From famous Street Fighter lines to quips from 90s classics, these are the quotes we hear again and again – and even incorporate into our own lives
S
ome snippets of video game dialogue, like classic movie quotes, are immediately recognisable to a swathe of fans. From Street Fighter’s “hadouken!” to Call of Duty’s “remember, no Russian” to BioShock’s “would you kindly?”, there are phrases so creepy, clever or cool they have slipped imperceptibly into the gaming lexicon, ensuring that whenever they’re memed on social media, almost everyone gets the reference.
But there are also odd little phrases, sometimes from obscure games, that stick with us for seemingly no reason. I recall most of the vocal barks from the second world war strategy game Commandos: Behind Enemy Lines, even though I haven’t played it for 20 years. Why is it that I’ll lose my headphones, wallet and phone on a daily basis, but I have absolute recall when it comes to the utterances of burly soldier Samuel Brooklyn? Why am I doomed to “Finally, some action”, “Consider it done, boss” and the immortal “okey dokey” echoing through my head? What is wrong with me?
Fortunately, when I posted about this on Bluesky, I discovered I was not alone. Hundreds of gamers got back to me about the random game dialogue lodged in their own heads. Some were lesser-known quotes from famous titles: comic book writer Kieron Gillen is haunted by the line “I’ve not seen such bravery” from Gauntlet, while video game academic Kat Brewster wrote that she thinks about the game’s “ah, sustenance!” line all the time. Matthew Castle, of the gaming podcast The Back Page, simply cannot forget the way Beedle says thank you in The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. Game designer and artist Anna Hollinrake cannot escape the voice of the random Pokémon trainer who said: “Whether hot to trot or cool cat not, chill at my papa’s shop.” “It runs around in my head again and again,” she said. “Drives me mad.”
