Released in 2011, Team Bondi and Rockstar Games sought to usher in a new era of crime drama titles with the innovative LA Noire. An experience where players had to pick up subtle cues from the environment and read the facial features of NPCs, LA Noire stumbled a bit in the execution, but it remains a fairly well-regarded departure from the digital norm.
However, the game’s biggest cultural impact came in the form of the infamous “Press X To Doubt” meme template. Playing on the ridiculously silly look of disbelief of protagonist Cole Phelps, it’s a ubiquitous meme among gamers, and these are some of its very best uses.
8/8 Which one is X?
Those loyal to a single console lineage may not be all that familiar with this battle, but many gamers – and especially retro enthusiasts – should probably pause before thinking about where to put their thumbs when hitting the ‘X’- button to press . It has never been consistent and it becomes a major headache after a while.
This meme, posted to Memedroid in 2016, may be old – the fact that it includes the Wii U console is a huge indicator of that – but it serves to underline the fact that this problem has been around for quite some time, and probably not going away anytime soon.
7/8 Press X to buy more microtransactions
Released in 2008, Empty space was an out-of-left-field project for the often risk-averse EA. A niche sci-fi horror party that relied heavily on body horror, it didn’t have the same appeal as a Duty or Battlefield. That said, it was successful enough to earn two sequels in 2011 and 2012.
Now, after a 10-year hiatus and the dissolution of the original developer, EA plans to bring the franchise back through a remake in early 2023. As exciting as that is for fans,Dead Space 3 was more or less ruined by microtransactions, and while the publisher claims they won’t return, many gamers remain dubious.
6/8 Press Y to be ashamed
Most gamers are familiar with the now classic “Press ‘X’ To Doubt” meme template, but fewer players are likely to recognize the “Press ‘Y’ to Shame” meme. Taken from the 2017 title Middle Earth: Shadow of Warthis is a twist on the traditional format that actually works quite well with Cole Phelps’ wacky expression.
The original meme contains an ork and the ‘shame’ prompt makes much more sense in context, as in Middle Earth: Shadow of War, players can demote their orc followers by putting them to shame. It’s an odd meme mishmash, but perhaps uniquely hilarious to those who’ve played both games.
5/8 Best games, best prizes
EA doesn’t seem to have a break from gamers these days, but the criticism is far from unjustified. Electronic Arts has a history of fucking players and monetizing titles to the point of unplayability. While the mobile outings and sports titles have suffered the most, just about every franchise owned by EA has once felt the sting of their questionable philosophies and practices.
Ironically, the FIFAand NHL games seem to feature prominently in this meme, and there is absolutely every reason to doubt that a gamer can derive any value from it.
4/8 Press F to doubt
PC gaming may offer players more options, but its relatively high barrier to entry has made it something of an exclusive club, and those who openly extol the virtues of gaming on PC are usually branded “PC elitists.” This group also often looks down on those who game on Apple hardware, as it is often not suitable for gaming.
Hardcore PC gamers probably won’t envy Mac owners, and this meme combines that sentiment with the oft-used “Press F To Pay Respects” meme, an old template created to poke fun at the overuse of cutscenes in the years 2014 Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare.
3/8 Press X to go fast
Most fans of SEGA’s flagship franchise would agree that the past two decades of Sonic the hedgehog The video game episodes weren’t that great. From the disastrous pseudo-reboot in 2006 to the equally horrific Sonic Boom: The Rise of Lyric in 2014, there were far more duds than hits in recent years.
This quote, taken from the 2011 title Sonic Generations, must have been funny, since Sonic is actually talking to an earlier version of himself. He must be aware that the future will not be nearly as rosy as it makes out.
2/8 Press X for disappointment
It has been a difficult year for fans of the Battlefield franchise; released in November 2021, Battlefield 2042 was by far the most erroneous, most half-baked entry in EA’s long-running FPS franchise, and many of the series’ core tenets were left out to make things like cosmetics and battle pass accessories easier to introduce.
However, leading up to the game’s launch, many felt that Battlefield 2042 would be developer DICE’s most ambitious outing to date. The size of the submission was constantly touted, but gamers would have been wise to follow the advice of the creator of this meme.
1/8 Press X to doubt
While just about every gamer insists it’s an X, Sony seems eager to argue that it should actually be called the “cross” button. This may have something to do with esoteric legal issues between PlayStation and Xbox, but that doesn’t change the fact that Sony will do their job for them if they really make an effort to change the established gaming lexicon.
There’s also the simple fact that “press cross to doubt” just doesn’t roll off the tongue as well as “press ‘x’ to doubt”.
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