Video Games: The Movie

On the one hand, I love the film's concepts fine. Video games are an incredible medium (one that outshines even cinema) with such fascinating history behind them, and the evolution of the gaming business and community on screen is quite wonderful. It says something about what a great artform it is that it brings so many people from different walks of life together, and even goes so far as to create lasting friendships and marriages. We may not realize, but sometimes, those seemingly insignificant connections we have create all the difference in the world.

However, that's the extant of the film's great qualities, and the overall film is not as interesting, or too engaging to the uninitiated. The film is built firmly on nostalgia and fond recognizability, especially during frequent and awkward montages, and something like that can't sustain an entire film. It wants to show us a comprehensive history of video gaming culture, but suffers from disjointed time jumps, and the fact that the film constantly throws interesting facts at us, yet seldom does it ever expand on them. It practically rushes through the crash of 1983 in maybe three minutes, and glosses over evolutions like the early rise of third-party developers and the indie gaming scene (Although, Indie Game: The Movie provides a much more expansive detailing of that very subject). There's so much potential in this film that it sadly never realizes. I realize there has to be a point where you have to make tough choices of what to show, but it really does just fall into an "Aren't video games great" showcase.

If you're looking for a nostalgic kickback, you should enjoy yourself fine, but if you want a much more comprehensive rundown of video gaming history, you'd be better suited reading various books, or watching Machinima's "All Your History Are Belong To Us" series of YouTube videos.

The film completely ignores the co-development of PC games. A gaping hole as far as I'm concerned as the superior capabilities of the PC allowed the development of more sophisticated games(e.g. Wolfenstein 3D, Civilization etc.). The film also does not detail the corresponding improvement in microprocessor technology which completely dictated the advancements in graphics and game speed. Otherwise the film is well put together and for the most part touches on the major milestones of game history. Personally I would have enjoyed more emphasis on the early mainframe computer game development. For instance the origins of Colossal Cave Adventure and it's subsequent genesis into the RPG games of today

"Video Games: The Movie" aims to educate and entertain audiences about how video games are made, marketed, and consumed by looking back at gaming history and culture through the eyes of game developers, publishers, and consumers.

Immediately there are some concerns: the intro runs a bit too long (but the use of Queen is a good choice). And then we have the necessary interview of Wil Wheaton (who is less annoying than usual here), but also some nice unexpected gems like the creator of "Metal Gear Solid" and the president of Nintendo. And then there is Chris Hardwick, who comes across far more dorky than he does on television.

There are some interesting statistics on ages, genders of those who play and purchase video games. As people generally know, the ages have been increasing and more women are getting into the gaming scene.

The film goes somewhat into history, with Nolan Bushnell of Atari widely thought of as the father of video games. Yes, they tracked down Bushnell for an interview, and he in turn gives the "father" title to MIT scientists. We also get a nice description of pixels and "bits" for those not familiar. The history is, perhaps, too brief, with many systems getting no coverage at all, and much of it in no particular order.

We have the legendary tale of the E.T. game made in five weeks in the fall of 1982, which helped launch the term shovelware, and indirectly killed off the Atari.

If this was re-edited to be more in chronological order, it would be a stronger film, but it is not a bad one.

First, the good news. If you enjoy your Video Game history books & documentaries, you will more than likely enjoy this. It's a fun overview of gaming, with plenty of enjoyable parts to make you nostalgic and entertained, done in that very slick, polished US Hollywood kind of way. A few celebrities pop through and talk about the effect gaming has had on their lives as well. Yes, I enjoyed it, and will purchase the DVD when it comes out next month as I love documentaries on the gaming industry. Now the bad news. It's very lightweight. It omits far too much to be considered a decent documentary on gaming history- And the earlier Documentary "Game Invasion"- which still made too many omissions- is still superior in that regard of better fuller coverage of the industry. If you are looking for a fun overview of gaming to watch, and can forgive many, MANY, omissions- and can forgive a bit of industry Cheerleading- you will still be entertained by this. Perhaps adding an extra 30-45mins and adding more detail may have sorted some of the issues. I think the reason there are quite a few exceptionally poor reviews for this, is because many feel this movie could have and should have been so much more, was hyped to be more, so left many disappointed. We still wait for the definitive Video Game History documentary. The recently released 'From Bedrooms to Billions' is a brilliant example of how it can be done- Which covers the early UK gaming industry. We need a similar thing done for the industry in general.

I have to agree with some of the other reviewer, the whole documentary is very much biased towards the view of certain industry leaders. So starting with Pong somehow appeals to all, but from there, there are really gaping holes in the story, using a flashy timeline or not. Would have expected that the gaming started with text based games like Startrek or Zork. None of that. Early network games like Snipe. ? Role and development of AI and how it affects the games. Why do the ghosts in pacman move the way they do? It only mentions some detail about graphics, which are important, but game-play and AI being much more important to get just that brittle mix of defeat and victory that makes games addictive. What about the rise and fall of the home computers? Commodore 64 / ZX Spectrum / Acorn. Dare I say Amiga which at the time was ahead of all consoles. Also, their influence on the game industry. I think that most of the current game designers spent their youth with one of those. PC gaming: Leisure Suite Larry / and Kings/Police Quest, Tetris, Rayman, Prince of Persia and so on. All in all I found it to be disappointing and a waste of time. Kept viewing till the end in the hope that it would somehow get better... it didn't. Not sure for which audience it was made. It's omissions are too obvious and irritating for old-skool gamers like me, and people who know nothing about video-games ( aliens?) are presented with very incomplete and biased story.