referential jokes tend to pull at a player's immersion and ruin SOD. It pulls players out of the here and now and takes them into places of their brain that have nothing to do with what they're doing.
I think stuff like that has to play properly with the feel of the game. In a game like AO, the reference would have to be very subtle, whereas in games like Matt Hazard or Duke Nukem it doesn't have to be because the game isn't trying to make you feel anything.
Fallout 3 does a good job, but that's because its overall feel is just on the right side of silly to be able to pull it off. You couldn't have something like that in a bleak apocalyptic future game such as Metro 2033 simply because it would feel wrong. The game is trying to make you feel something about your position, about what the world has become, and bringing you out of that for some cheap referential humour counteracts that.
AO, when we first played it, had an incredible ambiance, and although that has reduced simply due to replaying and familiarity, it's still there. I would be a shame to diminish that experience in AHD for a few cheap giggles.
That said, New game + is a different kettle of fish entirely :P
TL;DR:
take a Ritalin and read it you ADHD bastard.
|