Video Games: The Movie

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source: Video Games: The Movie

"Video Games: The Movie" is not a bad documentary. Unfortunately, it isn't a great one either. The main problem here is that it tries to tackle "the history of video games" in a sub two-hour documentary. In essence, the subject matter is just broad enough to appeal to pretty much everyone, but not specific enough to appeal to anyone in particular. The general format of this movie is to look at the creation of video games all the way through the "current generation" (PS4, XBOX One, Wii U, etc.). It looks at pretty much all areas of the industry, from its initial creators (the guys in white shirts and skinny ties monkeying around with circuits) to its ever-improving technology, and even delves into the philosophical underpinnings of why people enjoy being "gamers". Like I said, though, this is a very general look at the industry. If you know nothing about gaming industry/innovation, you'll probably get something out of this. But, if you've been at all paying attention over the last, say, 30 years or so, there is nothing new here. Again, not to say that it is bad...just rather bland. The epitome of a three-star rating. When it comes right down to it, I like to appeal my own personal principle for documentaries: Does it cover a subject that A. Someone cares about; and B. Shows something in a new light. "Video Games: The Movie" nails "Part A", but completely fails on "Part B". It got me to watch, though, so the strategy must be working to a certain extent (!). Just don't expect anything deep and you'll enjoy it.

I didn't make it past the time-line at the beginning, when they omitted the Wii U from it. That, there, told me the to watch the rest would be to waste my time. 'Nuff said. But I do have to write more. The little I did watch had nothing but flash and pizazz, but seemed like a rotten apple on the inside. I feel the authors of this work have never actually played a video game, never actually watched a documentary, or even watched a YouTube video by people like the Gaming Historian or Kim Justice. Lots of MTV-style flash in the pan editing, most likely done on a MacBook Air with the default iMovie version installed. So, they funded this on Kickstarter? They need to return the money to the investors. And calling themselves "The Movie"? They missed that honor by a King's mile! There are ways to do documentaries on this subject, and still be accurate. Even offering a companion book, etc. I mean, I doubt they covered video game magazines, like Nintendo Power, GamePro, etc., that were VERY powerful during video game history. Nope. Just a bunch of ignorant PS3 players who "think" they know video games. I'll repeat my opening paragraph to close: "I didn't make it past the time-line at the beginning, when they omitted the Wii U from it. That, there, told me the to watch the rest would be to waste my time. 'Nuff said."

It needs to be pointed out that the subject matter for this film is way too broad to be crammed into a single movie. It would be like trying to cram WWII into a movie! It's just NOT possible and the only decent way to attempt this is to make a mini-series. So, because the film is only 105 minutes long, MANY important innovations are breezed over or ignored completely. For example, if you'd like a discussion of early home computers and the games you could play on them (such as the Commodore, Tandy or Atarti 400/800), look elsewhere. And, if you want them to connect the dots from one game system to another...again, look elsewhere. Instead this is NOT so much a documentary but some folks reminiscing about some of the highlights--THEIR highlights--not necessarily the real highlights. And, because it's THEIR highlights, they oddly spend more time talking about the SuperNintendo instead of the much more important and groundbreaking NES or never really talk about the Coleco or Intellivision systems. The bottom line is that you might enjoy this film but it's also painful to watch because it misses so much. Worth seeing but don't take it as a historical or systematic film. Heck, it bounces back and forth SO MUCH chronologically that you'd almost think the person behind all this suffers from a bad case of ADD!!

This "documentary" had the brilliant idea of quoting Ghandi while presenting the audience with nothing more than a disjointed commercial that had more montage than substance. If you're a gamer, this isn't even interesting. It's just as bad as World of Warcraft: Looking for Group. The movie uses a timeline graphic, but does not follow it. I don't mind non-linear stories, but it shows us a timeline! Then, the talking heads are trying to explain how important their work is. I love video games--so much--but the talking heads need to take themselves a little less seriously, making broad social commentary that is ill-informed and amateurish. I don't typically get this worked up, but man, this movie was so bad, I was insulted and embarrassed.

-Video Games: The Movie review: - Video Games: The Movie is a documentary about video games. My first documentary review, bear with me…. -So I actually thought this was Indie Game: The Movie and got really excited, until I found out they were two very different things. Nonetheless, I still finished Video Games: The Movie and have something else to review! -The documentary looks at nearly every element of video games, which I thought would be too much for 90 minutes, but I actually feel like they covered everything well. It looks at origins and technical aspects and popularity and reception and criticism and all that jazz. -It is narrated by Sean Astin (Sam from LOTR) and I liked that it was. It also had a lot of people in it that I recognized, so that was cool. -The music was fun and fitting. It also used a TON of games. Even games that I have played! (And I don't play many games) -It covers the whole violence debate and puts it to shame, which I thought was impressive. Although it slammed films A LOT and I didn't like that at all. -The editing feels like a documentary. There are long montages of pictures and it feels slow. -Idk what it is rated, but there is nothing offensive. -So if you don't hate documentaries and you don't hate video games, Video Games: The Movie is worth a Netflix watch! 7/10.

This is a movie that attempts to explain why video games are so successful. I watched it after the far superior Atari Game over (which you can watch for free if you are on xbox live(at the current time)). Really what irked me about this was that the guy was not there at the time so had no idea what caused the video game crash. Being a huge Atari 2600 fan I can say ET is a good game. The only people who say it is the worst game in history have not played the game. Atari lost a court case to activision. This meant that they could produce games for the 2600 without any interaction with Atari. Yeah Atari had put out loads of poor games but most of them had been withdrawn as programmers understood how to make games for the 2600. So probably the worst game of all time was Starship (you play for about 3 minutes then it is game over (a poor man's star raiders). Though companies like Bomb, Xonox and Data age released games which were for the most part poor. Then other companies like US games came to the fore. They produced games of such poor quality but they were released for the same price as Atari games. This is what contributed to the crash. This and everyone putting out substandard computers in a way of getting some market footprint into a steadily shrinking market. I think of (in the UK) Memotek, Dragon 32, Oric Atmos as being the main culprits. Substandard pcs that did nothing to advance the games market. In America you had junk like the Coleco Adam (it came with a daisy wheel printer!) and fitted into your cbs colecovision (a very good console). Also the Mattel Aquarius which was junk and the Texas TA. I could go on but you get the picture. For the film maker to single out one games and attribute that as causing the crash shows this person knows nothing about video games and just relied on a few old myths. Perhaps he was too broad in his subject view and should just have concentrated on video games from the PS1. Then he would have been okay. For old gamers like me this movie is an insult. It is available on netflix.

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.

I am a video gamer. I have collected everything from 8 bit to present generation -- and this is by far the least accurate and most lopsided documentary I have ever seen. According to this movie nobody made any historical contributions except Nintendo and Sony. Sega got maybe a 30 second mention as did Microsoft. PC Gaming is barely mentioned. Just about completely skipped arcade game companies like Capcom (Streetfighter II really revitalized arcades) or SNK, too. How can you talk about Super Nintendo exclusively for 16 bit? Genesis sold nearly the same # of consoles. Even NEC managed to sell 10 million during this generation and its not even mentioned as a footnote. Terrible, awful -- clearly not worth the 5 bucks I paid for the DVD. So bad -- not even worth it for FREE on Netflix. Watch Atari: Game Over instead -- a vastly more fun documentary.