Pixels

Pixels ~ Right out of the box, this movie had more than a few things against it, first and foremost is that it stars Adam Sandler. Now admittedly, I don't hate Adam Sandler as much as I used to. The Wedding Singer is actually pretty darn good, and there are a couple others that don't make me want to blind myself with scissors immediately when they come on. It also stars Kevin James as the President of the United States. I'll just leave that right there and let that little nugget fry into your brain before I even get to the plot of this one.

Now follow along, folks. Back in the eighties days of videogames and arcades, Sandler and James were champions, along with Josh Gad (the dimwitted but lovable snowman from Disney's Frozen) and believe it or not, Peter Dinklage (who I hope fired his agent for this). Today, they are pretty much losers - yes, including President Kevin James, the others being a electronics installer, a criminal, a conspiracy theorist, and an ineffectual President.

The bad news is that all those years ago video footage of their tournament was sent into space by NASA, and now that footage has been answered by an alien race who believe it to be a declaration of war. These misguided but powerful enemies begin to attack Earth using videogames as their weapons, a la 'the form of the destructor' from the original Ghostbusters. Yes, we get attacked by Galaga on the aliens' first strike.

The situation gets worse from there as Centipede and Pac-Man attack and the president recruits his old friends to 'fight fire with fire,' as only old school videogamers know how to beat the bad guys at their own, pardon the pun, game. It gets old real quick. Now normally I steer clear of Adam Sandler flicks, but this juicy and explicit video review (not safe for work or kids) made it impossible to pass up. I just had to see this train wreck.

What is interesting to me is that before anyone, Ghosthead or not, spoke up about how the remake/reboot/re-imagining of Ghostbusters was ruining their childhood, the same accusations were made at this movie… and in this case, I can kinda see it. I grew up in the era of these videogames, and it does kinda feel like these people are taking a crap on my childhood.

Now it's not as bad as the above reviewer says, but it is pretty awful. If it wasn't for free cable I would be complaining much more loudly. It's watchable, and the kids might enjoy it more than adults, but then again, they won't have the slightest clue about these games or the other dated pop culture references here. And Peter Dinklage should be ashamed of himself…

The Namco Museum and Xevious

Just to show you all what a big old fart I am, and how out of touch gaming-wise I am, the very first free download I ever got from the PlayStation Store was this - Namco Museum. Yeah, I'm old. Deal with it.

As the name might imply it's a small collection of old games from the 1980s, namely Pac-Man, Dig Dug, Galaga, and Xevious. To be fair, it's actually the trial for Namco Museum Essentials, and has much more available but I haven't purchased the whole package yet. And I have looked, but there doesn't seem to be an option to buy it. One problem with this one is that the games are presented in their original arcade form - vertical, on a horizontal screen. Oh well.

With the exception of Pac-Man, these are all games I spent a generous amount of time with at the arcade. I was never big into Pac-Man, but the others I loved. Dig Dug I've talked about before, everyone knows about Pac-Man, and Galaga is really just a color evolution up from Space Invaders. Xevious is the one I want to talk about today.

Xevious was a vertical scroller from back in the day, 1982, known for its bouncy tunage and unique breaking glass sound effects when you blasted the disc things that spun through the air at you. That effect is recreated here but the controller again makes what was easy on the arcade game difficult here - shooting and bombing simultaneously.

Xevious is a fun game without becoming too monotonous, although it remains much the same throughout. I remember the ship you pilot is called oddly the Solvalou, and that the sides of the arcade game showed pics that didn't exactly match the game itself. Always fun, even in this format.