and more, when most instances of laughter in video games had to be imagined by the player rather than heard outright. Text boxes dominated the gaming landscape. If a character laughed, it was represented either through tinny sound effects or written out in words.
In this era, the gaming community thought they knew true suffering. "What I wouldn't give to be able to hear this character's laugh rather than reinterpret the words like some armchair archeologist," one esteemed veteran gamer complained. That was a mistake.
How do I know? Because I'm about to subject you to full-blown video game character laughter that will most assuredly make you wish we still lived in the Gilded Age – when the notion of hearing a voice actor laugh into an unseen mic remained the work of science fiction sequels and high fantasy epics.
If you click on the character's name in each entry's header, you can listen to their laughs for yourself. This is your one and only warning.
9 Sonic Adventure 2: King Boom Boo
"Young men, hear an old man to whom old men hearkened when he was young." -Caesar Augustus
Listen now, ye listeners, to the shrill overture of a rainbow-tongued devil whose wiles are infamous across the land. Hasten yourselves to sleep tonight, brave readers, in high hopes that King Boom Boo shall not find you, and stare at you, with fish-like eyes and spherical presence, and laugh at you.
8 Mario Kart 64: Wario
"You can't imagine how much more work I had when I was a god." -Hirohito
If life is but a race, a single unending series of laps around a track, then hasten your engines and prepare to sacrifice all that you hold dear. For should you falter, if even but a blink in geological time, know that this man holds the keys to the very ignition of your soul. He will smile, that venomous smile, and none shall grieve your passing.
7 Dynasty Warriors: Sima Yi
"What? Rain? Is it raining? Ha ha ha ha!" -Sima Yi
Why is that funny...?
6 Resident Evil: Jill and Barry
"Laughter is a bodily exercise, precious to health." -Aristotle
Sometimes, the worst laughs are the ones we have to make for ourselves. What hideous noise did you make? Mine was in all likelihood that much worse. Neither of these capable soldiers so much as smirked, let alone chuckled. The onus is on the survivors, it seems, to cry ugly tears at bad dialogue.
5 Donkey Kong 64: King K Rool
"Slander by the stream will be heard by the frogs." -Mozambican proverb
Would that lizards were our rulers, their cold-blooded cunning naked for all to see, rather than carefully hidden beneath podiums and pedestals in ivory halls.
4 Mega Man 8: Grenade Man
“Do ordinary things with extraordinary love." -Mother Theresa
The damnable man stops at nothing. He will surrender the life of one thing beneath his vile white heel, savor the sweet nexus of obliteration, and elect to continue his mad dash in the name of oblivion itself. "Crush everything," the damnable man begins. His laughter is but the setting sun upon our souls.
3 Raving Rabbids: The Rabbids
“If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all.” -Noam Chomsky
With respect, Mr. Chomsky, you've clearly never met a Rabbid.
2 Duck Hunt: Dog
“As phantoms frighten beasts when shadows fall.” -Dante Alighieri
Should the proud hunter fail, mankind fails. Wield not merely the NES Zapper Light Gun, friends, but wield the courage humanity's very survival hinges upon. Fire upon the birds with all your might, all your gumption, all your theatrics as should you miss, the devil's dog will chortle, and in that chortling, ye shall know despair.
1 Final Fantasy 10: Tidus
"Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony." -Mahatma Gandhi
If otherworldly explorers should happen upon the ruins of human civilization in the eons to come, I sincerely hope this is the only video evidence of our culture they can find.