Review: The Video Game Revolution

At the very beginning of KCTS' "The Video Game Revolution," the host talks about the difficulties of making a documentary about video games that will appeal to gamers and non-gamers alike. He pledges that the non-gamers (who he calls 'older folks') will come to understand why videogames are important, both as a business and a cultural force. He promises the gamers (the 'young folks') will get a look at the hottest new games and a historical look at important games selected by expert gamers.



This all-inclusive goal is luadable, but it results in a somewhat schizophrenic presentation, that fails to cover either audience perfectly.



This is especially apparent in the first half of the two hour program. During this portion, the narrator takes us on a whirlwind tour of videogame history, blazing through subjects from the great video game crash to the explosive success of the Sony PlayStation with amazing speed. To their credit, the filmmakers struggled to mention as many industry-defining games, companies and moments as they can, often including interesting and nostalgic video clips from bygone eras. Unfortunately, this extensive breadth forces the film to gloss over the details of many events that simply require more explanation to be useful. The legal battles over Teris rights barely rate thirty seconds of explanation, roughly the same amount of time used to show a classic Nintendo Tetris commercial.



Perhaps more time could have been devoted to these necessary details if the film didn't constantly jump back and forth between the historical narrative and random bits of gamer culture and life. Short segments about a blind Pokemon player, a professional video game restorer, the GDFest gaming convention and more are squeezed in with the historical bits with strained segues that eat up even more time. Some of these segments are interesting, but they're so short and badly introduced in the hsow's first half that all they manage to do is destroy the viewer's focus. By the time we come back from a contemporary look at the Tokyo Game Show to talk about the rivalry between the Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo Entertainment System, many viewers may be wondering exactly how the two are related.



The history is also filled with little inconsistencies and factual errors that most casual gamers won't notice but experienced players will wince at. A video of Pong is shown as the starting point for gaming before the controversy over "the first gamer" is acknowledged later in the program. Shots of classic games like Q-Bert, Punch-out!! and Goldeneye are accompanied with video of updated versions, not the originals. The discussion of the SNES mentions that the system shipped with a sequel to The Legend of Zelda which actually came out months after the system's release. Computerized animations of "Dungeon Siege II" are implied to be gameplay movies. The kinds of errors are don't totally invalidate the historical facts, but they do get pretty annoying.



This is not to say that the documentary doesn't have its good points. On the contrary, once the muddled history is mostly out of the way, the second half allows the filmmakers time to give viewers a broad understanding of some of the deeper cultural and social issues involved in gaming. Segments on the gender gap, gaming violence and gaming addication cover both sides fairly through extensive and well-editted interviews. Shorter pieces on military simulations, LAN parties, professional gaming teams and online gaming romances are concise and good at capturing the human side of the issues. Bits of interviews with industry spokesmen like Nolan Bushnell, Henry Jenkins and Seamus Blackley and journalists like Steven Kent and Rusel DeMaria provide surprisingly lucid quotes on the business, cultural and even philosophical aspects of games.



But in the end, watching "The Video Game Revolution" is like digging through a bargain bin full of used games, where the gems of interest are somewhat obscured by the massive wastes of time. I can't help but think that a short series of hour-long shows, each dealing with one of the many issues crammed into this documentary, could have been a bellweather for intelligent game discussion on TV. As it stands, the two-hour documentary is an over-ambitious and only somehwat successful attempt to fit a very large subject into a very small package.